It's a question without a firm answer. The view from Benghazi:
[W]hatever the differences from one end of country to the other, people in Benghazi emphatically believe that this will not become a civil war. They see their enemy as a mafia state run by very few with a great deal of power and little real support. The tribal divisions have been exaggerated, they say, and, unlike Iraq, the population is not divided by major fault lines of either sectarian or ethnic differences that can be exploited. Nor are any of Libya's neighbors in a position to play the complicating role that, say, Iran did in Iraq.
Well, we'll see soon enough.
(Photo: Libyan rebels walk past a caricature of Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi painted on a wall in Benghazi on March 25, 2011. By Patrick Baz/AFP/Getty Images)