It is interesting to watch the winds of change, as it were, blowing through the Middle East and how all the different leaders deal with it. The Libyan response has probably been the most predictable – bringing in plane loads of mercenaries allegedly from African countries, and then strafe your own people with machine gunfire killing literally hundreds. The bottom line is that that kind of approach generally works, and while the recent events may make me look foolish in a few days’ time, I would not be surprised by using outright violence, Col Gadhafi survives as leader of Libya.

He is well aware of the pattern that once you follow the instructions and pleas of the rest of the world to stop killing your own people that they gather in increasing numbers, until you are forced to resign as has happened in the other countries. It is amazing, and very sadly so, that while Tripoli burns, Gadhafi still has a lot of credibility in the African Union.