Libya Mission: NATO's Last Hurrah?

: Could Libya Mission Be NATO's Last Hurrah?

The surprising shift in Libya's civil war -- and yesterday's rebel takeover of Col. Muammar Qaddafi's Tripoli compound, the symbol of a regime dating to Richard Nixon's presidency -- is owed not only to rebels' persistence but the NATO mission that backed them.

Despite Qaddafi's prediction that Western leaders would fall "like Hitler and Mussolini" and his claims that he was "ready for a long war," NATO weathered six months of a see-saw battle in Libya -- and even within its own ranks -- with a combination of patience, rebel training, and 19,000 sorties.

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