Meet Martin O’Malley, Hillary Clinton’s Latest Unlikely National Security Critic.

The former Maryland governor offers a more wary foreign policy, contrasting himself with a more hawkish Clinton and Republican field.

If Hillary Clinton is betting that 2016 won't be a national-security election, at least for the Democratic base, Martin O'Malley is betting she's wrong—and that voters want a candidate who will be more wary about wielding U.S. military might.

"The invasion of Iraq, along with the subsequent disarming of the Iraqi army, the military, will be remembered as one of the most tragic, deceitful, and costly blunders in U.S. history," O'Malley told the Truman National Security Project's annual conference. "And we are still paying the price of a war pursued under false pretenses and acquiesced to, in the words of Dr. King, 'by the appalling silence of the good.' "

Though he never mentioned Clinton by name, it was an obvious reference to the former New York senator and others' vote for the Iraq war, and part of an attempt to distance himself from Clinton's more hawkish brand of Democratic foreign policy. "Today's challenges defy easy solutions. We may have the most sophisticated military in the world, but we don't have a silver bullet." . .

He cited the threat foremost in voters' and candidates' minds: the Islamic State. "No threat probably better illustrates the unintended consequences of a mindless rush to war and a lack of understanding than the emergence of ISIS," he said. . .

'Malley responded to Republican candidates' calls to send more U.S. troops to Iraq by noting that the use of U.S. military power could actually boost ISIS. "We must be mindful that American boots on the ground can be counterproductive to our desired outcome. We will not be successful in degrading ISIS if the number of militants taken off the battlefield is exceeded by number of new recruits replacing them," he said.

And in contrast to a Republican field whose speeches are laced with the red meat of "radical Islamic extremism"—an attempted ding at a president who they claim "won't name the enemy"—O'Malley said, "We must do more to amplify credible local voices in the region to reveal ISIS for what it is: a gang of murderous thugs who have perverted the name of one of the world's great religions."

But his clearest attempt to tie Clinton's tenure as secretary of State to what he framed as a short-sighted overeagerness to jump to military force in response to turmoil and instability abroad was in invoking Libya. "We must realize there are real lessons to be learned from the tragedies in Benghazi," he said. "Namely, we need to know, in advance, who is likely to take power or vie for it once a dictator is toppled. Not after." . .

Doug Wilson, formerly an assistant Defense secretary for public affairs and now O'Malley's senior foreign policy adviser—and also chair of Truman's board of advisers—insisted that the candidate's speech was not intended to indict Clinton or any other candidate, but rather to lend some insight into his national security strategy amid questions of how a former governor with little experience on the issue can serve as commander in chief at a time of global turmoil.

"There is no mention of Hillary or the Republicans," Wilson told Defense One. "People knee-jerk frame Benghazi with Hillary. And what he is saying is you've got to stop doing that. Benghazi is not Hillary 2016, Benghazi is an example of what happens when you topple dictators and do not know or understand who comes after them.

"Martin is not poll-driven," he said. "If he was, he wouldn't be in the race. He's doing this because he thinks there needs to be some different discussions going on in terms of America's role in the world. … He's not a Brookings Institute foreign policy wonk, but he's travelled, he's met foreign leaders … he's essentially putting his interest where his mouth is."

http://www.nationaljournal.com/defense/meet-martin-o-malley-hillary-clinton-s-latest-unlikely-national-security-critic-20150629