Without a NoFlyZone, would Libya look like what Syria is now?

Right now the Syrian Air Force is bombing the streets of Aleppo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWDCgclTdqk&feature=youtu.be

Is that what Benghazi's fate would have been if NATO had not intervened? Would the Libyan rebels have been crushed? given much of that country is desert so the rebels couldnt rely so much on retreating into the countryside to wage a guerilla war, would Gaddafi have won quickly, or faced a protracted insurgency in the cities?
 

Cook

Banned
Is that what Benghazi's fate would have been if NATO had not intervened? Would the Libyan rebels have been crushed? given much of that country is desert so the rebels couldnt rely so much on retreating into the countryside to wage a guerilla war, would Gaddafi have won quickly, or faced a protracted insurgency in the cities?

Yes, Benghazi would have been flattened, as would each successive city in Cyrenaica that tried to hold out. The rebels would have either been crushed or fled into Egypt, and probably rather quickly.
 
Massacres in major opposition strongholds like Misrata and Benghazi. Maybe some rebel holdouts in a couple of places (the Nafusa mountains and maybe even some of those cities that are retaken by the loyalists - after all rebel forces in Zawiya were there biding their time after the city was retaken chucked out the Loyalists when the rebels got close enough to provide support). Overall though Libya just isn't made for a guerrilla campaign. A Free Syrian Army equivalent would find it much more difficult to hold out in the deserts of Libya than it would in Syria.

Summarised - Libya would be a very unpleasant business and Colonel Nutbag would take disturbuing pleasure in massacring his opponents and purging from his power structure anyone whose loyalty is suspect.
 
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