Qaddafi's Downfall Could Bring Chaos to Libya - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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Colonel Qaddafi spent the last 40 years hollowing out every single institution that might challenge his authority
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Optimists hope that the opposition’s resolve persists; pessimists worry that unity will last only until Colonel Qaddafi is gone, and that a bloody witch hunt will ensue afterward.
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Some domestic and exiled intellectuals hope that Libya can resurrect the pluralistic society envisioned by the 1951 Constitution, though without a monarch.
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in terms of whether Libyans are primed for Al Qaeda’s narrative, I don’t think that’s as ominous as some might suspect
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“We want one country — there is no Islamic emirate or Al Qaeda anywhere,” Mr. Abud al-Jeleil told Al Jazeera. “Our only goal is to liberate Libya from this regime and to allow the people to choose the government that they want.”
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Experts also believe Colonel Qaddafi used the threat of a Muslim takeover the way many Arab leaders did — exaggerating the menace to win sympathy from a United States prone to seeing Islamic revolutions under every Koran.
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the experience of eastern Libya, where ad-hoc committees have taken control of local affairs, is a strikingly positive sign
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I don’t think that any movement is in the position, in terms of resources and ideological power, to monopolize the political process