Death in Benghazi

Four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, were killed Tuesday when gunmen stormed and set fire to the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The attack happened amid demonstrations against an American-made movie that protesters say denigrates the prophet Muhammad.

Daniel Serwer, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, a senior fellow in the Center for Transatlantic Relations, and a scholar at the Middle East Institute, wrote about Libya and the attack Wednesday on a blog he authors, peacefare.net.

These deaths are likely to have an out-sized impact on American relations with Libya as well as the security posture of American diplomatic posts worldwide. This is unfortunate. Our understandable reaction will be to pull our people back into the fortresses we call embassies and consulates, and strengthen their perimeter defenses. That degrades our interactions with the countries in which we are stationed. Nor is there real safety in that direction, as rockets, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades can breach even high and thick walls.