He said it did not matter what sort of government succeeded Arab autocrats, as these were unlikely to be as repressive. Imagining that only a Taliban-style regime would benefit al-Qaeda was "a too short term way" of looking at events.
"We do not know yet what the outcome would be (in any given country), and we do not have to. The outcome doesn't have to be an Islamic government for us to consider what is occurring to be a step in the right direction," he said.
"In Libya, no matter how bad the situation gets and no matter how pro-Western or oppressive the next government proves to be, we do not see it possible for the world to produce another lunatic of the same calibre of the Colonel (Gaddafi).