What Is Next For Libya?

Colonel Muamar Gaddafi Photo: REUTERS

Tripoli Dispatch: Will Gaddafi Go With A Whimper Or A Bang? -- The Telegraph

There is propaganda on either side, but neither Colonel Gaddafi nor his Nato foes seem to have many new ideas, reports Andrew Gilligan in Tripoli.

At 2am last Thursday, it sounded like curtains for Muammar Gaddafi. Enormous volleys of gunfire broke out across Tripoli, and around the hotel where the foreign press is forced to stay. Armed men charged past in pickup trucks, firing their weapons and wildly honking their horns. Was this the "Saddam statue moment" that Obama, Sarkozy and Cameron have been longing for?

But then it became clear that the flags flying from the trucks were a regime-friendly green, and the pictures taped to the windscreens were of a certain colonel only too familiar to Tripoli residents.

Read more ....

My Comment: A sobering analysis on what is happening in Libya today. Libya has always been a country made up of numerous tribes that for the past 4 decades has been ruled by a dictator. Through miscalculation and forces outside of his control, Gaddafi now finds himself in the position that he is in. But what has saved him is the weakness of his opponents, and a lack of will among NATO members to ratchet up this conflict to the next level so that there would be enough internal Libyan pressure that would force him out.

Will there be a change in NATO policy this summer .... I doubt it .... and the U.S. has made it very clear that they have no interest to become actively involved in this conflict. My prediction .... this war is going to continue for a very long time, and in the end .... because of this bloody stalemate .... Gaddafi will find himself in a position of weakening strength and influence that he will be quietly pushed aside by his family.