Mohamed Eljarh is a UK-based Libyan academic researcher and political/social development activist. He is from the city of Tobruk in Eastern Libya. Follow on Twitter: @Eljarh. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Mohamed Eljarh.

By Mohamed Eljarh, Special to CNN

In less than 40 days, Libya is set to witness the first elections since the ouster of the late Moammar Gahdafi. But are the elections coming too early?

Post-conflict elections should mark the pinnacle point in the recovery and reconstruction of Libya. Libyans and the international community look at the election on June 19 as a milestone toward peace and democracy.

But some studies show history can paint a gloomy picture of elections held soon after bloody armed struggles, when political institutions may be weak or non-existent. FULL POST

Editor's Note: Isobel Coleman is a Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy, Director of the Civil Society, Markets, and Democracy Initiative. This blog post is reprinted with the permission of the Council on Foreign Relations.

By Isobel Coleman, CFR.org

Libya’s emergence from years of dictatorship is predictably a rocky one. The country is moving toward its first post-Gadhafi national elections next month, but the process is marked by considerable confusion and deep disagreements.

On Tuesday, Libyan candidates and voters began registering for June elections for a constituent assembly that will be tasked with writing a new constitution. However, a recent law restricting political parties has sparked some bewilderment.

Last week, the NTC banned political parties “based on religion or ethnicity or tribe,” but the implications are not clear. When the law was first announced, the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated party complained, “We don’t understand this law… it could mean nothing or it could mean that none of us could participate in the election.” FULL POST

Editor's Note: Barak Barfi is a research fellow at the New America Foundation.  You can read more from Barak Barfi at Project Syndicate and be sure to check it out on Facebook and Twitter.

By Barak Barfi, Project Syndicate

Although Libyans are now celebrating the first anniversary of the revolution that toppled Moammar Gadhafi, they are increasingly frustrated with their new leaders. Libyans complain that the interim government, known as the National Transitional Council (NTC), has not moved quickly enough to purge and prosecute senior Gadhafi officials, or to rein in the militias that overthrew his regime.

Though the NTC is dedicated to implementing Libyans’ demands, it lacks the technical capacity and time necessary to do so before the elections tentatively scheduled for this coming summer. Facing such constraints, it must concentrate on a small number of important initiatives, before turning power over to an elected government. FULL POST

By Tim Lister, CNN

Amid growing outrage over civilian casualties in Syria, there are ever more urgent calls to aid - or at least protect - the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad. There is renewed talk of creating safe havens and humanitarian corridors inside the country. And those demanding tougher measures are again asking why events in Syria should not prompt Libyan-style intervention by NATO and its Arab allies.

In Washington Tuesday, Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, said the United States "should consider all options, including arming the opposition. The blood-letting has got to stop."

So far, the international community's response to the violence in Syria has been limited. There has been diplomatic censure, with envoys withdrawn or "recalled for consultations," and Syrian ambassadors expelled from several Arab states. A growing raft of sanctions is draining the Syrian regime's coffers but only gradually sapping its strength. This is not a country that has relied on international trade for its survival. FULL POST

Editor's Note: Barak Barfi is a research fellow at the New America Foundation.  You can read more from Barak Barfi at Project Syndicate and be sure to check it out on Facebook and Twitter.

By Barak Barfi, Project Syndicate

TRIPOLI – With the creation of a new government, Libya’s leaders should finally be able to focus on organizing the transition from the authoritarian state that they inherited to the more pluralistic one they envisage. But are they really able and willing to achieve that goal?

In the United States, the debate on Libya has focused on what steps its government should take next. Senator Robert Menendez argues it “must move quickly to embrace democratic reform,” while international development specialists, such as Manal Omar of the U.S. Institute for Peace, believe that success lies in the cultivation of a vibrant civil society.

These views, however, overlook Libya’s unique history, and treat Libya as though it were just another Third World country in need of generic solutions. In fact, remedying the country’s ills requires building strong state institutions. FULL POST

Editor's Note: Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith, both professors of politics at NYU, are the authors of The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics. 

By Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith – Special to CNN

Generally, acting like a dictator is the best way for political leaders to achieve their most sacred goal - staying in power.  That’s the basic message of our book, The Dictator’s Handbook. Yet, dictators have been falling all over the world.  Here we outline where one infamous dictator veered away from dictator guidelines:

Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi has been vilified by the West but his 42 year reign came to an end because he violated one of the basic rules of survival in office: In the few years running up to his end, he was too nice to the people.  The wealth Gadhafi needed to pay his supporters came from his control of oil revenues. He did not need an educated and connected workforce to raise taxes. Yet, he gave Libyans considerably more education than his neighbors. As can be seen in the graph below (based on data from Reporters Without Borders), in recent years he also relaxed press restrictions. His "benevolence" allowed the people to organize against him.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith. This is the first of several quick posts from the authors highlighting their counterintuitive views.

By Eric Lach, GlobalPost

How many 81-year-old retired Jewish florists in Brooklyn were pen pals with Col. Moammar Gadhafi? At least one: Louis Schlamowitz.

The New York Post published a story Monday in which Schlamowitz, who has made writing to world leaders something of a hobby, calls the former Libyan dictator "a good pen pal."

“I felt it was very nice of him to take the time to write back to me, because I’m nobody special," Schlamowitz said.

Schlamowitz says he first wrote to Gadhafi in 1969, after he took power in Libya. FULL POST

Editor's Note: Elliott Abrams is former senior director for the Near East and deputy national security adviser handling Middle East affairs in the George W. Bush administration. He is now a senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he writes the blog Pressure Points.

By Elliott Abrams, CFR.org

After the death of Moammar Gadhafi, Administration spokesmen and those journalists who pretty much take dictation from them have been triumphant. This was, they have said, final proof of the exquisite brilliance of Obama policy in Libya (despite the “howling” of critics, to quote David Ignatius).

I would hold off on the triumphalism, for the Obama approach had many flaws. FULL POST

Editor's Note: Michael Semple, who has worked in Afghanistan for more than two decades, is a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

By Michael Semple, Foreign Affairs

Sounds of celebration echoed from several quarters after Libya's interim government announced the death of former leader Moammar Gadhafi. The European Union, members of which led the NATO campaign that contributed to Gadhafi's ouster, said his death marked "the end of an era of despotism." U.S. President Barack Obama said it brought to a close a "long and painful chapter for the people of Libya." And for the revolutionary rebel forces that fought a grueling two-steps-forward, one-step-back battle for much of this year, the capture of Surt, Gadhafi's hometown and final stronghold, opened the way for a formal "declaration of liberation," underscoring the triumph of the revolution.

As someone who has spent more than two decades working in war-torn Afghanistan, I was eager to visit Tripoli after its liberation in August. When I did, Libyans took great pains to explain how little their country had in common with Afghanistan. But before I even began seriously considering the comparison, contacts from Kabul and the Pakistani city of Karachi began telephoning me to report the ties they had spotted from afar. FULL POST