Libya on glide-path into the unknown

Muammar Gaddafi, the man with the golden gun, was hiding in a drainage ditch until he was found, wounded and then possibly summarily executed.

It was a brutal end for a man who peddled in brutality for more than four decades. And one bleating with irony. Eight years ago it was Saddam Hussein who was found in what the Americans called a “spider hole”, hiding in a farm in his home district.

He was pulled from his cement pod with tousled hair, subjected to a televised de-licing and put on trial.It was this humiliation that finally persuaded Colonel Gaddafi to give up his program of WMD in return for an end to Western sanctions. He wanted to avoid the fate of Saddam at all costs and by doing so delivered Tony Blair and George W Bush a victory and a stash of WMD that in Iraq had eluded them.

How ironic that eight years later Gaddafi should encounter an even more grotesque end.

There must be many people in London, Washington or Rome who are relieved that the Libyan leader will now not be put on the stand, able to tell his side of the story of how the west courted him.

In Damascus they will be reminded that in this year of revolutions the slippers of peaceful post- iron rule retirement are not really an option.

The Assad regime will surely cling to power with greater tenacity, because it will fear the worst. The region is always full of unintended consequences.

The capture of Saddam Hussein did not end the insurgency in Iraq. The worst was still to come. Even with Gaddafi dead Libya will surely not be on a glide-path to stability and democracy. The next chapter depends on too many known unknowns.

Follow @mattfrei on Twitter.