Qadhafi death blunts GOP’s critique
The death of Libyan strongman Muammar Qadhafi Thursday has sharpened the contrast between President Barack Obama’s recent successes on the foreign policy front and the scattershot criticism offered by his Republican challengers.
Qadhafi was killed seven months after Obama and European leaders launched a military campaign, eventually headed up by NATO, aimed at preventing the Libyan leader from massacring his own people. The NATO effort became closely integrated with rebel forces in Libya and carried out thousands of air strikes aimed at protecting them from Qadhafi’s regime and his loyalists.
Republican presidential hopefuls have criticized Obama from all sides of the Libya issue — arguing that he acted too slowly and deferred to U.S. allies, that he ramped up the effort without adequate explanation, and that he shouldn’t have acted at all.