It is absurd to think that you can predict or even know anything in the middle of a revolution in a foreign country with desultory communications. But because so much turns on what happens next in Libya for the Libyans, as well as for Africa and the Middle East, and for the U.S., too -- just look at what has happened to oil prices even though Libya controls only 2 percent of the world output -- we must try to be prophets. Perhaps the only justification for doing so is that so many others are speaking nonsense based on ignorance, bias, and the whims of the blogosphere. Just a few days ago the British Foreign Secretary was telling us Colonel Gaddafi had fled to Caracas into the waiting arms of another nemesis of the West, President Chavez. How convenient that would have been for our preconceptions!
So let me again hazard a guess about where things are and might be heading. First some historical facts and context for the current Libyan situation:
With this background in mind, we can hazard a few risky guesses about where Libya may be headed.
1. As a kind of metaphorical heir to Tripolitania's power, and the head of the Gaddafi clan and its allies in the region, Gaddafi may have more staying power than caricatures of him as a buffoon and lunatic would suggest. He controls considerable military power -- three battalions under the direct command of his sons Sa'ad, Moutassim, and Khemis; the air force; and his pan-African force (the "mercenaries") actually drawn from the Sahara region of Southern Libya and Northern Niger and Chad. He is still able to orchestrate demonstrations of thousands of followers (yesterday in Green Square). And there are many more associated with his regime who will have an interest in his survival. He cannot take out the insurgents, but they lack the military force to overthrow him. Stalemate?
2. Despite the Colonel's reputation as delusional and out of touch, he still controls his own propaganda machine and media, in part through his son Saif, the Western-educated, English-speaking Ph.D. whose remarkable interview in English yesterday on Turkish CNN is a must-see. Saif declared his fealty to family -- we will live and die in Libya! -- but also launched a potent propaganda campaign denying nearly every report coming out of Libya about repression and blaming rival clans for the violence. An assassin's bullet could find its mark, things could disintegrate from within, but the Gaddafi clan is far from done, and doubters might want to recall that other villainous clan documented in The Godfather, where another "good" and "civilian-minded" son unexpectedly embraces a beleaguered father under siege and saves the family from extinction. (Pacino got a lot more sympathy than Saif).
3. Even if the Gaddafis do fall over the next days or weeks or months, Libya's fate in the short term is likely to be turmoil, civic unrest and the possibility of an Iraqi- or Somalian-style civil war where the "losers" in "Tripolitania" continue to wage an insurgency against the "winners" in "Cyrenaica." This will make stability and progress towards reform difficult, and could even pave the way to some new autocracy in the name of "order" or to stave off fundamentalists or al Qaeda that might try to take advantage of the strife. Many will be glad to see Gaddafi go, but fewer will be content if his successor is the head of another tribe or clan trying to speak on behalf of "Libya."
4. The key to the future might be whether or not there is a sufficiently "modern" class of lawyers, engineers, businessmen, teachers and doctors who can constitute a new nation-wide "middle class" free from tribe who, on the model of Egypt, can begin to constitute a true Libyan nation, one that is also democratic. Not impossible but extremely difficult. For Saif Gaddafi has to some extent become the face of and gatekeeper to "modern free market" Libya, and some of the potential reformers worked closely with him on his human rights and e-democracy and economic reform projects associated with the Saif Gaddafi Foundation. Those genuine reformers could be tainted now by that association, and hence -- like Saif himself -- disqualified from further participation in post-Gaddafi change.
5. Outside intervention, as with U.S. or NATO warplanes enforcing a "no-fly zone" over Tripoli to disarm Gaddafi's air force, is out of the question. The one thing that could give new legitimacy to Gaddafi's delusional claim that Europe and America are conspiring to bring him down, would be the return of American war planes to Libyan air space! Forget about that.
None of this means the Gaddafi clan will survive the next days or weeks. But it means that it could, and that, even if it does not, there are complications and obstacles ahead for those who care about finding a road to Libyan democracy that must be anticipated and planned for.
Follow Benjamin R. Barber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/BenjaminRBarber
Tihomir Kukolja: The Danger of Dispensationalism in the Middle East
Secondly, the author obviously doesn't understand Arabic and therefore he is unable to listen to a host of highly intelligent folks in Libya, who have belittled the influence of the tribes in today's Libya. Such tactics of using old facts and figures to scare people of the unknown has failed to work in Tunisia and Egypt -- when both dictators had warned either them or chaos!!
Let the people decide and we must only respect their wish, if we are unable to lend a hand.
1) Libya has been one country at least since 1950, almost 20 years before Gaddafi showed up. The author skipped that portion of the history.
2) Perhaps the author has not heard Libya say that "Libya is one, and Tripoli is its eternal capital". This statement came from the various tribes as well.
3) Stalemate??? Are you kidding: Gaddafi is limited to a part of Tripoli that is getting smaller. The regime shoots at people to prevent them from gathering if they are to protest the regime. This is not a recipe to win support from the population¬.
4) It is amazing how this author is repeating Gaddafi's argument, fear of civil war, Al Qaeda, foreign intervention.
Gaddafi era is over.
My country, Canada... we have the SECOND largest reserves in the world... haven't heard about our output. No one cares about us. It's all about dirty, Middle Eastern oil. It's almost like they don't WANT to improve and get off terrorist oil.
Seems like.
The question is how to get a system that shares the oil wealth with the people, not just tribal elders AND is strong enough to prevent African mass migration into Europe.
Disagree totally, I bet "no-fly" is already in effect. Nato and US planes don't need to be flying around Tripoli, they can and will scramble from carriers and take out Libyan planes quickly.
Libyans will not see it as US interference. Won't see it all, Libyan pilots won't dare fly.
But here it is mostly a figure of speech/shorthand.
Truly, we all lose with that one.
Just like there was NO CHANGE in Egypt.
Military Dictator Mubarak resigns...
And with the US/Obama blessing... the Military takes over.
Where is the change...?
FAKE CHANGE-NO CHANGE is the new scam... being played on the people of the world.
Lybia is just the latest example.
Middle East will never be the same again.
It's a domestic thing: everyone else stay out of the house.