Now that Gadhafi is gone . . .

LITTLE ROCK — Now comes the hard part.

The cycle of creative destruction that began with isolated uprisings last spring and took a decisive turn when U.S. and European forces threw in with Libyan rebels the following month reached a milestone Thursday with the news that deposed Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi had been smoked out of hiding and killed near his hometown of Sirte.

While it has been months since forces loyal to Gadhafi exerted any influence over the country’s affairs, leaders of the loose-knit coalition that has served as Libya’s transitional government had declared his capture or death the prerequisite to the beginning of a process they say will lead to a general election for a national council sometime next year.

The key question for Libyans is no longer “Where is Gadhafi?” but “Who are his successors?” And how soon can they replace the wreckage of his despotic regime with the foundations of a sustainable democratic government?

President Barack Obama rolled the dice when he committed U.S. military support to what was then an inchoate coalition of rebel forces last March, just when a resurgent Gadhafi was on the verge of annihilating them. But the rebels took full advantage of that risky intervention, and stunned the world when their assault on Tripoli sent Gadhafi and his dwindling loyalists scurrying for cover just a few months later.

As in Iraq and Tunisia, the nature of the successor government that will eventually emerge from the stew of tribal leaders and committed Islamists that conspired to oust Gadhafi is hard to discern. The United States and Libya’s immediate neighbors are united in the hope that any democratic coalition will ultimately prove more stable than the autocracy it displaced. But now more than ever, the realization of that fond hope is squarely in the hands of the Libyan people.

KANSAS CITY STAR

Reports are conflicting on the final moments of the Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi. But as with the demise of so many tyrants down through history, his world—once expansive and subject to his whim—ultimately shrank until he was trapped like a criminal.

Rebel fighters closed in on his final redoubt in the coastal town of Sirte and Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril confirmed early Thursday that Gadhafi was dead. His defensive perimeter had been reduced to a neighborhood of a few buildings.

The news means another long-overdue account has been liquidated. First came the killing of Osama bin Laden, and now Gadhafi, whose record over the last few decades defined the phrase “rogue regime.”

He started wars, funneled weapons to terrorists, worked to amass stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. But after the September 11th, 2001, attacks and the fall of Saddam Hussein, he pulled back from his activities as a state sponsor of terrorism and abandoned his efforts to join the club of nuclear powers.

Yet his long arbitrary rule poisoned his relations with ordinary Libyans. When the popular rebellions of the Arab Spring broke out, he was—like Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak—one of the most vulnerable of the longtime Arab autocrats.

The denouement of the Gadhafi saga validated the decision of President Barack Obama to commit U.S. forces to the side of the rebels, with the initial aim of preventing a civilian massacre. But once Gadhafi’s air defenses were suppressed, the mission effectively expanded to overt rebel support. Most of the bombing missions were flown not by the U.S. but by warplanes from other NATO countries.

It’s highly doubtful that what happened in Libya can serve as a model for toppling internationally disruptive dictators in the future. Both the UN and the Arab League endorsed the imposition of a no-fly zone—a rare confluence of agreement from two normally fractious and indecisive bodies.

Now the page turns to the future. The world has been rid of the devil it knows, while the shape of what’s to come remains uncertain. The revolts that swept out of Tunisia, engulfed Egypt and Libya and now Syria are still young and take their form from the national contexts in which they occur.

In short, another power vacuum has opened in the Middle East and a new regime—that like Gadhafi, has access to significant oil reserves—is taking shape. It will take considerable luck and wise leadership for the rebels to keep their revolution from veering into the orgies of extremism that so often follow a dictator’s fall.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

The death of Moammar Gadhafi is the culmination of the remarkable eight-month revolt against his 42-year rule. But it is also a reminder that a new Libya is taking shape, a process in which the United States and its allies must play a constructive role.

Libyans are exulting in the definitive removal of the preening dictator and congratulating themselves on overthrowing him against what once seemed to be overwhelming odds. Their pride is understandable. Gadhafi wasn’t just an eccentric; he waged war on his own people and was a sponsor of terrorism. His overthrow was a blessing for the world as well as for Libya.

Of course, the rebels could not have succeeded without months of relentless NATO airstrikes. Tasked by the United Nations with establishing a no-fly zone to protect civilians, NATO countries pounded Gadhafi’s forces. In effect if not in name, NATO became the rebels’ ally.

We opposed the no-fly zone out of concern that it would lead to deeper U.S. military involvement in Libya, and because no one seemed able to explain why that country was more appropriate for intervention than many other nations ruled by autocrats.

We continue to believe, especially in the aftermath of the troubled interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, that it is essential for the president to carefully and honestly explain to the American people why and to what end the United States is using military force overseas. But it’s impossible to quarrel with the major consequence of the Libyan operation: the end of the Gadhafi regime.

The rebels have a long way to go before they can rest. Among the many challenges now facing Libya’s transitional government is to prevent bloodshed between pro- and anti-Gadhafi Libyans, and even among the competing factions that fought to overthrow the strongman. Although the situations aren’t identical, the strife in Iraq that followed the downfall of Saddam Hussein is an example of how the overthrow of a dictatorship can unleash latent enmities. If the new Libyan government is unable to quell such violence, outside peacekeepers may prove necessary.

A second and longer-term challenge is to establish a democratic and pluralistic society.

On Thursday, President Barack Obama said Libya faced a long and winding road to democracy. The United States and its allies can shorten that road by lending expertise to the designers of a new Libyan democracy. But both sides must be mindful that too close an association with Western powers could compromise a new Libyan government’s image of independence. Economic aid poses less of a problem.

If the United States, Britain and France share in the victory over Gadhafi, they also share in the responsibility to rebuild Libya.

The U.S. intervention in Libya isn’t comparable to the commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan. But our involvement there nevertheless created an obligation that survives Moammar Gadhafi.