Obama Fumbles Yemen
Yemen is a complex country that has been under considerable turbulence. Yet understanding Yemen tells us a great deal about the contemporary Middle East, Obama administration foreign policy, and the direction of the “Arab Spring.”
While Americans may think that their government’s recent policies and leadership have made the United States more popular in the region, the truth — as polls show — is generally the opposite. Obama administration policy is to support the existing dictatorship or at most to back a relatively cosmetic change in the regime. Thus, the Yemeni opposition weekly al Sahwa asked, “Why is America silent about the use of `counter-terror’ forces against the Yemeni people?”
It’s a good question. Since February, youth protests in Yemen morphed into a nationwide and intergenerational revolution to overthrow President Ali Abdullah Saleh and all his relatives, after 33 years in office. Protesters said they wanted a civilian interim council to oversee a new constitution and fair elections, with the ultimate goal of achieving a civil democratic state. In response, state security forces have murdered nearly 1,000 citizens around the country.
Thomas Krajeski, former U.S. ambassador to Yemen, summed up the policy as follows: “Ali Abdullah Saleh is our main conduit to everything we are trying to do in Yemen.” The U.S.’s primary goal in Yemen is to vanquish al-Qaeda. And the Obama administration believes that Saleh, or at least his apparatus, is best able to do that.
This is precisely the short-sighted approach that Obama has criticized when attributing it to predecessors’ policies in the Middle East. Under Saleh’s regime, torture is systemic, political kidnapping common, and artillery fire a frequent remedy to anti-regime sentiment. Economic opportunity, political power, and local authority are available only through access to Saleh and his family. Corruption and embezzlement of oil revenues and international aid mean a near absence of basic services. Water scarcity and hunger were already at critical levels, but as the economy ground nearly to a halt, things are even worse.
After snipers killed 58 demonstrators in March, much of the Saleh administration resigned, galvanizing the revolution. The unsavory General Ali Mohsen al Ahmar, a powerful military commander and Saleh’s half brother, brought the First Armored Division to Sanaa to protect the protesters and offered to leave the country alongside Saleh. In May, after dozens sleeping in tents were burned to death by security forces, Sadiq al-Ahmar, paramount sheikh of Saleh’s powerful Hasid tribe, announced his support for the opposition, calling Saleh a butcher.
The opposition Joint Meeting of Parties (JMP) initially disavowed the national uprising in fear of regime reprisal and due to Western pressure, reinforcing the schism between the formal opposition and the revolutionary youth.
Yemen is undergoing a demographic explosion. In 1970 their population was 6.1 million. By 1990 it had doubled to 11.9 million. And by 2010 it doubled again to 24.1 million (with a median age of 17.4). So Yemen’s population has quadrupled in 40 years.
Yemen’s population is projected to grow to 41.3 million by 2030…and grow to 61.6 million by 2050 (and that is assuming that their birthrate falls from 4.94 down to 2.60 — which I think is extremely unlikely. So their population may be much higher than 61.6 million by 2050). So their population will have grown 10X in 80 years (and probably even higher). Not bad. Not bad…
Yemen is a disaster waiting to happen. So is Nigeria. So is Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Ethiopia etc… There are no US national interests at stake in any of these countries. Let them fight it out amongst themselves. Uncle Sam is broke. The American Empire is crumbling. We can’t afford all these endless wars. No one knows what the mission is. The neocons and the Military Industry Complex love all these wars. Let them send their sons to die in these hellholes. Let Bill Krystal and all the neocons at The Meekly Standard and the National Review lose some weight and put on uniforms and lead the invasions… Let them put their money where their mouth is.
Speaking of demographics…The US is on course for a total disaster…but that’s another story. And Europe? They are toast.
Your needle is stuck in the groove We Are On The Brink Of Destruction. Instead, We Are On The Brink Of RECLAIMING.
The usurper in our WH had to bow (again) this time to Israel and throw Yemen under the bus. Americans don’t like that. We recognize and cheer and support fighters for freedom like ours WERE. We are toes on the line now, with real itcy trigger fingers pointed at any gruesome politician who wants to steal our firearms. The signs on our fences Beware Of The Dog are steadily being replaced with signs BEWARE! HOME OF THE BRAVE.
“The U.S. government opposes the protesters’ demand for a transitional council and instead supports a deeply flawed plan drafted by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The GCC plan calls for Saleh to pick his successor and resign in return for immunity from prosecution.”
And who would make up this “transitional council?” It’s probabl made up of radical Islamists or, worse, al Qaeda members. And the Gulf Cooperation Council’s plan will only put another dictator in power. Either way you are going to be screwed in this basket case of a country. Worse, you’re probably going to end up with a failed state just like Somalia, which is just to the south of Yemen.
With pirates running out of control from Somalia, it won’t be long before the same thing happens in Yemen. You will have uncontrolled pirates attacking ships from both the north and south ends of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, which is going to send shipping costs (especially for oil) skyrocketing from the Perisan Gulf.
And where is the “much-vaunted” United Nations in all of this? How come they can’t help Yemen settle its problems? The UN seems very quick to dive into the internal affairs of Libya, but it just can’t seem to be bothered by Yemen. Why is that? Could it be that there is oil in Libya and that there is nothing but sand and poor people in Yemen? It’s digusting to see just how impotent and useless the UN really is, especially in places where it could actually help.
#1 Savage
Assuming your figures to be correct, Yemen is one big ticking time bomb. Question is, what do they do to integrate into the rest of the world? What can they sell and earn a living from? From what I know ZERO.
Dr. Shalit
Yemen is a ticking time bomb. So is Nigeria (In 2010 – 158.4 million. By 2050 – 389.6 million), Pakistan (In 2010 – 173.6 million. By 2050 – 274.9 million), Afghanistan (In 2010 – 31.4 million. By 2050 – 76.3 million), Somalia (In 2010 – 9.3 million. By 2050 28.2 million) etc. the list goes on and on… “Integrate into the rest of the world”? Are you serious? They will continue to do what they’ve been doing till now.
America is bankrupting itself by getting involved in all of these pointless, unwinnable, never-ending wars/nation-building/humanitarian interventions/”spreading democracy around the world”… When does it end? It is time to put America First. America First! Not America Last! The George W Bush/neocon foreign policy has been a disaster for America and the world. Let the world solve it’s own problems. Uncle Sam is bankrupt. We can no longer afford it. We are living on printed money.
Greetings:
Forgive me, if you will, but, as un-Christian as it maybe, I no longer find the idea of muslims killing muslims all that upsetting. Those are, as Fouad Ajami has pointed out, the lands of “I against my brother; my brother and I against our cousin; and, my cousin, my brother and I against the stranger”. I recently went back through Samuel P. Huntington’s “The Clash of Civilizations…” to see how well his thoughts were holding up some 15 years after he sent them off to the printers. One of his little gems, toward the back of the book, was his advice to avoid internecine muslim conflicts. Apparently, this concept has yet to be found actionable by President Obama’s administration.
By interesting contrast, one might think back several months to the takeover of an elected muslim government in Ivory Coast. There was a passing media mention of the massacre of 800 or so Christians by the followers of the new muslim President. While I’m not that much of a quantitative type, that number seems to me to be in the ballpark with the numbers being reported by the “Arab Spring” aficionados, but different, if you get my drift.
Islam is the millstone around muslim necks. If you don’t have a plan to eradicate that misbegotten ideology, then you’re in over your proverbial head and the best thing to do is to stay as far as possible away. Unless, of course, your goal is trying to redistribute more of our missing commonwealth to our muslim brothers and sisters.
It is true and I agree that interceding in muslim affairs is a fool’s errand. However, as to Zero’s actions, it’s not such a mystery. I think he actually listens to his advisers, determines what the conservatives would do, then sets a course to do exactly the opposite, no matter how tragic or foolhardy that may be. The math seems to work in all cases, not just world policy.
The role of affirmative action has been well told but the peter principle, not so much. He may have been “very effective” as a community organizer, but being bumped upstairs in a combined peter/affirmative action way has only resulted in great pain through, not just our own nation, but other nations as well.
I simply suppose that no one ever told him as a child, “Don’t touch it, you’ll break it.” But, then there is also the notion that he is a crafty little bugger and is manipulating things to meet his own socialist desires as well as punish Americans for a couple of centuries of perceived injustices.
this article explain the true Yemen situation and the USA policy in Yemen , and we hope and still waiting for realistic USA action which help the Yemeni not the dictator ,and Yemeni will value any help from friends.
The indictment against Saleh reads just a whole lot like the indictment leveled against Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, doesn’t it? Look at what we got in place of Pahlavi. I expect we’ll see the same level of “improvement” from replacing Saleh.
{^_^}
Just a small technical issue where Jane in her excellent analysis forgot to mention that TAIZ was the city where dozens sleeping in tents were burned to death by security forces,
Whenever US wants to catch attention, it mentions the name of al Qaeda.Yet ten guardian has published the full story of how the US administration and army let al Qaeda spread and be armed by stealing the explosive materials from sad am hussien’s closed weapon and chemical factories in al yusufiya in same day when US invaded Iraq.that means, US invaded in the morning and al qaeda got armed and well spread in the afternoon…then the yusufiya became known as the death triangle…