Democratic Florida Rep. Alan Grayson cited Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital author Karl Marx in his criticism of U.S. foreign policy in a local radio interview Monday.
"Well history repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce. We had the same origin for Osama bin Laden didn't we," Grayson said when asked about a report from Steve Clemons of The Atlantic that the Saudis could have helped fund ISIS.
"By the way am I allowed to repeat Karl Marx on the air," Grayson then said. "It's okay? On your show it's okay. I want to make sure I'm not offending anyone."
Grayson said Marx's quote best reflected the problems of United States foreign policy in the Middle East.
"That was actually Karl Marx who says history repeats itself first as tragedy and then as farce. And in this case it is a farce because we haven't learned our own lessons. A lot of the grief that we've come to in the Middle East for the past twenty years has been a product of our own making."
The Florida Democrat cited the Iraq War as an "ultimate example" of history possibly repeating itself.
"I think that the War in Iraq is the ultimate example of that. Four trillion dollars down that rathole and now we have people who are anxious for us to do it all over again."
