Competing with Japan’s earthquake tsunami nuclear crisis, Libya has jumped back to the top of CNN’s “breaking news” with the beginnings of implementation of a UN approved no-fly zone (plus more) authorization. The UN resolution came not that long after the Arab League had agreed to support that no-fly zone, apparently giving Russia and China the diplomatic cover to merely abstain and not veto the UN Security Council resolution. Surely this was the culmination of a great deal of collaboration, coordination and compromise between the administrations of key countries around the world.

But it was also a source of significant criticism from both progressives and conservatives in this country that were hoping the US would have acted more quickly and decisively. I find it interesting what may lie behind those criticisms, and what the more cautious and deliberate action by the US may be indicating in terms of the greater human transition from patriarchy to partnership, from hierarchies of control to more of a circle of equals.

Obama has said in press conferences that he intends to have the US play a behind the scenes role in this crisis. Scanning the media I see both hawkish progressives and neo-conservatives urging the administration to intervene more forcefully on the side of the people of Libya. Certainly the same neo-con logic that justified taking us into Iraq is applicable to Libya.

What I think these commentators are looking (even longing) for is a US leader staring down the bad guys like Kennedy in the Cuban Missile Crisis or Reagan calling out to Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. They see the Obama administration response (probably representing a lot of Hillary Clinton’s thinking as well) as tepid and disengaged, because the US does not appear to be leading the charge, playing the role of the “world’s policeman” as the “first among equals”.

And though its still speculation on my part until the behind-the-scenes stories come out, what I think I’m seeing is not lack of resolve by the US as some sort of top dog, but an effort to work with other countries within a more collaborative circle of equals and follow an emerging due process for how the nations of the world as peers will address world crises.

For many people on both sides of the political spectrum, this lack of alpha-male behavior by the Obama administration reinforcing the preeminent world status of the United States of America is difficult to tolerate. If the US is not willing to be the king of the hill, certainly China or some other country will fill that void, because there is always a pecking order and always the biggest pecker (pun intended) at the top.

In fact, saying publicly (particularly when running for national office) that the US should collaborate with other countries as peers and respect the process and authority of the United Nations and other world organizations is seen by many as an emasculated and dangerously naïve response and continues to be a very big “third rail” in American politics.

But I’m not running for national office so I can say unabashedly that I think the US does not have to be “big daddy” any more on the world stage and should “play well with others”. And my “loyalty” (if that’s even the right word) is more to the human race and the planet Earth than to any particular country within it, including my own.

I know that to many passionate Americans, saying this is tantamount to treason or at least warrants a strong urging that I emigrate. But my emerging life’s work seems to be all about calling out and encouraging our human evolution from requiring external authority figures who are somehow “higher” than we are on the proverbial org chart, to a truly egalitarian and facilitative partnership between people or countries in a circle of equals. As best I can see, looking at the sweep of centuries or even millennia, this is the journey of being human, the developmental challenge for the billions of souls that incarnate on this beautiful planet.

So coming back down to earth, I applaud the Obama administration for their overall collaborative approach to the Libyan crisis and letting their world peers take the lead this time. Deferring to the Arab League to call out what is the best action to deal with one of their own family, shows respect for these nations and their people and acknowledges the general democratic emergence that is stirring in the league’s member countries. Deferring to the United Nations for the consensus on moral authority reinforces the role and weight of this world body. Deferring to France to send the initial aircraft into action in the skies over Libya. This is all good stuff in my book.

There are certainly all sorts of arguments to be made over the tactics and whether various actions were taken quickly enough to be effective counters to Gadhafi’s military actions against the opposition. That is not my point here.

My point is to step back and look at the governance model that is being used on the world stage to address this crisis, and how different than say the governance model that was used on that same world stage only a hundred years ago that led to the horrendous totally unnecessary testosterone-soaked mass killing and destruction that was World War I (see my piece “Patriarchy’s Biggest Failure”), and how that self-inflicted apocalypse set the table for Hitler, Stalin, the Cold War, and all the genocide, tyranny, death and destruction that followed in the 20th Century.