Obama faces major challenges in dealing with Libya attack

Whether or not there were lapses in his administration, the attack on the US consulate in Libya happened on President Obama's watch. How he responds could impact the presidential election.

|
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
The American flag flies at half-staff over the White House early Saturday, in honor of those who died when an angry mob stormed the U.S. Consulate in Libya's eastern city of Benghazi this week.

President Obama faces two major challenges in the wake of the killing of a US ambassador and worldwide anti-US protests over an offensive anti-Islam video: Explaining how the violent and apparently coordinated attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya – possibly linked to Al Qaeda – was allowed to occur; and responding diplomatically and militarily in ways that prevent further attacks.

That the challenges come less than two months before a presidential election that’s pivoted from its largely economic theme to national security and terrorism makes Obama’s situation all the more difficult.

Protests against the YouTube video “Innocence of Muslims” continued to expand Saturday to some 20 nations in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and North Africa. Most were peaceful, but the protests turned into assaults on US and other Western embassies in Sudan and Tunis, and violent clashes with police in several countries left at least six dead, the Associated Press reported.

If Al Qaeda has yet to be proved responsible for Tuesday’s attack in Benghazi, which killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other US embassy personnel – as many analysts and officials suspect – the terrorist organization moved quickly to take advantage of the highly volatile situation.

"What has happened is a great event, and these efforts should come together in one goal, which is to expel the embassies of America from the lands of the Muslims," the Yemen-based group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) said in a statement Saturday, calling on protests to continue in Muslim nations "to set the fires blazing at these embassies."

More to the point, perhaps, AQAP also said the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi was in retaliation for the killing in a US drone strike earlier this year of Abu Yahya al-Libi, Al Qaeda’s then-number two.

"The killing of al-Libi only increased the enthusiasm and determination of the Libyan people to take revenge on those who belittled our religion and our messenger, so they stormed the American consulate and killed its ambassador,” the group said.

In his radio address Saturday, Obama spoke to the situation.

“There is no excuse for attacks on our Embassies and Consulates,” he said. “And so long as I am Commander-in-Chief, the United States will never tolerate efforts to harm our fellow Americans.”

“Right now, we are doing whatever we can to protect Americans who are serving abroad,” Obama continued. “We are in contact with governments around the globe, to strengthen our cooperation, and underscore that every nation has a responsibility to help us protect our people. We have moved forward with an effort to see that justice is done for those we lost, and we will not rest until that work is done.”

(For his part, GOP challenger Mitt Romney appeared to want to distance himself from his controversial early comments about the Libya attack, which were widely-criticized by Republicans as well as Democrats. He did not campaign Saturday, leaving it to running mate Paul Ryan and other surrogates to hammer Obama on economic issues.)

Obama has sent contingents of US Marines to beef up security at US missions abroad, and the Pentagon has ordered two guided-missile destroyers to patrol the coast of Libya. US intelligence and military officials are investigating how the attack in Libya might have been detected and prevented. Was there an intelligence failure for which the Obama administration will have to assume responsibility?

“After Obama’s success in killing Osama bin Laden, in killing Qaddafi and in not blowing up Iraq, I think Obama and his aides figured, ‘We’ve got this box pretty well taken care of,’” Michael Rubin, a Middle East scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former Bush administration official, told the New York Times.

“Now that gets thrown up into the air,” Mr. Rubin said. “Instead of Obama being the successful guy that got Bin Laden, we’re talking about Obama as the second coming of Jimmy Carter, and that’s not something the campaign wants to see.”

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Obama faces major challenges in dealing with Libya attack
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/DC-Decoder/2012/0915/Obama-faces-major-challenges-in-dealing-with-Libya-attack
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe