Why Gaddafi Has Survived Libya's Rebellion - Vivienne Walt

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2059233,00.html

Though the war is not yet over, Libyans are already debating how Gaddafi's foes had managed to so overestimate the power of the revolt. Rebel leaders and Western governments, say some, badly misjudged Gaddafi's ability to survive — an exercise, perhaps, in wishful thinking. Sandwiched between Tunisia and Egypt, where peaceful uprisings had dispatched dictators, Gaddafi, who had ruled far longer than his neighbors, seemed to be the obvious next target. Saif and other key figures have admitted that the regime was badly caught off guard, and took a while to set their military strategy. Once they did, however, their battlefield prowess easily outmatched the rebels. "The West's interpretation was very, very stupid," says Mustafa Fetouri, director of the M.B.A. program at the Academy of Graduate Studies in Tripoli, who spent decades living in Europe. "They just gambled on the wrong thing, and made a huge, stupid mistake."