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George W. Bush deserves credit for disarming Libya of all that nuke material at the time of the Iraq War, but then even Bush's point-man on Libya says that the administration took it's eye off Libya as the troubles in Iraq began mounting. In 2006, Bush's guy over there quit his job because he really didn't have anything to do because there was no policy regarding Libya when it came to advancing democracy.

The Bush deal in effect allowed Gaddafi a tighter rein over his people because sanctions on him had been lifted or eased, and he was made to be legitimized by the Bush administration as a figure who was "with us" and "not against us" now because that's the black and white mentality of the Bush years showing.

In contrast, the Obama administration had been talking with the Gaddafi father and son about making moves to advance democracy, moves to acquire more material from them like enriched uranium, and over the past couple years, the Gaddafi's whined about how the Bush administration said it was going to reward him with economic aid increases and that they'd have to see some of that before they do anything for Obama. Finally the Obama administration got annoyed with them in recent months and wasn't returning their calls, meanwhile things on the street in Libya were cooking up because like in Egypt, Tunisia and everywhere else, these people see that there is an opportunity for them take their country back because the old man is crazy and nearing his end and they really don't want his son.

This is about as intense and theatrical a series of days happening right now in Libya when it comes to pure political theatre. Different rebel groups are having to stop and communicate and co-ordinate this whole thing. They represent different factions but they're in the process of negotiating how to carry forward with the ultimate goal of removing Gaddafi and recognizing some kind of provisional authority, most likely the one set up by the former members of gov't who all resigned from Gaddafi on the same day last week so that the provisional authority can meet the demands of the opposition groups, which is to advance democracy for their people.

Obama's reaction has been fairly clear: he has totally dismissed the Gadaffis and has long since stopped talking with them, which is making particularly the son shit in his pants because he's getting his news from Obama, his surrogates, the UN and the EU in particular from having to watch tv. Obama levied the greatest one-day sanction of another country in US history and in the hours after he made that announcement, it was no coincidence that the EU and the rest of the world did the same thing.

Obama is essentially working every angle in order to facilitate the revolution without actually causing the deaths of anyone through his own actions. The US has said they have aid for the opposition on standby, but I think it's a move meant to put pressure on Gadaffi's son to help smoother-over this thing because he knows his dad is toast. They're going to good-cop/bad-cop this guy and he's going to accept what we put forward for him. Obama has no allegiance to these two clowns and is in the process of trying to work this out by giving incentives for Gadaffi's military people to abandon him as so many have already done.

Richard Engel's reporting from the street in Libya has been strong, and talking with one pocket of people he was asking them about if they thought they could pull it off or not and they responded, "We want to do it faster than Egypt!" as if they were playing it out like it's a friendly competition.

Some rebel groups want the US to impose the no-fly-zone, which would mean bombing their country in order to take away satellite communications, while the others are adamantly against that since to impose the no-fly-zone it would 1) play into the hands of Gadaffi and he uses it to rally his supporters that the west is coming to take over, 2) communications between the US and Libya and between Libya and it's own military would take a huge hit and opposition leaders are saying they want to preserve as much of their country as possible so a peaceful aftermath of the overthrowing of Gadaffi can flow smoothly.

Robert Gates is against a no-fly-zone so I don't see it happening, and for the reasons above it just doesn't make sense to have to attack these people if their revolution is expressing deep reservations about US interference and the perception-changes that would occur due to it.