I wrote about this type of argument (although not about Rep. Paul specifically) in 2001.

UPDATE: Now that I re-read it, most of my 2001 article is about other stuff. Here’s the relevant passage:

It is one thing to make a case on the merits that our foreign policies should be changed. Perhaps we should end our alliance with Israel. Perhaps we should remove our troops from Saudi Arabia, or lift the sanctions on Iraq. But not under duress. A policy designed to keep from offending people who might be inclined to attack us is a policy of preemptive capitulation to terrorists. In his address to Congress, President Bush explained why the terrorists kill: “With every atrocity they hope that America grows fearful, retreating from the world and forsaking our friends.” The terrorists’ hope is the frank advice of those who would have us back away from Israel because of the September 11 attacks.
Dishonorable in principle, such a policy would also fail in practice. There would be no obvious stopping-point to it. Having seen terrorism accomplish its objectives in the Mideast, why should North Korea not use it to make us withdraw our protection from South Korea? Beijing could sponsor terrorism until we let it swallow Taiwan. In the past, Puerto Rican independistas have resorted to terror. Etc. Shall we capitulate to them all?
Here, then, is the true strategy being recommended to America: Curl up and die.

Looking back on it, this was a bit overstated: Obviously, the types of retaliatory acts a policy might generate are worth considering before adopting that policy, and I should have calibrated my rhetoric accordingly.