Bruce Crumley evaluates NATO’s options.
Western powers [especially the UK and France] are now openly considering an outcome with Gaddafi still in Libya—though at least nominally out of power—clashes frontally with rebels' rejection of the scenario as a non-starter tends to support claims Gaddafi's backers have long made: to wit, that the insurgents exist as a military and political force due exclusively to Western backing, and as such will ultimately accept the conditions and do the bidding of foreign capitals providing them funds, arms, and air support. Gaddafi managing to remain in Libya, therefore, would not only allow him a safe and secure place from which to meddle with the country's new government, but also give his anti-imperialist, anti-Western propaganda ranting a degree of credibility it never enjoyed before.
Assuming that escalation would have virtually no public or Congressional support, Larison wonders how the U.S. will finish the job. In other Libya news, the leading rebel commander and former Qaddafi minister, Abdel Fattah Younes, was killed yesterday. Babak Dehghanpisheh thinks this is bad news for the rebels:
Younes's death leaves a dangerous power vacuum in the military leadership of the rebels and could lead to in-fighting among various factions. Younes had been jockeying for power with a rival military commander named Khalifa Heftar who returned to Libya from the U.S. in March. Even more troubling, Younes’s death could inflame tribal tensions. Younes was a member of the Obeidi tribe, one of the largest and most powerful in eastern Libya, and it will take a lot of delicate negotiations to convince his clansmen to stand down.
Juan Cole differs. Dan Murphy explains why we're not sure which side, if any, killed Younes. David Kenner gives downbeat background on rebel infighting.
(Photo: A youth draped in the flag used by the Libyan rebellion photographs the launch of a rocket toward government loyalist troops April 14, 2011 west of Ajdabiyah, Libya. By Chris Hondros/Getty Images)
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