Nato's intervention in Libya is a threat to the Arab revolution, says Seumas Milne, but the forces that have been unleashed in the region won't be turned back so easily.

There are real and important differences between the attack on Iraq and NATO's war in Libya: what they have in common is the manipulation used to justify them and demonise critics. 

Gadaffi's tyrannical regime has been brought down by foreign intervention. But, asks Patrick Cockburn, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, will a war thought to be over burst into flames again, with foreign allies seen as foreign occupiers?

The old rulers will not be missed if and when they depart. The decisive issues – genuinely democratic and popular regimes across the Arab world, the exclusion of great power interference in the region -- and justice for the Palestinian people -- remain in the balance.

If this is how the rebels behave today, when it is much in their interests to make a show of unity, how will they act once they are installed in power in Tripoli? But NATO's sole policy is to do just that.

With 85 civilians killed in the latest NATO air attack, most of them women and children, NATO cannot hide any longer that it has turned its UN mandate to "protect civilians" into a war of terror bombing that is killing them.

David Cameron was a leader under domestic pressure and craving a foreign policy coup. At a time when the war in Afghanistan was wretched, Libya seemed a quick win.

Foreign governments are rushing to recognise the mysterious self-appointed group in Benghazi as leaders of Libya in the hope of commercial concessions and a carve-up of the oilfields, says Patrick Cockburn.

Stopping the bombing in Libya is as important as withdrawing the troops from Afghanistan, ending the occupation of Iraq, and bringing to a close the "war on terror" waged by the US and its allies for the past ten years.

Any moves towards a diplomatic solution in Libya would be welcome, but one thing is for sure, for them to have any chance of success the NATO bombardment will have to end.

Israel's attack on Lebanon in 2006 rates as history's most ill-thought out air war, until this year when France and Britain decided to overthrow Colonel Gaddafi.

NATO's commanders are still hoping that a lucky bomb may kill Gaddafi, but to date the staying power has been with the Libyan leader, whereas it is the NATO powers who are fighting among themselves.

For three months French and British fighter jets have been bombarding Tripoli, trying to kill Gadaffi; now the French want to stop the military action and get him sat at the negotiating table.

Nato is out of control, says Dennis Kucinich, using a UN mandate allowing for protection of civilians as the flimsy pretext for an unauthorised mission of regime change through massive violence.

Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan have been "won", nor will they ever be, but here are western powers again seizing control of an Arab country by main force with no clue as to how it should be governed.

Remembering iraqi "babies ripped from incubators" and the Gulf of Tonkin attack that never happened in Vietnam, were the media sceptical about claims that Gadaffi issued troops with viagra and told them to use rape as a terror weapon? Not a hope.