Rubio’s paltry foreign policy track record gives him an edge over Hillary Clinton

When American politicians consider solutions to the threat posed by Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), they tend to favour abstractions over policy detail because, although Americans want to do more to root out Daesh, they’re afraid of getting involved in another quagmire in the Middle East.

A new Reuters/Ipsos poll gets to the heart of the problem: while 60 per cent of Americans think that the US should do more to fight Daesh, only a small majority would support the use of air strikes in Iraq and Syria. A full 65 per cent oppose Obama’s move to send special forces to the region; 76 per cent voice opposition to boots on the ground, or deploying ground troops.

The political reality in the US of the Paris attacks is that support for fighting terrorists coexists with opposition for any real-world policy solutions. And since there are no simple solutions to the problems presented by Daesh, no presidential candidate wants to tell the American public that there’s nothing to be done — or that nobody knows what precisely to do.

That atmosphere makes life very good for Marco Rubio and other top conservatives who can criticise President Barack Obama and the former secretary of state Hillary Clinton while offering nothing more than vague plans about coming together with international allies. Clinton, meanwhile, has the particulars of her record — specifically, why Daesh grew so strong on her watch — to answer for. And she can’t distance herself too much from a president still popular with their shared base, even on foreign policy where she may want to do so.

Serving for four years as Obama’s secretary of state was supposed to be one of Clinton’s greatest strengths on the trail but, as opponents have continued to tie her to Obama’s foreign policy in the wake of Paris, it’s emerged as a point of vulnerability, which she’s yet to effectively counter.

Policy prescriptions

At a speech before the Council on Foreign Relations on Thursday, Clinton made her best case, laying out a three-pillared global counterterrorism strategy. She emphasised that Americans must not let fear win out over resolve and offered up a number of specific policy prescriptions for what must go into getting it all done.

The speech, which included a call for more air strikes and a plea for Congress to authorise the use of military force against Daesh to demonstrate “that the US is committed to this fight” was well-received. But it’s also very different from sparring with other candidates on the matter; in that light she hasn’t fared so well.

Meanwhile Republicans candidates like Marco Rubio, and even outsider candidates with little knowledge of foreign policy, have capitalised on the opening created by current events.

In the week since the Paris attacks, Rubio and Ted Cruz have led the charge against the Obama administration’s Syria policy, and many have speculated that the Paris attacks could help turn the race in Republicans’ favour. Rubio — who’s currently polling third but who many in the party establishment consider the most likely candidate to emerge in the general election — has criticised the president for lacking strategy in his attack against Daesh.

But what exactly is Rubio proposing? In a strategy detailed in Politico magazine last Thursday, he discussed at some length his approach for combatting Daesh. Beyond “reversing defence sequestration”, Rubio’s plan to fight Daesh seems to revolve mostly around a fuzzy coming together of “a multinational coalition of countries willing to send troops into Iraq and Syria to aid local forces on the ground.”

Only in delving into Iraq did Rubio’s foreign policy vision seemed to sharpen — and only then just barely. “As president, I would demand that Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government grant greater autonomy to Sunnis, and would provide direct military support to Sunnis and the Kurds if Baghdad fails to support them” he said. “I would back those demands with intense diplomatic pressure and the leverage of greater American military assistance to Iraq.”

That such speculative strategies — diplomatic pressure and the promise of more money — are seen as substantive proposals only serve to underscore Rubio’s new advantage; the most Clinton can hope to do is debunk his theoretical approach as he attacks her record at combatting Daesh.

Last Thursday Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus told CNN: “Hillary Clinton is the architect of the failed Obama foreign policy that has presided over a steep increase in radical Islamic terrorism and the rise of [Daesh]... Rather than putting forward a new plan to defeat Daesh, Hillary Clinton offered soaring platitudes and largely doubled down on the existing Obama strategy.”

The campaign trail always favours big talk over any action and, when it comes to foreign policy, that is even more true. Clinton’s record on foreign policy gives her an accountability problem by giving Republicans something to attack; in a campaign in 2015, it’s almost better to have no record to point to than to provide your opponents anything to dispute.

— Guardian News & Media Ltd

Lucia Graves is a political writer in Washington DC.