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[MetalSlimeHunt]

Apparently, his youngest son switched sides and was leading an element of rebels.

And this is why you don't leave your children to die when your evil empire collapses around you. Now Gaddafi has at least one vengeance-seeking son out to get him.

[mainiac]

CNN is reporting that the rebels have withdrawn a bit to regroup for the final push. Pro-Qaddafi forces still hold a military barracks, a hospital and the hotel where the international journalists are staying. That could get really ugly if he tries to use them as hostages to ensure a safe departure. Since the rebels have assumedly captured the airport and military airfields in Tripoli (and the harbor), he really doesn't have a way out.

What I would be most worried about is him leaving by ground, going to chad in the south.  There are a number of African dictatorships which he has supported over the years and I expect they will welcome him and whatever bits of his personal fortune he is able to escape with.

[RedKing]

CNN is reporting that the rebels have withdrawn a bit to regroup for the final push. Pro-Qaddafi forces still hold a military barracks, a hospital and the hotel where the international journalists are staying. That could get really ugly if he tries to use them as hostages to ensure a safe departure. Since the rebels have assumedly captured the airport and military airfields in Tripoli (and the harbor), he really doesn't have a way out.

What I would be most worried about is him leaving by ground, going to chad in the south.  There are a number of African dictatorships which he has supported over the years and I expect they will welcome him and whatever bits of his personal fortune he is able to escape with.

Covertly? maybe.
Publicly? Only Best Korea would be willing to take that kind of hit to their international reputation. Qaddafi is persona non grata the world over. To harbor him is to invite the same international scorn that is currently aimed at him. Oh, and don't forget that Chad fought (and largely won) a war with Libya back in the 80's. He's still pretty unpopular down there. Plus, fleeing to Chad means tracking through hundreds of kilometers of rebel-held territory with only a few routes that don't involve going through utterly barren desert. And those routes will be held and tightly controlled. And he can't go to Tunisia or Egypt, because both have recently toppled their own dictators.

Short version? He's up shit creek. Assad would do well to take notice, considering how he's alienating neighbors (and potential havens) like Turkey and Iraq.

@MSH: I'm not nearly as optimistic. I shared in the irrational optimism early on, when protests were breaking out all over and Tunisia and Egypt were recently "liberated". But look at the Arabian Peninsula now. Yemen is the only county with any modicum of success, and Saleh is only in medical exile. There are still plans for him to return, with Saudi assistance if necessary. The geopolitics are such that the Sunni nations in the region are going to band together to prevent any kind of Shi'ite movement from being successful. The same as European kingdoms in 1848 who might have been natural rivals cooperated to quash liberal uprisings because they feared that if it succeeded in one place, it would spread everywhere.

[scriver]

And yet look at us now. It did spread everywhere. Just didn't happen over night.

As for Qadaffi's (are we spelling it that way now?) "friends", he has fucked almost every country in the world over at least once during his reign. Most of his "friends" are merely old hostiles who saw some benefit in working with him for the moment. Without his nation, there's not much he can do for people. I guess it's all comes down to whether whatever amount of money he can bring to the table outweighs the international goodwill they can earn from giving him up.

Also, it wouldn't surprise me the least if he fled to Italy and from there to somewhere else, rather than through Rebel country. Berlusconi was one of the few friends he had, that I know of at least.

[Sheb]

And the Italians are now trying to picture themselves as the rebel's friends. And they offer their help to get the oil running again....

Do you have any sources about Qaddqfi's son leading a rebel unit? I cannot find anything about it.

[RedKing]

And yet look at us now. It did spread everywhere. Just didn't happen over night.

Oh, I'm not saying that it'll never happen. Just that this instance isn't "the beginning of the end for autocracy in the Middle East". It's not even the end of the beginning of the end. When Assad goes in Syria, that'll wrap up the first round. Remember, it took 50+ years and some major wars to push most of the European monarchies into constitutional monarchies. It took even longer for some of them to dispense with monarchy altogether.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Progress is progress, even if it doesn't all come at once, so I'm not complaining. The truth is that, looking at history and the development of the world over the last few centuries, the number of oppressive and autocratic nations is decreasing. The vast majority of North and South America's nations ended up eventually becoming democracies, albeit ones with varying levels of corruption. Western Europe has had it's democratic revolutions finished for a long time now. Eastern Europe followed with the dissolution of the USSR not but 20 years ago. Out of all three continents, what is there left for autocracy? Cuba and Belarus? Venezuela, if you stretch the definition a bit? That's it. And now we have the Arab Spring revolutions and reforms happening. Democracies rarely (if ever) transition into Autocracies, but the reverse isn't true.

Anyway, we don't know for sure that Syria will be the end of this. The protests in Iran might be rekindled by Libya and Syria falling.

[Nadaka]

Election is probably the most popular way to install a dictator, though armed revolution might come first. Most of the times, a democracy takes a few cycles before you can say it is working.

[RedKing]

Progress is progress, even if it doesn't all come at once, so I'm not complaining. The truth is that, looking at history and the development of the world over the last few centuries, the number of oppressive and autocratic nations is decreasing. The vast majority of North and South America's nations ended up eventually becoming democracies, albeit ones with varying levels of corruption. Western Europe has had it's democratic revolutions finished for a long time now. Eastern Europe followed with the dissolution of the USSR not but 20 years ago. Out of all three continents, what is there left for autocracy? Cuba and Belarus? Venezuela, if you stretch the definition a bit? That's it. And now we have the Arab Spring revolutions and reforms happening. Democracies rarely (if ever) transition into Autocracies, but the reverse isn't true.

Anyway, we don't know for sure that Syria will be the end of this. The protests in Iran might be rekindled by Libya and Syria falling.

Au contraire. Failed democracies can and do transition (rather abruptly sometimes) to autocracy.

Weimar Germany -> Nazi Germany being the most prominent example, but also:
Chile (Allende -> Pinochet)
Pakistan (multiple times)
Turkey (multiple times)
China (from ROC to KMT/CCP, although it can be argued that even Sun Yat-sen's Republic of China wasn't all that much of a democracy. If you do think it was democratic, then it happened twice in quick succession: Sun Yat-sen->Yuan Shikai, then the second time when the Chinese Civil War ended with the KMT exile to Taiwan)
Iran (Mossadegh -> Shah Reza Pahlavi)
Argentina (multiple times)
Guatemala (1954)
Greece (1936, 1967)
Cuba (multiple times)
Paraguay (1954)
Venezuela (1948)
Syria (1949)
Brazil (1937)
Spain (1936)
South Vietnam (multiple times)
Burma (1962)
Dominican Republic (1962)
South Korea (1961)


I could go on, but really....there have been plenty of democracies that failed and returned to an autocratic state thanks to coups. In some cases, the coups were welcomed by the general population (I'm thinking especially of the ones in Turkey and Pakistan).

I wish I could be more optimistic, but even in the current situation -- look at Egypt. It's a dictatorial regime replaced by...a military junta. Not a whole lot of progress made there in terms of democracy.
 

[counting]

In time may be Egypt will become true democracy. The KMT autocracy last for 50 years before the actual general election elected a president with different party DPP in 2000 and marching toward democracy. It takes a long time for people to really spoken their voices. So maybe if there is no WWII (or don't get involved) and so many civil wars (there were more than one, it's only the last one made the current situation of separate regimes makes people remember it), China may not revert (or you could say stay) in autocracy till now. It might bring real democracy say 50 years after the establishment of ROC (it is in the 1960s).

[ChairmanPoo]

Usually there is  a more or less sizeable segment of the population that supports the coup/dictatorship. Which is likely the key behind the successful ones. It's not like some general/colonel/major/Mecanographer sergent just decides one day to do a coup, and then follows through.

[RedKing]

Usually there is  a more or less sizeable segment of the population that supports the coup/dictatorship. Which is likely the key behind the successful ones. It's not like some general/colonel/major/Mecanographer sergent just decides one day to do a coup, and then follows through.

Except that all you really need is the segment of the population that has guns (i.e. the military). Look at Burma.

There will always be some segment of the population that supports a coup because the target is too fascist/Communist/bourgeois/decadent/whatever. But broadly popular support is hardly a prerequisite.

[Siquo]

As for Qadaffi's (are we spelling it that way now?)

Yeah, that way it looks like he's in league with Al Qaeda and IraQ. 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Anyway, WTF Chavez? You've been losing it since you won, but really? EVEN BEST KOREA isn't that stupid.

[Bouchart]

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/08/22/libyan-draft-constitution-sharia-is-principal-source-of-legislation/

And now for the Islamists to take over.

[PTTG??]

Parts of the draft Constitution allay those fears, while others exacerbate them.

I'm going to keep my cool for the time being. This is an unofficial draft.