Nato's governing body, the North Atlantic Council (NAC), is meeting today in Brussels to decide how deeply it is willing to be drawn into the Libyan conflict. Washington is very keen to hand over this chalice in time for Hillary Clinton and Bob Gates to go on the Sunday morning talk shows and tell the nation that is not longer America's problem. US officials here in Brussels have therefore been briefing that the result of today's NAC is entirely cut and dried: Nato will take over the whole campaign, including the arms embargo, no-fly zone and air strikes.
The problem now is the details, but those details could determine the course of the conflict.
Nato is now enforcing the arms embargo with a flotilla off the Libyan coast. Under a Canadian general, Charles Bouchard, it is also patrolling a no-fly zone over Libya. Today the NAC must decide on taking what secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen,called the 'broader responsibility' of enforcing the UN security council resolution to protect Libya's civilian population - in other words, air strikes against ground targets.
What is happening here today is a discussion about the rules of engagement. Nato planes and those of its Arab allies (so far only Qatar, with UAE F-16s and Mirages supposedly on the way) will be authorised to destroy Muammar Gaddafi's tanks if they present a clear and immediate danger to civilian populations. But what if the threat is not clear and not immediate? What if the tanks or armoured vehicles are parked and some distance away from the civilians deemed to be vulnerable?
French and British planes have been blowing up all the pro-Gaddafi armour they can find in recent days. But alliance members like Turkey and Germany are horrified by what they see as "mission creep" towards an offensive war aimed at regime change, and are unlikely to approve such freewheeling rules of engagement.
According to a senior Nato source, if the rules do not go far enough to satisfy President Sarkozy, French could reserve the right to conduct its own missions outside Nato command, just as US forces carry out operations aimed at al-Qaida targets under Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, outside the Nato-run coalition, Isaf. Sarkozy may have been signalling such a move when he warned Nato's assumption of control was "playing into the hands of Colonel Gaddafi ".
While Turkey has aired its views and grievances inside the alliance, Nato officials have been more disturbed by the readiness of both France and Germany to shrug off the principle of alliance cohesion in the pursuit of their own political goals. On the other end of the spectrum from France, Germany has not only refused to take part in the air operation, it has withdrawn from participation in the maritime embargo.
There are also lingering differences over the political control of the military campaign, which have to be resolved at a conference of all involved in London on Tuesday. The London conference will establish a broad "contact group" bringing together the UN, the Arab League, the African Union and members of the Libyan opposition. That it supposed to consider the country's dire humanitarian needs as well as its political future, such as the very real possibility of partition..
There will be a separate meeting in London of a smaller group intended to exercise day-to-day political guidance over the military campaign. But it has not yet been finally agreed whether that should be the NAC plus Arab allies, or - as France insists - only the 'coalition of the willing' contributing planes and ships to the effort, therefore excluding Germany and Turkey.
Then there is the question of how much influence such a body should have. None, according to the Americans. "It may have ideas but Nato has control," said a US official. That is the Isaf model in Afghanistan, but some Nato officials said such an arrangement would be unlikely to satisfy Arab countries with planes flying over Libya, and it would certainly be no way entice other Arab states to join the coalition - a political imperative.