Attack on Libya Consulate ShowsIslamist/Security Imbalance
The deaths of a US ambassador and three staff members complicate US policy on Syria and the upcoming presidential election, writes our Beirut Bureau Chief Ben Gilbert. But the situation also dramatizes just how much Libya, and Benghazi in particular, has changed from the early days of its revolution.
Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other US State Department employees were killed in an attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya Tuesday night.
President Barack Obama condemned the "outrageous attack" in a statement released by the White House Wednesday morning. The incident threatened to undermine US policy toward Libya and the wider Middle East, and presented Obama with a new complication just two months before a closely contested presidential election.
The attack on the consulate in Benghazi was sparked by an anti-Muslim movie called “Mohammad,” by an Israeli-American named Sam Bacile. It has infuriated Islamists because it portrays the Prophet Muhammad in a negative light and also portrays his followers as buffoons.
The video was unnoticed until an Arabic version was produced. It became widely circulated when Arabic TV channels began playing segments of the trailer, and preachers began slamming the film in Friday sermons.
Much has been written about the film and the perceptions of it in the Arab world. The US embassy in Cairo is still undergoing what appears to be a peaceful, relatively small and minor protest that, at its most violent, saw the American flag burned.
