Libya

Barack Obama’s foreign policy reflects a moral duality that has befuddled friends and enemies alike

International conflict management is not necessarily a rewarding occupation for people who have neat and orderly minds. Well-made plans tend to fall apart in fast-moving crises. As I noted in a chapter in a book on the Security Council published earlier this year, the recent history of United Nations peace operations is basically a story of “one damn thing after another.” U.N.

Europe is trying to help Libya stem the human trafficking trade that has imperiled the lives of tens of thousands of desperate migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea.

Last October, with security concerns in Libya mounting, the United Nations dispatched a high-level delegation to Tripoli to determine whether U.N. staff could function safely in a country beset by Islamist extremists and renegade militias that had killed America's top envoy, attacked foreign embassies, raided the country's oil resources, and temporarily abducted both the Jordanian ambassador and the former Libyan prime minister.

Turbulence in the Arab world and crisis in North Africa. The Middle East peace process on life support at best. Oil and food prices rising, causing global economic stresses and hardships. Mounting concerns about the sustainability of our growth. In the world’s dominant power, economic doldrums exacerbated by political gridlock; in Europe, policy confusion depressing growth. A competitor power rising, testing America’s weaknesses, probing for vulnerability.

Like his predecessors, President Obama is relying on a specially-commissioned report and efforts at transparency to control the fallout from Benghazi.

Read the full BBC News article here

The United Nations General Assembly met on 18 October to elect five new nonpermanent members of the Security Council. Although the winners will not begin their terms until January, the U.N. is approaching the end of two turbulent years in which three major powers -- Germany, India and South Africa -- have held temporary seats in the council, playing prominent roles in its debates over Libya and Syria.