Mitt: Mideast Needs US Leadership

Protesters destroy an American flag pulled down from the U.S. embassy in Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday. Egyptian protesters, largely ultra conservative Islamists, have climbed the walls of the U.S. embassy in Cairo, went into the courtyard and brought down the flag, replacing it with a black flag with Islamic inscription, in protest of a film deemed offensive of Islam. (AP Photo/Mohammed Abu Zaid)

Mitt Romney, seeking to quell concerns about his foreign-policy credentials, continued his attacks on President Barack Obama’s handling of protests in the Middle East by saying the U.S. seems at the “mercy of events” instead of shaping them. “The world needs American leadership,” the Republican presidential candidate said at a campaign rally today in the battleground state of Virginia. “The Middle East needs American leadership.” Romney came under bipartisan criticism yesterday for his reaction to Sept. 11 attacks on U.S. embassies in Egypt and Libya that led to the death of a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans/Bloomberg Business Week. More here.