On Libya, Obama Played It Perfectly

President Obama's "Mr. Cool" approach worked like a charm in Libya, writes David Ignatius. Recall that Obama took heat for doing too much (pushing for military action instead of a mere no-fly zone) and for doing too little (allowing the US to take a back seat to the UN coalition once that military action started). He also refused to change strategy even when critics began "howling" about a lack of US leadership, Ignatius writes in the Washington Post.

By staying the course, Obama denied Moammar Gadhafi the chance to play the victim at the hands of the big, bad US. "Obama took a lot of shots along the way to Thursday’s symbolic end of the Libya campaign," writes Ignatius. "But it seems fair to say that his vision of opposing (Gadhafi) through a broad, international coalition—in which other nations shared the burden, for a change—worked out pretty well." (More Moammar Gadhafi killed stories.)