(MCT) — WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans signaled stiffening resistance Tuesday to the Obama administration’s possible nomination of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state.

GOP strategists said lawmakers would use such a nomination as an opening for an extended examination of how the administration handled the Sept. 11 militant attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador. Although the Senate rarely rejects a president’s Cabinet picks, the strategists said, the process could be so painful and lengthy that Obama might come to regret his choice.