From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Tue Jan 05 2010 - 08:40:52 EST
Yemen's coming explosion will make today's problems seem tame.
BY GREGORY D. JOHNSEN | <http://www.foreignpolicy.com/issues/177/contents/>
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/files/images/TickTock_YEMEN93009939.jpg
In 2010, Yemen will celebrate the 20th anniversary of national unification.
But it won't be much of a party: This could well be the year Yemen comes
apart.
Even the brutal 1994 civil war failed to threaten the structural integrity
of this country chronically teetering on the verge of disintegration as much
as the current crises, all of which may be coming to a head in 2010.
Yemen has so many dire problems that it's easy to be overwhelmed. Al Qaeda
is growing in prominence, a Shiite rebellion is expanding in the north, and
the threat of secession is renewed in the south. There's a brewing fight
over what comes after President Ali Abdullah Saleh, age 67, who has ruled
Yemen for 31 years; the country's elites are locked in a closed-door
struggle to take power once he departs. Finally, and perhaps most
intractably, Yemen is an environmental and resource catastrophe in the
making. The country's water table is nearly depleted from years of
agricultural malpractice, and its oil reserves are rapidly dwindling. This
comes just when unemployment is soaring and an explosive birthrate promises
only more young, jobless citizens in the coming years.
The overburdened and crisis-ridden government has never felt much urgency in
dealing with this last category of concerns. But Yemen's first two troubles,
security and governance, are a combustible mix -- and together they might
explode in 2010 if al Qaeda consolidates its gains by taking advantage of a
government in disarray. The organization, already the most regionally and
economically representative of any group in the country, has only grown
stronger over the past three years. Once disorganized and on the run, today
al Qaeda members are putting down roots by marrying into local tribes and
establishing a durable infrastructure that can survive the loss of key
commanders. They have also launched a two-track policy of persuasion and
intimidation, first by constructing a narrative of jihad that is broadly
popular in Yemen, and second by assassinating or executing security
officials who prove too aggressive in their pursuit of al Qaeda fighters.
So, while U.S. President Barack Obama is busy trying to stamp out terrorist
safe havens in Jalalabad and Waziristan, new ones are popping up in Marib,
Shabwa, and al-Jawf.
For much of his career, Saleh has been a master manipulator, surviving three
decades in power in a country where his two immediate predecessors were
assassinated within a year of each other. He's lasted so long by relying on
a coterie of relatives and trusted allies. But now, the style and structure
of his rule are beginning to fracture. Yemen's economic straits mean that he
has less money to maintain his patronage network or play different factions
against one another. Within his own Sanhan tribe, the once-strong bonds of
loyalty are starting to show signs of strain as relatives and other powerful
figures scramble for position in hopes of eventually seizing the presidency
themselves.
Whoever does take power in the capital of Sanaa may find there's not much of
Yemen left to rule. The country continues to dissolve into semiautonomous
regions amid various rebellions, all of which feed off one another. The
military's inability to put down the insurrection in the north is
emboldening calls for independence in the south, while other groups, who
sense Saleh's growing weakness, are beginning to press their own demands.
The United States has not helped matters. Washington's continued insistence
on seeing the country only through the prism of counterterrorism has induced
exactly the results it is hoping to avoid. By focusing on al Qaeda to the
exclusion of nearly every other threat and by linking most of its aid to
this single issue, the United States has only ensured that al Qaeda will
always exist.
Instead of imploding, Yemen is going to explode. And when it does, Yemen's
problems of today are going to become Saudi Arabia's problems of tomorrow.
This is already foreshadowed by Saudi involvement in the northern conflict
and al Qaeda strikes from Yemen into the kingdom. By the time Obama and his
team cobble together a smarter response, the time for prevention will have
passed and their only option will be mopping up the mess.
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