Yemen

Ten month old information from French Senators and Saudi sources describe Yemen as becoming increasingly vulnerable to al-Qaeda, going so far as to characterize it as al-Qaeda’s new home in greater measure than Afghanistan. The Washington Post writes:

the most dire assessments came from Saudi Arabia, where officials said Yemen would be a more hospitable environment for terrorists than even Afghanistan and was already so infested that it should be considered al-Qaeda’s “main home.” …

the cables raise new questions about the United States’ reliance on Saleh, an autocrat who is depicted as an often-uncommitted and unfocused partner in counterterrorism efforts long before protests threatened to end his 32-year-old reign.

The State Department declined to address the authenticity of the cables or their contents.

“The United States strongly condemns any illegal disclosure of classified information,” said Mike Hammer, the department’s acting chief spokesman.

The Yemeni crisis had reached the point where the Gulf Cooperation Council has offered to facilitate the transition of power from Ali Abdullah Saleh and a national unity government that will be led by the political opposition. In exchange, Saleh will be given immunity from prosecution. On the GCC are Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. Yemen is not included.

But the VOA reports that the opposition rejected the plan, which Saleh had accepted. The principle objection was to the grant of immunity from prosecution. The BBC wrote, “where does Yemen go from here?”

Even before the mass protests, Mr Saleh was struggling to quell a separatist rebellion in the south and a Shia Muslim insurgency in the north – violence that has analysts fear could give the Arabian Peninsula branch of al-Qaeda more room to operate.

STRATFOR writes that the crisis in Yemen is a crisis for Saudi Arabia. “Saudi Arabia is already facing the threat of an Iranian destabilization campaign in eastern Arabia and has deployed forces to Bahrain in an effort to prevent Shiite unrest from spreading. With a second front now threatening the Saudi underbelly, the situation in Yemen is becoming one that the Saudis can no longer leave on the backburner.”

The principal danger is that Yemen may fragment along the lines of Libya, due to its tribal makeup. The Saudi reluctance to withdraw support for Saleh rests on their fear of what might follow him. With multiple irons in the fire, Saudi Arabia can ill afford another window of vulnerability that might be exploited by Iran. STRATFOR writes:

Yemen, while ranking much lower on a strategic level than Bahrain, Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, also is not immune to Iran’s agenda. In the northern Yemeni province of Saada, the Yemeni state has struggled to suppress a rebellion by al-Houthis of the Zaydi sect, considered an offshoot of Shiite Islam and heretical by Wahhabi standards.

But there is yet another flank through which the Saudis may be attacked. Iraq. Fred and Kimberley Kagan write in the Weekly Standard that “America has done virtually nothing on the nonmilitary side to bind Iraq to the West. On the contrary, Iran has done everything in its power to drive a wedge between Iraq and the United States.”

Not only do Iranian weapons and Iranian-trained fighters continue to flow into Iraq, but Iranian businesses (many tied to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps), money, officials, clerics, and propaganda pour into the country. America has made no attempt to counter this Iranian offensive. We have not encouraged Western companies to compete with Iranian investment. We have conducted no public relations efforts in Iraq to counter the Iranian narrative. As Iran’s leaders have aggressively courted, cajoled, threatened, and promised Iraq’s political elites, the United States has almost entirely ignored them. If the future of the U.S.-Iraq relationship depends on soft power alone, then there is no future. The Obama administration has forfeited that game. …

American policy can no longer be to “end this war.” “This war” was over long ago. But the fight for Iraq and for America’s place in a critical part of the Greater Middle East continues. It is a fight the Obama administration must win.

It is a fight that for domestic political reasons Obama may choose to lose. Imagine if the only foreign policy success in his entire term turned out to be Iraq. President Obama may now be in a position where he can endure any number of fiascos on his own account, for so long as he never suffers a triumph tainted by the hand of George W. Bush. It is one thing to be snakebitten but another to be pwnd.

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