By Mouin Rabbani, jadaliyya, February 26, 2011

....In contrast to Tunisia or Egypt, the Libyan people will not be required to engage in a further series of mass demonstrations against the new-old regime because there will be no one left to demonstrate against. Rather, the Libyan people will have a unique opportunity to speedily establish a new constitutional order and associated institutions that remove the security establishment from the apex of the power structure, and ram these down the generals’ throats.

The abiding weakness if not absence of Libyan institutions to mediate conflicts and prevent new divisions from turning violent of course also means it can all go horribly wrong. Nevertheless, there are reasonable causes for optimism....

On the other side of the ledger Libya is and will remain a rentier state, and such entities have a tradition of producing absolutism and the means to keep their populations quiescent. But that is precisely why the Libyan case is of such significance. It is not Syria or Morocco, but rather the “Kuwait” of the Maghreb....