What to do about Yemen has suddenly became an urgent matter for the international community. Put simply, the fear is that it could become another Afghanistan – a failed or failing state where assorted extremists (including Al-Qaeda) find sanctuary and plan their attacks – whether against the West or against neighbouring Saudi Arabia.
The means at the world’s disposal, however, are limited. The Obama administration has wisely concluded that it does not want a military presence there. “ We do not have boots on the ground, ” an official told the Washington Post on 20 January, “ and we have no intention of having boots on the ground. ” Instead, the United States is reported to be supplying the Yemeni government with military equipment, intelligence and training to help it fight Al-Qaeda.
Even so, there has already been an anti-American backlash among Yemenis which neither of the two allies can afford to ignore. A popular radical sheikh, Abdul-Majid al-Zindani, recently told worshippers at a mosque that a Western plot was afoot to place the country under foreign occupation. Yemenis instinctively tend to regard the American superpower as part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
If Yemen’s challenge was solely one of confronting Al-Qaeda – and if its government were whole-heartedly committed to that aim – matters would be much simpler. But neither is the case. All the signs are that President Ali Abdullah Saleh – after staying in power, through skilful use of carrot and stick, for over three decades – does not regard Al-Qaeda as his number one problem. He appears to be far more preoccupied with his loosening grip in both the north of the country, where his forces are fighting a Shi’s ite insurgency, and in the south, where a separatist movement is gathering momentum. This became apparent when, in a recent speech, he said he was ready to talk to Al-Qaeda – a statement that caused deep shock in Washington.
So the two presidents, Obama and Saleh, come at the matter with distinctly different viewpoints and with a certain degree of mutual suspicion. For the American administration, a further problem is that the outside power with the biggest stake in Yemen is Washington’s close ally Saudi Arabia. But in two important respects, the Saudi role is problematic. First, its intervention in the conflict in northern Yemen in November turned a local problem into a regional one – and sparked predictable outrage in Iran, which cannot ignore a conflict in which its Shi’ ite co-religionists are suffering. What’s more, according to the Saudi authorities, over a hundred Saudi solders have so far died in the conflict, with little to show for it. The Shi’ ite rebels, known as Houthis, have proved resilient.
A second problem is that the Saudi kingdom’s export to Yemen of its own form of austere Sunni Islam – Wahhabism – is one of the factors fuelling conflict there. The Houthis in particular feel threatened by an influx of Wahhabi preachers, funded with Saudi cash, who make no secret of their view that the Shi’ a are idolaters.
Finally, the world is anxious to come up with economic aid to help solve the crushing social and economic problems of the Arab world’s poorest nation. But $5 billion pledged for Yemen at a London conference in 2006 has, for the most part, not been disbursed. Aware of the Yemeni authorities’ reputation for corruption and maladministration, donors are wary of throwing good money after bad.
JIME Center.All rights reserved.