President Barack Obama's longtime political adviser fired back at Hillary Clinton over her recent criticism of the commander-in-chief's foreign policy doctrine of avoiding messy entanglements.

"Just to clarify: 'Don't do stupid stuff' means stuff like occupying Iraq in the first place, which was a tragically bad decision," David Axelrod tweeted Tuesday. Obama aides often have been quoted in news stories using that mantra to describe the president's guiding principles.

In a Sunday interview with The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, Clinton said: "Great nations need organizing principles, and 'don't do stupid stuff' is not an organizing principle."