Conclusion

Six months of inconclusive fighting gave way within a matter of days to an assault on Tripoli that unfolded at a breakneck pace.  By the night of Aug. 21, rebels surged into the city, meeting only sporadic resistance and setting off raucous street celebrations. Expectations grew that Colonel Qaddafi’s hold on power was crumbling as rebels overran his heavily fortified compound on Aug. 23 and finally established control after days of bloody urban street fighting.  The rebels struggled in the days that followed to restore order and services to Tripoli, while Colonel Qaddafi's whereabouts remained unknown.

The absence of the now fugitive Colonel Qaddafi and the growing influence of Islamists in Libya raises hard questions about the ultimate character of the government and society that will rise in place of Qaddafi's autocracy.  The United States and Libya’s new leaders say the Islamists, a well-organized group in a mostly moderate country, are sending signals that they are dedicated to democratic pluralism. They say there is no reason to doubt the Islamists’ sincerity.

But as in Egypt and Tunisia, the latest upheaval of the Arab Spring deposed a dictator who had suppressed hard-core Islamists, and there are some worrisome signs about what kind of government will follow.  It is far from clear where Libya will end up on a spectrum of possibilities that range from the Turkish model of democratic pluralism to the muddle of Egypt to, in the worst case, the theocracy of Shiite Iran or Sunni models like the Taliban or even Al Qaeda.