Robin Wright says Chris Stevens “was less an advocate of U.S influence than of U.S. enabling” and “would almost certainly have urged his bosses to hold off on extraterritorial intervention” in Libya:
-   What Chris Stevens Would Want Us to Do in Libya (Washington Post)
The cause of the death of the US Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, remains controversial. While the US and the UN now claim it was the result of  a spontaneous attack, Libya’s parliament chief blamed the attack on “a few foreign extremists who he said entered Libya from Mali and Algeria and pre-planned it with local affiliates and sympathizers”:
- US, Libya Differ on Accounts of Benghazi Attack (AFP)
- UN Ambassador Says Libya Attack Was Spontaneous (AFP)
Even in safer areas where schools were open, classrooms sat empty and teachers signed into work solely as a formality:
A Human Rights Watch researcher fears that the backlash against the Islamophobic American film “The Innocence of Muslims” “could bolster a preexisting effort to insert a clause banning religious insults into Egypt’s new constitution”:
- After Film, Push Strengthens for Blasphemy Clause in Egypt’s Constitution (Christian Science Monitor)
Appeals such as Youssef al-Qaradawi’s call that the “manner of protesting should reflect sense and reason … while frequent from many Islamic leaders and scholars in the past week — have competed against opposing calls” from “[p]olitical factions and hardline clerics” seeking “to capitalize as after other perceived offenses against the faith”:
- Muslim Rage over Film Echoes Back to Islam’s Internal Struggles (AP / Washington Post)
“Surely if the sentence of the Imam (Khomeini) [against Salman Rushdie] had been carried out, the later insults in the form of caricatures, articles and the making of movies would not have occurred,” is the dubious claims from a representative Khamenei: that overlooks the damage the rescinded threat has done to the Muslim world:
“American Muslims are a wasted asset. Probably more than most they understand and appreciate the value of free speech and the [F]irst [A]mendment and could play a crucial role in acting like a bridge between America and … the Islamic world provided that they feel genuinely included in the political discourse and be treated with respect”:
Bernard Lewis rejects Edward Said’s charge that Orientalism is part of the imperialist project, yet his “academic” writings include such chauvinistic claims as “this capacity for empathy, vicariously experiencing the feelings of others, is a peculiarly Western feature”:
- A Scholar Exalted and Accused (Washington Post)
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