"Perry surely knows some of this and would have corrected his statements if he had wanted to. And not a single candidate seems terribly willing to defend Turkey. Perry's assertions were left to linger, a broad-brush stroke of stereotypes and Islam-bashing that filled the air with inaccuracies."

"NATO, the Arabs and the international community could support the Libyan rebels because there was no counterweight.  That is not true anywhere else in the Arab world. This is a case study on leading from behind, but not a new international doctrine."

"With France as the unstated leader, the Mediterranean Union is also animated by a hope to stabilize the region, improve it economically and thus slow the flow of illegal Arab immigration, and provide an alternative to extremism and terrorism. A modern and open Libya, brought to the world by France, would be a major step toward a new European center of gravity, mainly France."

"The case study we do not have is whether a no-fly zone will aid rebel leaders in deposing a tyrannical leader in a predominantly ground combat civil war where the United States has a strong preference for who should lose, but almost no idea who the winners are. This is new territory."