The Bitter Harvest of the Arab Spring

Behold the harvest of the Arab Spring: attacks — contemporaneous if not coordinated — on the U.S. embassy in Cairo, Egypt, and the consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on the anniversary of September 11. In the former, the American colors were hoisted down, desecrated, and burned, and the black flag of Islamism raised in their place. In the latter, the American ambassador, Christopher Stevens, and three members of his staff were murdered in a rocket attack as they attempted to evacuate the facility. Whether both acts of terrorism were committed in protest of a low-budget American film allegedly insulting to the Prophet Mohammed or, as reports now suggest, the Libyan attack was a planned response to the killing of al-Qaeda’s No. 2 in Yemen, the portent is equally disturbing.