When Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky travels across the country this week as a newly minted presidential candidate, he will be greeted by $1 million worth of attack ads accusing him of being "wrong and dangerous" on Iran.
It is an early sign that the unorthodox Republican - who criticized both Republicans and Democrats in his campaign announcement - may find himself an outlier within his own party when he argues that its limited-government ideals should apply to foreign policy as well as within the United States.
Paul's launch on Tuesday of his 2016 presidential campaign in Louisville, his home state's biggest city, came days after a framework agreement struck between Iran and six major powers that aims to curb Iran's nuclear programme, while offering sanctions relief to Tehran. Paul has been sceptical about the deal, but has not rejected it outright.
The group is headed by Rick Reed, a veteran Republican media strategist who has worked for South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham - a hawk who is considering a presidential bid of his own. Reed is known for his role in the "Swift Boat" ads attacking Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry in 2004 on his security record.
"Rand Paul is wrong and dangerous. Tell him to stop siding with Obama, because even one Iranian bomb would be a disaster," the narrator says while a photo shows a classic mushroom cloud.
In Louisville and in comments on Wednesday, Paul expressed some doubts about the nuclear deal and insisted that Congress should have to sign off on it, as legislation proposed by Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, would require. Obama has touted the framework agreement as the best hope for preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
Paul and his aides said the ads are a sign that hawks see his campaign as a threat.
But Paul was the lone "no" vote on a 2012 Senate resolution saying that it was US policy to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons, arguing this could lock the United States into a pre-emptive war.
Media strategist Reed is known partly for his role in an ad campaign against Kerry in 2004 that featured a group of Vietnam War veterans known as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, who questioned Kerry's record as a commander of Navy Swift Boats in the war. That campaign gave rise to the political term "swiftboating," generally taken to mean an attack campaign based on unsubstantiated accusations.
A sceptic on war
Paul's view on the Iran deal, while clearly not completely behind Obama, reflects his sceptical approach to foreign policy and in particular to wars.
He argues that actions like the US participation in NATO air strikes on Libya that helped rebels overthrow former leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 can lead to unintended consequences and tie the United States down to years of expensive and fruitless nation-building.
That has resonated with younger voters who came of age during the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as many voters of all ages who worry the United States is living beyond its means.
Even so, Paul last month proposed an increase in military spending.
But Paul is viewed with suspicion by many in the party's hawkish wing, said Norm Coleman, a former Republican senator who has close ties to pro-Israel donors.
Among likely Republican candidates, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker said last week the United States should walk away from the Iran nuclear deal, while Senator Marco Rubio of Florida called it a mistake.
Republican voters are split. Some 31 percent of Republican voters favour the deal, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll this week, and 30 percent oppose it. Another 40 percent are undecided.
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