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So the Libyan no-fly zone has been placed under the political and military umbrella of Nato. There is still some debate about whether the alliance should also endorse that part of the mission that has been dropping bombs on, or launching missiles at, Libyan ground targets.

But UK Prime Minister David Cameron and Foreign Secretary William Hague have been predicting that this dispute too will be solved in the coming days.

For the moment then it remains a "two tier" operation, as I characterised it on Sunday, in which Nato agrees to do the easier bit - the flying over North Africa in order to knock down any of Colonel Muammar Gadaffi's aircraft - while leaving the trickier business of bombing forces in built up areas to the "coalition" of the US, UK, and France.

This difference of views, even if it persists beyond the few days predicted by Mr Cameron, ought not to wreck the campaign, because that smaller group of US-led nations can keep dropping bombs or launching missiles.

Col Gadaffi is hurting badly, and whether his survives for days or longer, he cannot win in the sense of re-establishing his control over the whole of Libya by force.

So why are we even writing or talking about this political disagreement then? Perhaps its greatest significance is as an example of the political, and perhaps even moral, weakness of many members of the Western alliance.

After all, the position of the countries that do not want launch bombs or missiles against ground targets is that they would like somebody else to do it for them. Several Nato countries, including two key members (Germany and Turkey), are simply convulsed with doubt about killing people on the ground.

These countries have approved the idea of a no fly zone, and accept that UN Security Council Resolution 1973 gives it a strong legal basis. They do not mind killing Libyan aircrew in the sky, by shooting down their aircraft, and they are quite content with the idea that the suppression of air defences (ie strikes against surface to air missile sites, command bunkers, or airfields) needed to allow the no fly zone to be established be done by someone else.

It would be one thing to oppose the whole idea of this operation - to object to all of the military action carried out, regardless of what military/political label is put on the command arrangements.

But while Germany, Turkey, and some other nations voiced doubts about the idea (and Germany abstained in the UN vote over resolution 1973), they do not feel strong enough to argue against the whole enterprise or indeed to use their veto power within Nato.

So the last minute argument to persuade these countries to accept that the whole operation needs to be placed under a Nato mandate continues. Meanwhile, many senior people in the alliance suspect that this political division will only become a serious issue, if somebody's aeroplane hits the wrong target and many civilians die.

At this point, having the whole operation under a Nato banner could become a liability, because one of the doubters might lead a movement for the whole thing to stop before its objectives have been met.

This is essentially what happened during the 1999 Kosovo air campaign when a number of countries tried (but failed) to start a movement for a "bombing pause" when the air offensive dragged on, claiming many civilian lives.

The idea that some innocent people may die in order to save the many is explicitly embraced by the Libyan rebel leadership and ought not to be a moral revelation to anyone who has thought about political philosophy.

It is after all the basis upon which developed societies accept all kinds of risks, from the one that speeding emergency services vehicles might run down pedestrians to the understanding that certain types of surgery end up killing rather than curing the patient.

So the present situation arises from political confusion - an understanding that the intervention is justified and therefore should not be blocked sits in conflict with an underlying sense of pacifism (in Germany), or Islamic sense of community (Turkey).

It all simply adds to the pressure facing those carrying out the air operations not to make mistakes. Decision makers in the UK, France, and America know also that it impels them to get this over with quickly - and it is at the intersection of military and political risk, that rushing for a result produces a terrible error, that the greatest hazard to this venture may lay.

The campaign unleashed against Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's forces is a two tier effort.

That underlines deep political differences among Western nations about how much force should be applied and what the "end state", or aim of the violence, should be.

Watching the way that the initial strikes against Libya have been mounted, the existence of this dual approach to the problem has become quite evident.

It has also conditioned the types of weapons, and bases employed.

UK, French and US forces have started a "coalition of the willing" operation against Col Gaddafi's forces that has included bombing air defences and at least one ground column heading for Benghazi.

Several of the other countries that met on Saturday in Paris to discuss "support to the Libyan People", do not wish to drop bombs on that country or, in some cases, allow their bases to be used for that purpose.

So the offensive that began yesterday has involved the use of long range attacks and avoided the Nato chain of command. It is being co-ordinated by the US Africa Command, under General Carter Ham.

US briefings suggest that this wave of strikes has been sufficiently effective to allow patrolling of the skies over North Africa to begin soon, and this will mark the second stage or tier of the operation.

The wider international operation to enforce the no-fly zone will be done through the Nato chain of command, and will be managed by US Navy Admiral Samuel Locklear, as we revealed on Friday's Newsnight.

Both commanders are Americans - the general operating through a national headquarters, and the admiral through an alliance, ie a Nato, one.

The use of Gen Ham's headquarters for this purpose is sufficiently sensitive for the French to be denying they are under US operational control.

The methods used to attack the Libyan leader's forces during the first 24 hours relied upon flights from France, the UK, and the US, as well as cruise missiles fired from the high seas.

In other words, they did not involve launching lethal attacks from the territory of that wider club of nations that met in Paris, or indeed of other Nato members.

Military commanders believe that the "coalition of the willing", will be able to bring sufficient combat power to bear in order to cause the fall of Col Gaddafi; the aim that the US, UK and France share.

But if that does not happen relatively quickly there could be growing pressure on other countries to allow their bases to be used for attacks, since the methods used during the initial wave of strikes were relatively inefficient.

The flight of RAF Tornado GR4's from Marham in Norfolk to hit Libyan air defences has been lauded as an impressive feature of airmanship - but it soaked up much of Britain's air-to-air refuelling capability and evidently would have been more efficiently conducted from bases in southern Italy.

France too has stretched its limited refuelling capability in order to hit targets from its own national territory.

Sources suggest that although many RAF and French aircraft were in action during the first 24-hours of the conflict, the number that actually dropped bombs or launched missiles against Libyan ground targets was fewer than one dozen.

US B-2 bombers, and 112 naval cruise missiles were needed to add weight to attack.

If Col Gaddafi does not fall quickly, this level of pain will have to be raised. Instead of hitting a few dozen military objects each 24 hours, the coalition will need to strike many times that number.

Anticipating this, France has ordered its aircraft carrier strike group to sea. The Charles de Gaulle, with its embarked air wing including 18 fast jets, will be able to sail close to the Libyan coast where in-flight refuelling needs will be minimal and the aircraft will be able to reach fleeting targets far more quickly than those launched from France itself.

Although the US has not yet used carrier aviation in this offensive, it is moving to be able to do so. Britain, having recently retired the Ark Royal and its Harrier force, lacks a similar option.

Italy could become a vital part of this operation. However it is not yet clear that the Italians have allowed their bases to be used for bombing attacks (as opposed to patrolling the no-fly zone once it is firmly established, flight refuelling, surveillance, or electronic warfare missions). Reports that some Italian seamen have been seized in Tripoli make their government's dilemma all the harder.

As for the wider coalition effort, including possible arrival of combat aircraft from Arab countries, it has not yet begun.

France in particular is anxious that the Arab public does not see this as a similar US-led operation to the ones which invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, so it has strained every diplomatic and political sinew to take a leading role in the initial phase.

In the coming days though the limitations of the UK and France to apply their military power, such as it is, in pursuit of the Libyan regime change agenda could become clearer if Col Gaddafi's people cling on.

All manner of political tensions might then result, from pressure on other Nato allies to join the strikes to a growing sense that American might may be necessary to finish something that the White House was for weeks very reluctant to get involved in.

The passing of UN Resolution 1973 creating a Libyan no-fly zone has suddenly created a plethora of possibilities as well as risks for the British government.

In a sense, Prime Minister David Cameron's championing of the plan is pure Tony Blair - it is precisely the type of liberal intervention envisioned in the former prime minister's speech to the Chicago Economic Club in 1999, which put forward a case for dispensing with the usual rules about non-interference in the affairs of another country if its people were being brutally repressed.

Indeed, the new resolution is such a striking example of this doctrine (which was enshrined in changes to the UN Charter in 2005) that many people may be asking why similar plans are not afoot to sweep the skies of Zimbabwe, Iran, Burma, or indeed Bahrain.

Of course that is not about to happen, but the reason it will not is not connected with the political or legal dimensions of this doctrine but with the harsh real politik that determines that one UN Security Council veto power or other would step in to stop something similar happening in any of those cases.

It seems odd that Mr Cameron should be acting this way since he had gone to such lengths to reassure the electorate that he would take a longer and harder look at any case for the commitment of British forces overseas than his Labour predecessors had done.

Of course the new prime minister's message was partly one about not following the United States blindly into military intervention, and he can certainly say with some justice that this initiative has been driven by the UK and France, not by the US.

However, by championing the case for the Libyan intervention when offers of US support have been lukewarm, Mr Cameron has raised the stakes in almost every way.

If the Libyan regime collapses quickly, then the UK prime minister and France's President Nicolas Sarkozy will, quite rightly, be able to claim much of the credit.

It has been clear from the outset of this crisis though that Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is not going to skip off in the style of President Ben Ali of Tunisia.

If he is able to survive the next few weeks - with or without airstrikes - questions will soon multiply about the how long the no-fly zone can be maintained, what the price for its lifting needs to be, and whether the US role in sustaining or expanding it will become central.

There are dangers, then, that Mr Cameron and Mr Sarkozy may be writing cheques that could be difficult to honour.

The idea of a British prime minister dragging America into a new war would be an impressive political feat, and a fertile subject for comedians, but ultimately would probably not do him or US President Barack Obama much good politically in the long term.

These risks are all the more complex for the British government because it is engaged in cutting its armed forces under the Strategic Defence and Security Review.

The retirement of Harrier jets and the Ark Royal, that could have been very useful in imposing a no fly zone, has already attracted widespread comment.

Now the RAF is being asked to send its people into battle at the same time that it is making hundreds of aircrew redundant.

The RAF is of course doing everything possible to send endangered aircraft types such as the Tornado, or Sentinel, and Nimrod R1 surveillance planes. It may hope to earn parts of its fleet a reprieve.

So, just as success will offer Mr Cameron the chance of a major diplomatic coup, the
possibility of it not going to plan could be toxic.

It is one thing to act energetically, and independently in ones diplomacy, but quite another if doing so creates for the military taxing additional missions which your own government has undermined their ability to fulfil.

While Western politicians discuss options for helping the Libyan resistance, Gaddafi loyalists are busy re-taking lost ground.

It is a familiar dilemma for decision makers with echoes of the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s, and even of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

The cynical view is that what we have seen so far has simply been verbal grandstanding by leaders who know there is public alarm at what is happening in Libya, but do not wish to commit themselves to military action there.

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy appears to have been playing this game when his people briefed last week that he was proposing air strikes against Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's forces.

However, those emerging from last Thursday's Nato meeting in Brussels were quite adamant that neither France nor any other ally had proposed air strikes. The story seems to have been nothing more than hot air.

During the Bosnian War of 1992-5 it took years for a position finally to be adopted that Nato should put boots on the ground, and that military action was needed to curb the Bosnian Serbs.

It was such a prolonged, painful, and unedifying saga that it is little wonder that some of the key decision makers who endured it - such as former defence and foreign secretary Malcolm Rifkind - are determined to move faster this time.

He has today advocated in the Times newspaper arming the Libyan rebels.

Will that work quickly enough though? When Western countries decided in the 1980s to provide (covertly) anti-aircraft missiles to the Afghan resistance it took the best part of 18 months for the plan to come to fruition.

At one point Britain even flew the Afghans it had selected for training to a Gulf country, where they were taught how to use Blowpipe missiles.

Given the advances achieved by Libyan government forces in the past week, it is obvious that there is not time for that type of assistance. The help has to be given urgently or not at all.

It may be that the best thing the United States and European Union could do would be to aid the rebels by setting up a secure communications network, providing them with intelligence, and encouraging their leaders to think strategically about the defence of Benghazi and other strongholds in eastern Libya.

A handful of liaison teams, comprising no more than a few dozen personnel, would be sufficient for this.

The best prototype for this type of operation would be the clandestine assistance given to the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan following 9/11, when teams of CIA and special forces galvanised an offensive against the Taliban that unseated them from power.

Of course the saga of Britain's ill-fated special forces mission to the Libyan rebels shows that such a move would be far from risk free. What is more, the key ingredient that was present after 9/11 - US willingness to risk its people in the field - appears to be absent today.

Even if MI6 and the CIA are still willing to take the risk of travelling into Libya, they would not be able to call upon air strikes in the way that they were in Afghanistan in 2001 - not yet anyway.

Indeed a couple of bolshie Libyan farmers seem to have upset Britain's plan to help the resistance leadership - or its first attempt to do so.

So the options today, like those in the Balkans, are far from simple or risk free. But if they are to have any effect on the outcome in Libya, they need to shift from the rhetorical to the practical within days.