In “ISIS Tightens Grip on Swath of Libya, Giving It a Fallback,”  David D. Kirkpatrick, Ben Hubbard, and Eric Schmit, describe how ISIS, on the defensive in Iraq and Syria, has established a foothold in Libya amidst the chaos left behind in the wake of the NATO-assisted overthrow of the government of Muamar al-Qaddafi four years ago. The decision by the Obama administration and NATO to abandon Libya following the overthrow of its leader made the ensuing chaos inevitable, but that decision has received scant public criticism and indeed is not mentioned in the article.

One wonders what the response would have been had President Bush abandoned Iraq to its fate of inevitable bedlam after the U.S.-led coalition overthrew the government of Saddam Hussein there in 2003. Would the public have displayed the same equanimity currently displayed towards President Obama’s abandonment of Libya in place of the withering condemnation the Iraq incursion commonly evokes to this day? Leaving aside the wisdom of overthrowing either government, don’t we have the responsibility to try to restore a country’s stability once we elect to overthrow its government?

Note.  The Times did not publish any letters on this article.

Here is the Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/world/middleeast/isis-grip-on-libyan-city-gives-it-a-fallback-option.html?ref=topics&_r=0