Defeat the Libyan regime. And then?

Telegraph ^

[darkside321]

Libya's overstretched military won't be difficult to defeat. Creating a coherent government when the fighting stops will be a bigger challenge. Vehicles belonging to forces loyal to Libyan leader Gaddafi explode after an air strike by coalition forces In 1975, Gaddafi told the journalist "When the people takes power it becomes its own government; and at that moment it is I who will find myself in opposition." Now combat jets targeting the Libyan regime's murderous campaign to regain rebel-held cities, part of that statement appears prophetic: 42 years after Col Gaddafi seized power, dusk appears to be upon a man Anwar Sadat, Egypt's late president, once described as "100 per cent sick and possessed by the devil".

Libya's anaemic military won't be hard to defeat. From the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, though, we have learnt that the real test of an intervention isn't the defeat of the regime it targets: it is what comes next. There is good reason to fear that the people's own government of which Col Gaddafi spoke won't be much better than the dystopia that preceded it.

Power in Libya's rebel-held regions now lies with a disordered mosaic of tribal patriarchs and mid-ranking military officers who have abandoned the regime for more primordial allegiances.

Eastern Libya's Zuwaya and Misratah tribal chieftains, who enjoyed great power before Gaddafi took over, sense an opportunity to seize control of oil revenues. In the west, the Warfala, under pressure from the regime since an abortive 1993 rebellion, see a chance to settle scores.

For the most part, this leadership seems to have a moral compass that points in the same direction as that of the regime. Tarek Husain, a Benghazi-based rebel commander, warned the residents of Col Gaddafi's home town: "Either you join us, or we will finish you."

[darkside321]

Libya's tribes, moreover, aren't the only ones flying their flags on the streets. Fighters have established an Islamic emirate in Derna, 775 miles from Tripoli, while jihadists trained in Sudan and Afghanistan are said to be fighting alongside tribal rebels...

[org.whodat]

Amazing, daffy went to training school in Britain.

[tsowellfan]

I guess we'll have to wait and see how the Obama Doctrine (the toppling of secular governments to appease Al Qaeda)goes. Maybe there will be peace in our time.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

And then ... Tripoli becomes an outpost of the la Légion étrangère and Bengazi a training ground for das neues Afrikakorps.

[Darksheare]

“Defeat the Libyan regime. And then? “

The Caliphate says, “We need breathing room.”

[ViLaLuz]

A new dictatorial regime takes over.

[MrEdd]

Or maybe there will be poison gas and biological attacks throughout europe.