Global Paradigms

Leon T. HadarJournalist and foreign affairs analyst GET UPDATES FROM LEON T. HADAR Like 4 Deposing Gaddafi 'From Behind'? Posted: 8/22/11 05:44 PM ET Neoconservative critics have blasted President Barack Obama for failing to assert U.S. leadership in the foreign policy arena, with his somewhat muddled response to the anti-Gaddafi insurgency in Libya serving as a case in point. Indeed, the neocons have being quoting ad nauseam from a New Yorker article by Ryan Lizza, in which an indentified administration official described Obama's actions in Libya as "leading from behind." The official was trying to contrast Obama's efforts to depose dictator Muammar Gaddafi in Libya with former President George W. Bush's strategy in Iraq, the argument being that while Obama's predecessor embraced a unilateral, U.S.-led and very costly (money-wise and in American and Iraqi lives) military action in Iraq that, among other things, helped ignite a civil war i...