Libyan Closure

By ROGER COHEN
NYT

LONDON — There’s a video of Dr. Alia Brahimi of the London School of Economics greeting Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi as “Brother Leader” at the school three months ago, and presenting him with an L.S.E. cap — a tradition, she says, that started when the cap was handed to Nelson Mandela.

It may be possible to sink to greater depths but right now I can’t think how.

Sir Howard Davies, the director of the L.S.E., had the decency to resign over the school’s financial links to Qaddafi and his own misjudgments. If only the L.S.E. were an isolated case. The Arab Spring is also a Western Winter.

I’m glad the United States and Europe have gotten behind the Bahrain-to-Benghazi awakening. But I’ve not heard enough self-criticism.

(More here.)