Over to the Libyans

With Libya’s rebels taking much of Tripoli, the Qaddafi regime has all but collapsed. Muammar Qaddafi has had his proverbial boot on the face of the Libyan people for four decades and is responsible for the murder of nearly 200 Americans. The end of his government will be a kind of rough, belated justice for his crimes. He never truly accepted the norms of the international system and always would have been a threat to return to terrorism.

Although Qaddafi’s rule seems on the verge of its end, it’s probably not the end of the war. Even now there’s fighting in Tripoli. Remnants of Qaddafi’s forces and pro-Qaddafi tribes could well wage an insurgency once out of power. It’s possible that the rebels may fracture and fight one another. In Iraq we saw the dangerous vacuum that can develop in a tribal country after its government and security forces are destroyed and in Libya, we don’t have tens of thousands of troops on the ground.

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