'Fighters need to organise their forces to beat entrenched Gaddafi regime'

COMMENTARY: The past 10 days have shown us that Libya is much more divided than Western governments had hoped.

There is no doubt that the coalition air strikes have severely degraded the military machine of Gaddafi. His air defences and command-and-control has been destroyed and he now lacks the capability to attack the rebel-held city of Benghazi.

But history shows us that air power alone will fail to dislodge the colonel.

In Iraq, the United States imposed one of the most stringent economic sanction regimes against Saddam and enforced two no-fly zones from 1991 to 2003 to protect the Kurds and Shias in the south who had risen against him during the Kuwaiti war.

But, in the end, it took more than 200,000 Allied soldiers invading Iraq to get rid of Saddam. Gaddafi is not as powerful but he is deeply entrenched throughout Libya. He has a limited but potent base of support including dozens of tribal commanders, fiercely loyal revolutionary committees that have running towns and cities for 30 years, and two teams of special forces led by his sons. All have been very effective in suppressing the nascent democratic rebellion and are willing to fight and kill for him.

It is concerning that Gaddafi's forces inserted themselves into rebel-held cities across Libya last week, and it will take boots on the ground fighting a long, bloody, guerrilla war to ensure he is defeated. Civilians will become targets.

The big question is whether the rebels can organise and co-ordinate their actions to create a military force able to take on Gaddafi and capitalise on the damage wreaked by the western jets. So far the jury is still out. This is a bottom-up movement that burst into play without a well-organised leadership and without institutional support. It was spontaneous and even the military elements who defected have not brought the arms, infrastructure and organisation necessary to form a critical mass that will make the difference in this civil war.

There is a real danger that a stalemate will emerge in Libya in which Gaddafi and his thugs remain in power around Tripoli in the west of the country and the rebels will hold the east, around Benghazi.

This would be the worst of all worlds as the fighting will bring ruin to the country and the West will continue to be involved shoring up the opposition.

However, Cameron, Sarkozy and Obama were placed in a Catch-22 situation. If they had not taken action there would have been a bloodbath in Benghazi.

The writer is professor of Middle East International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science