Related: Benghazi panel accused of vendetta against Clinton after latest email release  On Friday, Martin O’Malley finally mentioned “Benghazi”.  In a wide-ranging Washington speech in which the presidential hopeful outlined his foreign policy views, O’Malley became the first Democratic candidate to reference the controversial 2012 terrorist attack on a US facility in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans died.  The attack has long been a rallying cry for Republican criticism of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. An investigation into the Obama administration’s response by congressional Republicans has long been a thorn in Clinton’s side.  O’Malley did not engage at all in the myriad controversies around the Benghazi attack. Instead, he described how he thought the US should have approached the turbulent situation in Libya in the aftermath of the fall of the Gaddafi regime and the legacy of the US ambassador, Chris Stevens.  “We must recognize that there are real lessons to be learned from the tragedy in Benghazi,” O’Malley said. “Namely, we need to know in advance who is likely to take power – or vie for it – once a dictator is toppled.  “Twitter and Facebook are no substitute for personal relationships and human intelligence. We must recruit and retain a new generation of talented American diplomats. And we must give them the tools to identify and engage with a new generation of leaders from different walks of life – often in hostile environments where we lack historic ties, where we lack relationships.”  O’Malley then said: “That was the work that Ambassador Chris Stevens was about. He gave his life reaching out to those emerging from the rubble of Gaddafi’s dictatorship.”  The former Maryland governor then quoted Stevens’s father, who said that his son died “doing what he loved most – working to build bridges of understanding and mutual respect between the people of the United States and the people of the Middle East”.  The candidate’s top foreign policy adviser, Doug Wilson, emphasized after the speech that O’Malley was not trying to reference the controversy around the attack.  “This was not a speech about Hillary Clinton and the State Department,” said Wilson. Instead, he said, the former Maryland governor “wanted to develop a framework here so people would have standards about how he would govern if he became president”.  The speech was deep on policy details as O’Malley called for “a new National Security Act” and pushed for getting the national guard involved in cyber defense, major increases in foreign aid and for the US to be 100% fuelled by clean energy by 2050.  The former Maryland governor also signalled his support for the Obama administration’s nuclear talks with Iran by noting: “I believe negotiations are the best way to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon … the best way to avoid even greater conflict in the region … and the best way to stop widespread nuclear proliferation across the Middle East.”  O’Malley went on to say: “If we reach a verifiable, enforceable agreement that cuts off Iran’s multiple pathways to a weapon – and its ability to sprint to a bomb –Congress would be wise to support it.”  O’Malley was relatively cautious about the use of American force abroad. He panned the Iraq war as “one of the most tragic, deceitful and costly blunders in US history” and warned of “mission creep” in combating the “murderous thugs” of Isis.  Instead, O’Malley called for “a foreign policy of engagement and collaboration”. In fact, the veiled criticism of Clinton in his mention of Benghazi seemed far more about how the secretary of state managed the situation after the collapse of the Gaddafi regime than any of the operational details in the response to the 11 September 2012 attack.  O’Malley is polling at a mere 2% in early states such as Iowa and New Hampshire and has an uphill battle to win the nomination. But on Friday, he did differentiate himself from his Democratic rivals. He has a distinct foreign policy philosophy and he is not afraid to mention Benghazi.  The question is, will that be enough to catapult the former Maryland governor in the polls?
Democratic presidential candidate makes no direct criticism of Hillary Clinton but say 2012 Libya terror attack shows there is ‘no substitute’ for human intelligence