Crossposted from my personal blog in the nether reaches of the Internet.
Amid reports that protesters have seized additional cities in Libya, that pilots continue to refuse to bomb their own people, and that diplomats are bringing with their defections forty years of scandal and atrocity of the Gaddafi regime, it appears time to address in full the bloodiest of the revolutions occurring in the Maghreb.
What lies in store for Libya? I can't say I know, but all signs point to a less joyful conclusion than what occurred in Egypt.
What has transpired in Gaddafi's realm is tragic yet in many ways unsurprising. He is a cold, ruthless man who has gradually lost all sense of reality (does anyone remember his UN speech not too long ago?), and thus is exactly the type of leader who will choose blood over exile. Also, being much closer the military than Mubarak, he seems to have gotten at least some of the establishment to attack its own citizens- though the well-publicized defection of fighter pilots shows there are huge cracks in the military bloc. In Egypt, the military really never supported Mubarak more than lip service- once it became clear that protesters weren't going home, he was thrown out faster than you can say "Anwar Sadat."
So we have a revolt here that is more violent than the rest of them combined- Tunisia, Egypt, even Bahrain and Yemen can't compare to what has transpired. And it is really unknown what happens next. The regime is clearly extremely weak, the military in places queasy about using more and more force, and the political establishment has defected in droves. Gaddafi is an easy man to discard, but with him will the regime follow? If Egypt is any indication, protesters will not be satisfied by mere cosmetic changes, but Libya has been a military junta for over forty years. To build a democratic system- to build any system from that is a monumental task that involves years of painstaking work and numerous pitfalls. It is not like Egypt, where elections are foreseeable and parties are forming as we speak- these things are unheard of in its western neighbor.
What happens? Anyone who says for sure has much hubris. Time will tell, but it's not nearly as rosy as Tunisia or Egypt have been- now or in the future.