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Story highlights Republicans and some Democrats are criticizing the policy of U.S. intervention in Libya Hillary Clinton was a key force in the U.S. getting involved in the North African state She will face questions about her role in that decision on the campaign trail

She's already grappling with the political headaches from deleted emails and from the terror attack that left four Americans dead in Benghazi.

But she'll face a broader challenge in what's become of the North African country since, as secretary of state in 2011, she was the public face of the U.S. intervention to push out its longtime strongman, Moammar Gadhafi.

Libya's lapse into the chaos of failed statehood has provided a breeding ground for terror and a haven for groups such as ISIS. Its plight is also creating an opening for Republican presidential candidates to question Clinton's strategic acumen and to undermine her diplomatic credentials, which will be at the center of her pitch that only she has the global experience needed to be president in a turbulent time.

READ: First round of Hillary Clinton State Department emails released

Gathering questions over Libya also point to one of the central complications of Clinton's campaign for the Democratic nomination, due to formally launch on Saturday: the fact that she must own a record at the State Department that lacks clear-cut diplomatic triumphs. She'll also have to answer for misfires in the Obama administration's wider foreign policy as GOP candidates who have not faced the same tough choices can nitpick her record with the advantage of hindsight.

Libya has long been a vulnerability for Clinton because of the deaths of U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans in an attack on the Benghazi consular building and a CIA installation on September 11, 2012.

But Republicans have yet to prove that she was personally negligent or to convince voters that she's not fit for higher office because of the controversy. So now they're opening a new front on the wisdom of the intervention itself.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a GOP presidential candidate, has called Libya a "jihadist wonderland" and Hillary Clinton a "war hawk" in questioning the mission, which he is using to flesh out a wider critique that American military interventions in the Middle East have backfired badly.

"Somebody needs to ask Hillary Clinton, was it a good idea to topple Gadhafi in Libya? I think it's a disaster. Libya is a failed state. Someone ought to pay and Hillary Clinton needs to answer questions about it," Paul said at an Iowa Republican Party Lincoln Dinner in Des Moines on May 16.

Link:
Hillary Clinton's real Libya problem - CNNPolitics.com