Democrats slamming Trump over Iraq embassy attack could backfire, strategists and voters say

Democrats criticizing President Trump over an Iranian-backed militia’s attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad risk being labeled hypocrites after attacking Republicans for their inquiries into Benghazi, strategists and New Hampshire voters told the Herald.

“The Democrats run the risk of having something that will backfire on them if they try to politicize national security,” said former Mitt Romney aide Ryan Williams.

Democrats “were very critical of Mitt Romney in 2012 for calling out the failures of the Obama foreign policy that resulted in the response to the Benghazi attack,” Williams said, adding, “They look hypocritical if they’re going to say that Romney shouldn’t have criticized Obama in 2012 but they criticize Trump for the way the situation was handled currently.”

Democrats derided the Republican-led probe of the 2012 attacks in Libya that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans as politically motivated. Then-President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were criticized for failing to send help, and the administration’s initial efforts to claim the Benghazi terrorist attack was a riot over an American anti-Islamic video that got out of control.

Tuesday, after members of an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia attacked the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, busting through a door, smashing windows and setting fire to a reception area, some Democratic presidential hopefuls and members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation were quick to slam Trump.

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren tweeted, “Trump’s reckless decisions to walk away from the Iran Deal and now to launch airstrikes in Iraq without Iraqi government consent have brought us closer to war.” U.S. Sen. Edward Markey blasted Trump over his “mismanagement of the Middle East.”

Independent voter Kevin Mosley of Litchfield, N.H., said Democrats “kind of need to temper that a little bit, they don’t want to go down that Benghazi path.”

Mosley called American dealings in the Middle East “a hodgepodge of a mess” that predates Trump, but said the current president’s “lack of strategy … has not made it better.”

If Democrats “overplay the situation, then they’ll just look like the Republicans when they were doing it,” Mosley added. “People will think, ‘Here’s just another example that the Democrats are doing what the Republicans are doing, the hypocrisy.’ ”

Republican voter Patricia Roy Thomas of Hampstead, N.H., a Trump supporter, said, “I believe that it’s going to backfire. It’s just negative behavior and you get what you sow.”

Some Democratic voters criticized Trump’s Middle East dealings. Democratic voter Kimberly Carole of Bedford, N.H., said, “All Americans ought to pull together to help those caught in the crosshairs of Trump’s reckless actions. But he is responsible and Democrats must be clear to hold him accountable.”

Republican strategist Brad Marston said Democrats aiming their ire at Trump “may be helpful to their respective bases. I don’t think it’s going to move the needle for Trump supporters, and I don’t think it’s going to move the needle even with independents or undecideds.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2thwQEV