I’ve been putting off this post, waiting for the Libyan revolution to reach some kind of decisive conclusion to its military phase. But it looks like that could take a while: the game of “Where’s Muammar” may go on for a while, and in the worst case scenario his loyalists could mount a prolonged insurgency. But despite that it’s pretty clear that the rebel forces are going to take some sort of tenuous command over the country. So it’s worth looking back on the war for Libya, and NATO’s participation in it.

When Tripoli fell to the rebel forces, I was glued to Al Jazeera as one neighborhood after another fell, and various Gaddafi family members were captured by the rebel army (or not). In some ways, the moment was much like the fall of Mubarak, which I memorialized in rather sentimental and grandiose fashion. But I find my feelings about Libya to be a bit more complicated.

That’s not just because the next steps for the Libyan rebels are so unclear, nor only because the “Transitional National Council” currently moving into Tripoli is stuffed full of dodgy former-regime elements, nor just because of the unpleasant undercurrent of racism among some of the revolution’s supporters. One of the major things that sets Libya apart from what happened in Egypt — aside from the far greater level of death and destruction, obviously — is that the activists in Tahrir Square were clearly making their revolution against the preferences the United States, the Arab despots, and the rest of the imperialist power structure; the US only turned on Mubarak when it became clear that his position was untenable. In Libya, by contrast, the rebels have come to power backed by six months of relentless NATO bombing raids.