Tentative optimism and crossed fingers

So ... bar the shouting, the game appears to be up for Colonel Qadaffi and his régime as I start my day.

Now to see what comes next.

I remember, nervously, how joyously my younger selves welcomed the success of rebel forces in (for example) Zimbabwe and Eritrea, and the corresponding fall of odious systems. Neither Zimbabwe nor Eritrea is today a good advertisement for such transitions.

The transitional governing committee in Benghazi looks promising; but its power depends upon an ad hoc coalition of many, very disparate, factions with wildly different agendas. If that alliance now flies apart in the centrifuge of victory, the model for the future may not be Zimbabwe or Eritrea (nor even the more hopeful ones which do exist) but fragmented and desperate Somalia.

My fingers are firmly crossed. As the Arab Awakening proceeds, it's not just Libya that badly needs a good outcome.