How Republicans are targeting Clinton on foreign policy

Heidi M. Przybyla | USA TODAY

Republican groups are moving to the next phase of their plan to take down Hillary Clinton.

After spending much of the year focused on her use of a private email server as secretary of State as a way of raising doubts about her ethics and honesty, outside GOP groups are pivoting to her record as the nation's top diplomat to call into question her leadership abilities.

The focus on national security and foreign policy following the Paris terror attacks and the San Bernardino, Calif, mass shooting has created a natural opening for Clinton to highlight her experience as secretary of State under President Obama. It's also brought a sense of urgency to GOP efforts to turn what's long been considered an asset into a liability, by highlighting what they say was Clinton's role in the president's failed policy approaches — especially in Libya as it becomes a safe haven for Islamic State militants.

America Rising PAC, an outside Republican group, is blasting out missives about Clinton's role in the U.S. intervention in Libya, Iraq, Syria and the release of Guantanamo Bay detainees. Other groups are also expected to spend millions on television ads next year. American Crossroads is combing through digital archives and poll testing for spots that may begin next year, said Crossroads spokesman Ian Prior.

A newly formed super PAC called Future 45 ran its first round of ads in Iowa and New Hampshire using her comments before a special House Benghazi committee that "I was responsible for quite a bit" of Obama's foreign policy. "Her tenure of secretary of State is a vulnerability, not an asset, and it merits serious scrutiny," said Dan Conston, a senior adviser to the group, which is planning additional spots.

On Monday, Jeb Bush told an Iowa audience that the Islamic State is taking hold in Libya. "This is the place that Hillary Clinton, even in the debate in Las Vegas, said was an example of success in foreign policy, of smart power. Really?" said Bush. "Libya today is completely chaotic."

Polls show voters trust Clinton more than any of the Republican candidates, none of whom have similar foreign policy experience,

Yet, much like 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry found himself playing defense on national security issues despite extensive foreign policy credentials, Republicans see an opportunity to tarnish Clinton.

Democrats say Republicans are grasping for a new line of attack because voter interest in her private email server has waned after her testimony before the House special Benghazi committee failed to produce any major revelations about the 2012 attack on the U.S. embassy in Libya. Further, Clinton began her campaign with an advantage even greater than Kerry on foreign policy, according to polling, which Democrats say makes it unlikely the strategy can work the way it did in 2004.

"It's classic Karl Rove: Hit your opponent where she's strong," said Heather Hurlburt, a former speechwriter to Secretary of State Madeline Albright, referring to President George W. Bush's former chief political strategist. "They have no choice but to try to tear her down," she said.

Republicans acknowledge that this portion of their strategy will be the hardest to execute because it will require significant investments in paid media to make their case.

Yet there is an opening. Beginning with attacks leveled by her Democratic challengers in the most recent debate, Clinton is facing increased scrutiny over Obama's 2011 decision to, along with a large number of nations, intervene in Libya without a plan to fill the void left after the ouster of Moammar Gaddafi.

Obama himself has called the ensuing chaos "a lesson I had to learn" about the need to manage new transitions to democracy.

In a Monday interview with CBS's Charlie Rose, Clinton repeated that Gaddafi had "American blood on his hands" and "was a threat to the broader region." Now the international community needs to join together, as do the armed groups unallied with the Islamic State, to defeat the terrorist network, she said.

Michael O'Hanlon, a foreign policy expert at the Brookings Institution, says Libya is the biggest trouble spot for Clinton. "I do think she's got to maybe rethink her argument right now," he said. "I certainly don't think one can evaluate it as a success," he said.

Yet Republicans have already spent a significant amount of time on Benghazi, and they are circulating talking points on controversies that may be harder to sell.

For instance: that Clinton also misjudged Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, having referred to him as a "reformer" and different from his father. They are also focused on the administration's drawdown of troops in Iraq, which they say left a vacuum for terrorist activity to grow. They say Clinton advocated against leaving a residual force in 2011.

Republicans are also zeroing in on Clinton's decision against labeling Boko Haram, responsible for many more deaths than the Islamic State, a terrorist group — a decision they say allowed terrorist activity to multiply.

Some of the accusations, concerning high-level national security decisions made in the most private of meetings, are difficult to prove, while others aren't meaningful to the public, said Grant Green, a former national security official under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

"It's got to be something that the guy out in Omaha can understand," he said. Meantime "It's easy for her to go out and say 'I'm the only one with significant foreign policy experience,'" said Green.

"As you get further into the general campaign and people start paying closer attention, she can pick these apart one by one, " said O'Hanlon, a nonpartisan expert. "On issues of Iraq and Syria, it's pretty clear she's a little more hawkish and she's being vindicated," she said.

Derek Chollet, who served on Clinton's policy planning staff from 2009 to 2011, said no one "takes pride" in what Libya has become. Yet, inserting U.S. troops after the fact would have overruled the wishes of another sovereign government, he said. "It's hard to find a compelling path that would have prevented what happened," said Chollet, who is now advising the campaign.

On Iraq, he said the U.S. timetable for withdrawal was negotiated by the previous administration, and that former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki did not grant legal authority for a continuing troop presence. Chollet, who worked closely with Clinton at the time, said she was "very worried" about the security of the U.S. embassy and diplomatic facilities absent a U.S. troop presence.

"There was an intense debate through the administration on the slope of the withdrawal. We were constrained by the limits of the strategic framework Bush had signed," he said.

Follow @HeidiPrzybyla on Twitter.