Bashar Assad and Muammar Qaddafi look like surviving the "Arab Spring" revolts against them. Neither is buckling under the various batteries of US and Western pressure. Assad has begun regaining control of his country, while all five of Qaddafi's brigades have survived NATO pounding intact. To break the impasse, debkafile sources reveal that on the G8 sidelines, Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev closed a secret deal: Assad would stay and Qaddafi must go.

Combat in Libya is winding down. debkafile's exclusive sources report that Muammar Qaddafi and the rebel commanders are close to a series of accords for ending the war after two weeks of secret talks. Fighting on the ground has receded to small pockets where a few rebel chiefs are still holding out, while the primary battlefields of Misrata, Brega and Ajdabia have fallen silent.
NATO warplanes again pounded Tripoli Wednesday night May 25 still hoping to eliminate Qaddafi and win the war.

Despite Obama saying "Time is against Qaddafi" the reality is that time is against NATO as rebel commanders come close to a deal with Qaddafi on ending the war and a nice slice of oil revenue.

NATO's lingering two-month campaign in Libya is whittling down Muammar Qaddafi's strength but also sapping its own. debkafile's military sources report that Washington and NATO HQ suspect Qaddafi is now getting early warning of incoming coalition strikes from advanced electronic devices newly installed at a foreign embassy in Tripoli. The fact remains that without substantial US military input NATO's European members cannot break Qaddafi's strength. Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf are taking note.

The Libyan war took a dangerous turn with the killing of Saif al-Arab, 29, the youngest of Muammar Qaddafi's six sons, and three of his grandsons by a NATO air strike in Tripoli Saturday night, April 30.  Muammar and his wife were present in the targeted villa but unhurt. NATO has not confirmed this report. debkafile: The Libyan ruler's resolve to fight the Western alliance will be strengthened. He is expected to start seeking out NATO targets inside and outside Libya.

Hours after US and British figures called for "the head of the snake" in Libya to be cut off, NATO warplanes early Monday, April 25, pulverized a building in Muammar Qaddafi's Bab al-Aziziyah working compound in Tripoli, wrecking his offices and conference room. A government official called the strike an attempt on the Libyan ruler's life which coalition spokesmen did not deny. Qaddafi's whereabouts were not disclosed.
debkafile: NATO acted in frustration over Qaddafi's upper hand in the war.

Arms and military personnel are streaming to Libya. Thursday, April 21, President Barack Obama authorized two armed Predator drones for breaking the siege of Misratah, while British, French and Italian military officers headed for rebel headquarters in Benghazi, part of a military aid package from the US, Britain, France, Italy and Qatar. Muammar Qaddafi is restocking his arsenals with Chinese, Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian and Serbian hardware, along with combat personnel from East Europe and the former Yugoslavia.

Two months after Muammar Qaddafi's vow "to purge Libya, inch by inch, house by house, zenga by zenga," he is closer to making good on his boast than even he imagined.  With the US out of the military picture, NATO allies are short of warplanes for stopping Qaddafi's progress and are divided over their mission goal. At odds on how to go forward, they are dropping by the wayside as Qaddafi gains zenga after zenga in Misratah and Ajdabiyeh.

The Libyan war has reached a stalemate. Only two NATO members, France and Britain are left willing to carry on fighting for the rebels. Both are racing each other to be the first to quit.

Away from the cameras focusing on the African Union peacemaking delegation in Tripoli Sunday, April 10 headed by South African President Jacob Zuma, debkafile's exclusive intelligence sources disclose German Chancellor Angela Merkel's discreet but key role in the multinational thrust to broker an end to the Libyan war. Her emissary arrived quietly in the Libyan capital with NATO consent. After refusing to join the war effort against Qaddafi, she now spearheads the bid to end it.

While no one admits this, the military campaign to topple Muammar Qaddafi has stalled with no solution other than diplomacy. The first peace proposal has come from the coalition's target, Qaddafi himself.

Obama is seen in the Middle East and North Africa as quitting in the middle of popular turmoil in one Arab country after another leaving a trail of instability.

The London conference ended Tuesday, March 29 divided between the US and Britain in favor of arming the Libyan rebels and France and Italy against. Control passed to a “contact group” with the vague brief to map out Libya’s future. The Libyan conflict was thus relegated to the same uncertain fate as the other Arab uprisings, whose outcomes are unknowable. debkafile nevertheless discerns half a dozen fixed points, not all of them favorable, in the fog of uncertainty:

In his Libya address to Americans Tuesday, March 29, President Barack Obama failed to resolve inner contradictions in his strategy for US involvement in the Western campaign against Muammar Qaddafi:
“The United States would work with its allies to hasten the day when Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi leaves power, but would not use force to topple him." The US would “help the opposition” but play only a supporting role. In fact, the United States is sliding deeper into a third war in a Muslim country.

For the first time an international coalition has gone to war against a UN member which does not menace fellow-members but its own people.  It leaves US -  US   Saudi and US-Arab Gulf relations in bad shape.           The UN resolution's reference to "the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, including Benghazi" is easily interchangeable with the name of any other country and city by a Security Council majority. It is therefore a precedent that strikes fear in many capitals. .. .

Although the Western coalition has gone beyond just enforcing the no-fly zone, it has not crippled the pro-Qaddafi army or its ability to move large forces across long distances and keep its supply routes open.

Profound disagreements among three allies and within their administrations are hampering progress in the Libyan operation. NATO and Arab props crumple.

In response to coalition air strikes, Qaddafi has adopted the tactic of embedding his forces within key rebel-held cities transforming his opponents into human shields for his army.

Four days after the Western-Arab coalition decided Saturday, March 19 to enforce a no fly zone over Libya, only six Western warplanes - American, British, Canadian and French - are in the sky at any one time, debkafile's military sources disclose. This is barely enough for a no-fly zone just over Benghazi. And so the anti-Qaddafi operation has run out of steam, slowed also by the falling-out between Washington, London and Paris over its nature and goals and the fading away of the Arab component.

debkafile's sources report the claim that Libya's integrated air defense systems were knocked out by Saturday's US-UK-French bombardment was overstated. Muammar Qaddafi had removed his sophisticated hardware - Russian-made SA-5 missiles which can hit medium or high-flying aircraft and his shoulder-launched K38 Igla9 (SA-18) missiles mounted on Italian Ivaco trucks - to hideouts in the south.
The Western-Arab coalition is split over Qaddafi's removal as endgame, while Arab League Secretary Amr Mussa has already criticized the air strikes.