This is why Hillary's claim to have supported arming "moderate" Syrian opposition is so tantalizing. Obama disagreed with her and overruled her support; deciding instead to provide non-lethal aid and pretty much nothing else. This, of course, angered the GOP who have spent the better part of 6 years disagreeing with anything Obama said or did. So here is the problem, since Clinton and Obama disagreed, the GOP is now in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with Clinton. Republicans have exactly zero races left to run against Obama, but potentially 2 presidential campaigns left against Clinton, we can already see that they are moving past the Obama bashing in favor of anything Clinton-Benghazi related.
The question I want answered is: How will the GOP resolve agreeing with Clinton over a foreign policy decision when they are going to want to paint her as weak on foreign diplomatic relations? Three ideas come to mind, none of which are going to sound too appealing to Republicans.
1) They can stick to their guns (both literally and figuratively) by arguing that both they and Clinton were right. Then they can call her a weak Secretary of State for being unable to convince Obama to arm the Syrian opposition. This, of course, is ludicrous. Even the highest ranking diplomatic official (Secretary of State) can not overrule the commander in chief (President). Besides, they are going to want no part of agreeing with Clinton in a potential 2016 presidential race against her.
2) They could treat Clinton like Obama. Forget anything you ever said that agrees with something they are in favor of for the opposite approach, no matter how ridiculous and obvious this tactic may be. For obvious reasons this approach won't work either. They made too big a fuss about Obama being weak in Syria to turn it around and eventually say he was right. Besides, the neo-cons in the party would not be happy to hear them distancing themselves from anything war related. The military industrial complex is big money, and a lot of that money goes to the GOP; they literally cannot afford to walk away from being the party of war.
3) They could try to ignore it by doubling down on Benghazi. This seems like the most obvious strategy for them to take. They get to continue bashing everything Obama and Clinton without acknowledging any similarities in their own foreign policy positions. There is just one problem to this plan and his name is Rand Paul. I think it would be crazy for Paul (assuming he has serious intentions of running in 2016) to allow for this distancing to occur. He is going to want to play up the fact that his Libertarian non-interventionist foreign policy preferences are diametrically opposed to what Clinton is claiming she supported. In a race against Clinton, I think he will be happy to distance himself from her in every way possible, even if that means aligning himself up with Obama's stance. Oh the cruel, cruel irony it will be! What's more, it might even work. Obama and Paul's foreign policy approach is actually favored by the middle class and the "average" voter. They don't want to see us entangled in dozens of foreign conflicts every presidency. Paul could actually begin to encroach on the Democratic hold of the middle, rather than just trying to pry the middle to the right (as the rest of the Republicans would prefer).
For the record, I agree with Obama and Paul. Putting any more weapons out there is only going to make us less safe in the long run. Anyone remember arming the Taliban to fight the Soviet Union? The question is whether Paul could capitalize in a hypothetical matchup against Clinton by throwing the rest of the GOP and all the neo-cons under the bus.
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