Analysis: Pirates put Obama in 21st-century bind

By ANNE GEARAN

WASHINGTON – A ragtag band of pirates has put President Barack Obama in a bind: He commands overwhelming firepower in the form of a growing flotilla of U.S. warships, but he doesn't want to use it.

Thursday's decision to turn to FBI hostage negotiators showed Obama reaching for all of his limited options in the high-seas hostage drama. Negotiators in the United States were communicating with the pirates through a Navy destroyer that shadowed the small lifeboat where four pirates held American cargo ship captain Richard Phillips.

The president wasn't saying a word about the situation in public, though he dispatched aides to reassure the nation that their government was pressing to free Phillips. ....