Patrick Mercer: The end may be nigh for monster Gaddafi, but it could be a slow and painful process

It looks as though the West’s much criticised decision to wage war against this dictator has been vindicated and that the denouement is going to be in the hands of the Libyan people and their nascent democracy rather than at the point of a French or British bayonet.

But, while the media shouts “the end is nigh”, we must ask just what that end will look like, what will replace Gaddafi’s apparatus and whether we should have intervened at all.

First, don’t under-estimate Muammar Gaddafi’s guile. He’s survived before – he was even the darling of the West at one time – and he will be hard to nail, particularly in the streets and alleys of his capital. He’s promised martyrdom and even if the rebels cut water and power and prevent ammunition getting to the last few loyalists and even if Nato answers the call for more precision attacks by aircraft and Apaches, the fighting could still be bitter.

If the reports are accurate and many of the Colonel’s men are deserting, the tactical lessons of Baghdad and Basra need to be remembered – for small numbers of determined fighters can inflict disproportionate damage in these surroundings. And it might not be quick. Nothing has been rapid in the events of the last six months, so why should the last battle be clean and clinical? But then the question arises, what should happen to Gaddafi once he has left his former country?

Any country that is a member of the International Criminal Court will be forced to extradite him to The Hague to face justice. That rules out the likely options of Venezuela and South Africa, leaving only pariah Zimbabwe as the sole, viable option.

There is, of course, the apparently canny plan that our Government and the French have been suggesting over the past weeks – to exile him internally to, say, the southern deserts and drop demands for a trial.

Now, that may be just the thing to encourage him and his henchmen to leave with less bloodshed, but doesn’t it smack all too much of a Whitehall or Quai D’Orsay plan that’s high on stratagem but light on empathy? Neat though the solution sounds, can the monster be allowed to live among the people he’s wronged? Who will guard him? Can his later survival be guaranteed and the West’s word be honoured? No, this isn’t practical and it sounds too much like the deal that scandalously freed the Lockerbie bomber.

In reality, though, Muammar Gaddafi’s future will depend upon his immediate survival. I suspect that he’s demented enough to shout one, last, gory, suicidal hurrah as his foes close in and that no trial will be necessary. What does the future government look like, though? While the NTC has drawn up plans that try to avoid the mistakes that were made when Saddam Hussein fell in Iraq, the implementation will not be easy.

The NTC is composed largely of Easterners from Benghazi, which doesn’t contain significant numbers of Berber rebels from the Nafusa mountains, but they claim that suggestions about internal divisions are exaggerated.

Certainly, they do not face Iraq’s curse of rival Sunni, Shia and Kurds, but what of the deeply sinister assassination of General Younes, who was killed soon after he defected from Gaddafi to the rebels? Then there is the unknown quantity of Islamist groups; may we unwittingly have aided and abetted people who will turn out to be worse than the thugs they supplanted? We did in Afghanistan.

Lastly, were we right to intervene? I was the first Tory to call for a no-fly zone, and if the United Nations had not dithered, the whole affair might have been less bloody and protracted.

Similarly, if vital warships and aircraft had not just been axed, we could have been more effective, yet the use of helicopters, advisers and special forces has worked well and the decision to assist the NTC to design a post-war plan and send ministers to help implement it will act as a sound template.

Then follows the big question, where next? President Bashar Assad in Syria will be watching what happens closely and if he sees Iraqi-style anarchy follow “victory”, he will dig in. And, of course, muscular, well-supported Syria is no Libya, but if its people see justice, order and a balanced government rise from the ashes and a new pattern for Arab democracy emerge that takes control of its own destiny, then our efforts will have been worthwhile.

Patrick Mercer is a former soldier and the Conservative MP for Newark.