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actually our military developed rather close ties to the Iraqi military during the Iran-Iraq war. We discreetly chose sides and it was with Iraq.

Libya was always an ally of Iran and also a proxy of Russia, hence its Russian radars and military equipment. Iraq had mixture of French Chinese and Russian equipment. the French being the most capable

Many Iraqi officers - especially Air Force officers- were trained in France or by France. There were also ties between the middle and upper classes who dominated the Iraqi civil service and military officers and oil industries, and the Brits, from colonial days.

I don’t think Qaddafi or his people have any similar ties with their former colonial masters in Italy.

Unlike Iraq, there aren’t going to be too many Sorbonne and London School of Economics and Oxford and Sandhurst educated Libyans to write a new consitution when the smoke settles.

There really are few parallels between Iraq (fairly well educated and western-exposed, mostly sunni, not fundamental muslims) and the abysmally primitive Libya - except both were oil producers and both were ruled by despots. Let’s hope we don’t develop another parallel by getting involved in a protracted Libyan civil war - that actually will be necessary to sort out the next generation of power players in the Mahgreb.

"Let’s hope we don’t develop another parallel by getting involved in a protracted Libyan civil war."

I think we can end a protracted civil war merely by enforcing a no fly zone in western Libya. It will do two things, take away Gadaffi's force superiority. In the desert, tanks and planes rule the battlefield. It will also signal our intentions that we (the west) are serious about overthrowing Gadaffi. This will hasten defections of his military to the other side and desertion of his mercenary army.

As for our military developing close ties to the Iraqi military, I think you stretch greatly. Our aim in the Iraq/Iran war was a stalemate. We wanted to keep the balance of power the way it was between the two countries. When it appeared that Iraq was losing the war, the only thing we did for them was provide ariel intelligence on Iranian troop concentrations and movements. That's it. I know the anti war left has put out this canard about how we did this and that for the Iraqi military but it's all bunk. We merely wanted them not to lose. If they had, their shiite population would have overthrown Sadaam and our fear was two shiite dominated countries controlling the middle east.

Iraq had a close tie with Russia militarily. They had Russian military tactics and doctrine. I know. In Gulf War 1 I personally witnessed the burned out hulks of T-55's and T-62's. I saw all of their firearms, AK's and Markarov pistols. All soviet, not the west.