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WellyP: The rebels are at least 50% SHIA. Libya has a minority Shia population supported by IRAN!

I'm sorry Welly, but that is incorrect. if you check the CIA factbook :https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ly.html, it shows that

Religions:Sunni Muslim 97%, other 3%

and corroborate this with wikipedia

Almost all Libyans are Sunni Muslim. Foreigners contribute very little Christian presence, but there are some churches

And tie it in to This Shia website which says that there are no shia in Libya

you may be mistaking Libya for Bahrain which is 70% Shia or Saudi which has a small percentage of Shia, but Libya does not -- it is a very small country in terms of population -- 6 million and exclusively in tribes.

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Some things we need to remember when thinking about Libya (caveat: I'm not a professional analyst, but I've lived some early years of my life in Bahrain and Lebanon and visited other parts of the ME and I've spent a couple of years in Bahrain in the past decade):

Libya's population is only 6 million
This was just about 2 million when Ghaddafi took power -- these are a homogenous people
33% (one THIRD) of the population is below 15, one HALF is below 25 -- this is a young, under-educated country. Ghaddafi has not been like Bahrain or Tunisia or Egypt or Syria and educated his young -- they are unable to compete in the modern world, and can only fight. This is sad as Libyans like other Berbers are smart folks and intelligent, so this means you have smart people who are aware they are useless. This is a tragedy and yet it means that they are ripe targets for Islamic terrorists to indoctrinate
Libya is not Tunisia -- Tunisians are better educated, the dictator there gave them more opportunities to learn and be westernised. The people there are far more westernised and moderate than any others in the "arab world" - the Tunisian revolution was nearly all people fighting purely for economic reasons.
Libya is not Bahrain -- the Bahraini King and his father Sheikh Isa have both been benevolent rulers. His father was a benevolent autocrat and King Hamad has devolved a lot of power to the people. It's not a constitutional monarchy but close (the king has to balance arch conservatives (and the Saudis looking over his shoulder) with the ambitions of his people). I believe that he is a good man, and truly seeks the good of his people. Both he and his father have given education subsidies and by opening up their country to expatriate companies have given them opportunities. This fight is that you have educated people who want a complete democracy. I agree with their sentiment, but think they're asking for too much change too quickly and that causes tensions
Just as an aside -- Libya is not Syria -- Syria in my opinion is the most stable state in the region as the people (except some Sunnis) realise that having Assad in power ensures they don't balkanise. Syria is highly diverse with no community in Majority -- there are Sunnis, Shias, Ismailis, Druze (who mix Islam, Christianity and Greek philosophy and who most orthodox Muslims consider to NOT be Muslims), Allawis (like the Assads -- these people are, as per my conversations with local Allawis, NOT Muslims -- their religion is Gnosticism and proto-Christian, but highly secretive. They won't tell you publically or directly what they believe in, but pretend to be Moslem to bypass any wrath) and Christians (20% of Syria is now Christian -- divided between Maronites and Chaldean/Assyrians mostly with some Latins, Orthodox, Armenians etc. The people there are comparatively better off than much of the Middle-East.
As another aside -- Libya is not Egypt. Egypt has 11 times the population and is far less homogenous
Libya is not Saudi Arabia - the Sunnis in Libya are not Wahabbis, are in fact anti-Wahabbi and prefer their own brand of Senussi Islam
Libya is not even like Algeria (French influence) or Morocco (a strong Imazhigen movement)

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My statement that we will soon hear Arabs saying that the "Crusader, imperialist, Christian states are attacking an Islamic country" have come true. Both Ghaddafi is saying this and the Arab League is also murmuring it. This will just intensify over time. And yes, they will blame the US for it -- expect terrorrist attacks in retaliation, not necessarily from Ghaddafi but even from his opponents, AlQ for us Westerners getting involved in a Moslem fight

One doesn't have to be brilliant to do this (no matter how much my ego may want to say otherwise :-) but this is plain reality -- for anyone to see who has read any amount of recent history and even more so for anyone who has read history over the past 100 years.

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In my humble opinion the only scenarios are:

The best outcome, yet this is a fantasty and nearly 0 possibility: the opposition wins, they are highly secular and friends of the West
/li>
The best scenario in REALITY :-) : Ghaddafi winsish - he still has rebels in Tobruk and he spends much of the rest of this decade fighting them and they fighting him. He then has no time to fight with anyone else and no time to sponsor terrorists as quite frankly he knows the terrorists may turn against him. AlQ is tied down in this fight and the rest of the Moslem world is also tied down here
The worst case scenario: the rebels win and it turns out that they are sponsored by AlQ who use Libya as their base for setting up a Caliphate
Other scenario: The West is bogged down in a war with Ghaddafi and with the rebels (who WILL turn on us)
Libya breaks up -- in any case this was an artificial country created by the Italians in 1911 when they conquered 3 of the Ottoman provinces of Cyrenica,Fazzan and Tripolitana and put them together as Libya. The country is split among tribes and many of these are seeking more integration with their Berber past instead of pretending to be Arabs. This would end up a Balkanised state, but on a much smaller scale -- probably 3-4 provinces and a vast unruled desert land.

This deserves a repeat IMO.......

33% (one THIRD) of the population is below 15.

50% (one HALF) is below 25

This is a young, UNDER-educated country.

Ghaddafi has not been like Bahrain or Tunisia or Egypt or Syria and educated his young — they are unable to compete in the modern world, and can only fight.....

..... so this means you have smart people who are aware they are useless. This is a tragedy and yet it means that they are ripe targets for Islamic terrorists to indoctrinate.”.....

Very interesting post Cronos....hopefully more will see and find it equally as interesting. No matter how we look at Libya it is likely not to play out well. The above I posted again as it is clearly revelant in how we might see most of Libya as to their ability to govern themsleves. Doesn’t look good in this respect. Rather like having to “parent” this country and who would want to be up for that task...and able to do so? What an awful mess. No wonder so many foreignors in their country...without them it couldn’t run.

Hopefully As Gates said...this nightmare will be handed over to Uk and France in just days as he indicated the plan was for. The faster we are out of there the better...if indeed we can make a clean break.