By the end of the year, the Sept. 11 attack on a US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, risked being reduced to a political scandal over what the Obama White House knew about the attack and how it selected the information to reveal to the American people about it. Coming inquiries and congressional hearings will determine if that happens.
But the attack itself stands out for questions it raises about America's preparedness for a changed Islamist extremist threat, as well as for the uncertainties it casts on the future of US diplomacy in a growing registry of dangerous places. The assault by Al Qaeda-sympathizing extremists took the lives of four Americans, including the US ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens.
One reason the attack was so shocking is that it offered such a contrast with the Benghazi of just a year earlier, when a not-yet-ambassador Stevens had been warmly received there as the US envoy to rebels fighting Muammar Qaddafi.
– Howard LaFranchi, Staff writer
