Tuesday, September 18, 2012

RT Andy Carvin ‏@acarvin The price of Obama’s leading from behind


The price of Obama’s leading from behind  
Richard Cohen

Richard Cohen
Opinion Writer

The price of Obama’s leading from behind

What lessons can be learned from events in Libya? That nothing good will come out of the Arab Spring? That Arabs are volatile, easily excitable and prone to acting out? That the United States, Mitt Romney notwithstanding, cannot control everything or that the United States, Mitt Romney more to the point, has tried to control nothing? In other words, is this what happens when the United States is “leading from behind”?
This phrase, you might remember, was coined in reference to Barack Obama’s reluctance to take the lead in the NATO air campaign that toppled the dictatorship of Moammar Gaddafi. And that operation, in which the French seized the initiative, was mounted to save Benghazi, the city where the insurrection started and the one where U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed last week. Benghazi was saved from Gaddafi’s bloody reprisals, but not from mayhem.