What chance of the UN approving a Libyan no-fly zone?

The UN Security Council is now discussing  a composite resolution that has a bit of the original French/British stuff in it (“demands the immediate impostion” of a No Fly Zone and deplores the use of mercernaries) and some of the overnight slightly stronger demands that surprised everyone coming from the US (supporting the use of “all necessary measures” to protect civilians – ie going beyond No Fly Zones and proposing something more like a No Drive Zone, trying to stop ground force movements by Col Gaddafi’s forces and trying to stop any sea bombardment of Benghazi by the regime). The composite also contains a nod towards the Russian call for a ceasefire though this could be in the form of taking note of the UN Secretary General’s demand for a ceasefire – fairly inconsequential if it’s written in those terms  in the final version.

Now comes the tricky bit. You need to get 9 votes on the Security Council and avoid a veto from one of the five permanent members (the US, UK, France, Russia and China). There is little likelihood of Russia and China voting for a resolution that looks a lot like the composite. So the best hope is probably that they abstain. Meanwhile, David Cameron  has been trying to find Arab allies who will contribute people and aircraft to this project to deflect criticism that it is in another Western incursion into the Arab world.  An Arab League spokesman has just said that two Arab countries are ready to help out.

The very latest from Whitehall is that they do not expect any sort of resolution at the UN until 10pm London time at the earliest. It could easily be later. This could still go any number of ways.

So military action to, say, bomb supply routes and roads that would hold up Col Gaddafi’s forces away from Benghazi could come within days … and then again might not.