So What Happens After We Impose a No-Fly Zone?

Talk of imposing a no-fly zone miss a couple points. One it won't affect Khaddafi's forces that much given the minor use of jet fighters and the loyalist superiority in armored vehicles and heavy artillery; and two, it won't be as difficult as critics of the zone say because we don't actually have to wage an air campaign to destroy ground-based air defenses.

But there is a bigger point that the debate is missing: what comes after we impose a no-fly zone?

There seems to be a major assumption that if we impose a no-fly zone, a major advantage of the loyalists will be eliminated, thus paving the way for a rebel victory. What if that assumption is way off?

What if the stalemate continues? That's actually the best case since we could at least back out of the no-fly zone after we help the rebels set up their own air defenses. The real problem comes if the loyalists start a counter-offensive into the eastern rebel zone and start pushing the rebels back. Do we watch our no-fly zone become pointless as loyalist ground units put down the rebels?

Or do we then feel compelled to intervene with ground forces to save the dying rebel cause, perhaps replacing the defeated rebels as the main fighting force?

If the West is going to intervene on the ground eventually, best to do it now while there are a lot of rebel fighters out there to turn over captured territory to. Send in a West European division of several brigades drawn from Spain, France, Italy, and Germany (with an American Army or Marine battalion task force in support) to capture Tripoli and support rebels in clamping down on that city. Once Tripoli is in rebel hands, I don't think that the loyalists will be able to sustain resistance in the Sirte region or the southwest for very long at all.

Assuming the rebels will win as the underlying assumption of a Western (i.e., an American-dominated) no-fly zone is a mistake.