The reporting about Gaddafi sounds familiar. Like international outcasts before him (Saddam, Milosevic) he is supposed to be without supporters. But as we were wrong with those people it looks like we may be wrong with Gaddafi.

For a long time it looked like the fall of Gaddafi was imminent. Even his tribesmen seemed reluctant to defend him. But when the rebels were about to conquer Gaddafi's hometown Sirte that reluctance suddenly disappeared and Gaddafi launched a successful offensive.

So far I can only guess what happened but I suppose that somehow it became clear that a victory for the opposition tribes would mean revenge on those tribes who had supported Gaddafi through all those years.

Just days before Gaddafi and Chavez had called for negotiations. In this climate of tribal conflict that certainly would have been the best solution. It is a pity that the international community didn't support that initiative.

Instead we seem to make the classical error of taking sides in an ethnic conflict. There is absolutely no reason to suppose that the Eastern Libyans will be more liberal when we offer them power. The presence in their leadership of Libya's former ministers of justice and interior doesn't bode well. By supporting them we may simply be replacing one dictatorship with another.

The core of American democracy is not the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. It is somewhere in the tension between them. Similarly a multi-ethnic democracy is not about one group having all the power and the other being powerless but in a permanent give-and-take tension between them.