> Oh well the CIA and Al Qaeda are comrades again just like old times.
It could be that the U.S. has learned one lesson on blowback after the first Afghan war. They seem pretty adamant about not providing weapons to the opposition, running against Achcar's call.
I'm hardly an authority, but it would seem like there will be a period where the CIA/Mi6 spot finer-grained air assaults, and train the rebels in conventional war tactics.
Clearly, there'll will be a parallel wait to see what comes of the recent defections. There isn't any reliable information about what percentage of Gadaffi's army is mercenary in nature, so it's hard to predict how top-level ministerial defections will affect military command, and then the troops. There'll be a big difference between whether Gadaffi's army stands down, disperses into guerilla formations or is beaten.
The bigger dangers I see are the revival of Nazi-style rat lines, so ably analyzed by Christopher Simpson, and the lessons the U.S. learned (or didn't) from demobilizing the Iraqi army in 2003. You can see the impact in Egypt by reading @3arabawy's tweet for a short length of time, lord know what Libya will bring.
Charles