From a Washington Post editorial
"It's time for Gadhafi to go." So said President Obama -- two weeks ago.

Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi does not seem to have received the message. His forces are on the counterattack and gaining.

Combined with the dispatch of 2,000 Saudi and allied troops into Bahrain to stifle a democratic uprising there, the sense is of a counterrevolution gaining strength across the Middle East.

So far the Obama administration has not shown that it has a strategy in response.

Two weeks ago, when Obama flatly decreed the end of the Gadhafi era -- "So let me just be very unambiguous about this," he said then.

"Colonel Gadhafi needs to step down from power and leave" -- momentum did seem to be on the side of the rebellion.

A modest intervention from supporting countries, such as imposition of a no-fly zone, might have tipped the balance, convincing pilots and higher-ranking officers around Gadhafi that the future resided elsewhere.

The United States chose not to intervene in that way. It joined with allies in imposing sanctions on Gadhafi and threatening to bring him before the International Criminal Court.

But when it came to a no-fly zone, providing arms to the opposition or other tangible measures, the administration demurred.

If Obama didn't know it before, by now he has surely seen that the U.S. government does not deliver unless the president insists -- and that in turn the "international community" will never act unless the United States leads.

An opportunity to help effect historic change may soon close.