Stephen Zunes
Foreign Policy in Focus
January 8, 2010
http://www.fpif.org/articles/yemen_latest_us_battleground
The
yet another counterinsurgency war which, as in
attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Northwest Airlines
flight by a Nigerian apparently planned in
alleged ties between the perpetrator of the
massacre to a radical Yemeni cleric, and an ongoing
U.S.-backed Yemeni military offensive against al-Qaeda
have all focused
Yemen has almost as large a population as Saudi Arabia,
yet lacks much in the way of natural resources. What
little oil they have is rapidly being depleted. Indeed,
it's one of the poorest countries in the world, with a
per-capita income of less than $600 per year. More than
40 percent of the population is unemployed and the
economic situation has worsened for most Yemenis, as a
result of a U.S.-backed structural adjustment program
imposed by the International Monetary Fund.
The county is desperate for assistance in sustainable
economic development. The vast majority of
however, has been military. The limited economic
assistance made available has been of dubious
effectiveness and has largely gone through corrupt
government channels.
Al-Qaeda's Rise
The
presence of al-Qaeda operatives within
borders, particularly since the recent unification of
the Yemeni and Saudi branches of the terrorist network.
Thousands of Yemenis participated in the U.S.-supported
anti-Soviet resistance in
becoming radicalized by the experience and developing
links with Osama bin Laden, a Saudi whose father comes
from a Yemeni family. Various clan and tribal loyalties
to bin Laden's family have led to some support within
who do not necessarily support his reactionary
interpretation of Islam or his terrorist tactics.
Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis have served as migrant
laborers in neighboring
the hardline Wahhabi interpretation of Islam dominant in
that country combined with widespread repression and
discrimination has led to further radicalization.
In October 2000, al-Qaeda terrorists attacked the
Navy ship Cole in the Yemeni
American sailors. This led to increased cooperation
between
including a series of
suspected al-Qaeda operatives.
Currently, hardcore al-Qaeda terrorists in
of whom are foreigners - probably number no more than
200. But they are joined by roughly 2,000 battle-
hardened Yemeni militants who have served time in
fighting
Qaeda's ranks by veterans of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's
Iraqi insurgency has led to the rise of a substantially
larger and more extreme generation of fighters, who have
ended the uneasy truce between Islamic militants and the
Yemeni government.
Opponents of the 2003
would create a new generation of radical jihadists,
comparable to the one that emerged following the Soviet
invasion and occupation of
the Bush administration and its congressional supporters
- including then-senators Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton
- believed that a
important than avoiding the risk of creating of a hotbed
of anti-American terrorism. Ironically, President Obama
is relying on Biden and Clinton - as well as Secretary
of Defense Robert Gates, another supporter of the
invasion and occupation - to help us get out of this
mess they helped create.
Not a Failed State
Yemen is one of the most complex societies in the world,
and any kind of overreaction by the
particularly one that includes a strong military
component - could be disastrous. Bringing in
or increasing the number of
likely strengthen the size and radicalization of
extremist elements. Instead of recognizing the strong
and longstanding Yemeni tradition of respecting tribal
autonomy,
this lack of central government control as evidence of a
"failed state." The
central control by force, through a large-scale
counterinsurgency strategy.
Such a military response could result in an ever-wider
insurgency, however. Indeed, such overreach by the
government is what largely prompted the Houthi rebellion
in the northern part of the country, led by adherents of
the Zaydi branch of Shia Islam. The
backed a brutal crackdown by Yemeni and Saudi forces in
the Houthi region, largely accepting exaggerated claims
of Iranian support for the rebellion. There is also a
renewal of secessionist activity in the formerly
independent south. These twin threats are largely
responsible for the delay in the Yemeni government's
response to the growing al-Qaeda presence in their country.
With the
intervention in
government's crackdown may be less a matter of hoping
for something in return for its cooperation than a fear
of what may happen if it does not. The Yemeni government
is in a difficult bind, however. If it doesn't break up
the terrorist cells, the likely
intervention would probably result in a greatly expanded
armed resistance. If the government casts too wide a
net, however, it risks tribal rebellion and other civil
unrest for what will be seen as unjustifiable repression
at the behest of a Western power. Either way, it would
likely increase support for extremist elements, which
both the
For this reason, most Western experts on
that increased
This would not only result in a widespread armed
backlash within
of "anti-terrorism" would likely strengthen Islamist
militants elsewhere as well.
Cold War Pawn
As with previous
Americans have little understanding of the targeted
country or its history.
resistance, resulted from a merger between the British
colony of
Republic of Yemen, it became the Arab world's only
Marxist-Leninist state and developed close ties with the
the north in the years following independence.
Ottoman Empire in 1918, became embroiled in a bloody
civil war during the 1960s between Saudi-backed royalist
forces and Egyptian-backed republican forces. The
republican forces eventually triumphed, though political
instability, military coups, assassinations, and
periodic armed uprisings continued.
In both countries, ancient tribal and modern ideological
divisions have made control of these disparate armed
forces virtually impossible. Major segments of the
national armies would periodically disintegrate, with
soldiers bringing their weapons home with them.
Lawlessness and chaos have been common for decades, with
tribes regularly shifting loyalties in both their
internal feuds and their alliances with their
governments. Many tribes have been in a permanent state
of war for years, and almost every male adolescent and
adult routinely carries a rifle.
In 1979, in one of the more absurd episodes of the Cold
War, a minor upsurge in fighting along the former border
led to a major
what the Carter administration called a Soviet-sponsored
act of international aggression. In March of that year,
South Yemeni forces, in support of some North Yemeni
guerrillas, shelled some North Yemeni government
positions. In response, Carter ordered the aircraft
carrier Constellation and a flotilla of warships to the
approval, the administration rushed nearly $499 million
worth of modern weaponry to
M-60 tanks, 70 armored personnel carriers, and 12 F-5E
aircraft. Included were an estimated 400 American
advisers and 80 Taiwanese pilots for the sophisticated
warplanes that no Yemeni knew how to fly.
This gross overreaction to a local conflict led to
widespread international criticism. Indeed, the Soviets
were apparently unaware of the border clashes and the
fighting died down within a couple of weeks.
Development groups were particularly critical of this
to a country with some of the highest rates of infant
mortality, chronic disease, and illiteracy in the world.
The communist regime in
1980s, when rival factions of the Politburo and Central
Committee killed each other and their supporters by the
thousands. With the southern leadership decimated, the
two countries merged in May 1990. The newly united
country's democratic constitution gave
most genuinely representative governments in the region.
Later in 1990, when serving as a non-permanent member of
the UN
led effort to authorize the use of force against
drive its occupation forces from
representative was overheard declaring to the Yemeni
ambassador, "That was the most expensive 'no' vote you
ever cast." The
million in foreign aid to
increasing aid to neighboring dictatorships that
supported the U.S.-led war effort. Over the next several
years, apparently upset with the dangerous precedent of
a democratic Arab neighbor, the U.S.-backed regime in
Renewed Violence and Repression
In 1994, ideological and regional clan-based rivalries
led to a brief civil war, with the south temporarily
seceding and the government mobilizing some of the
jihadist veterans of the Afghan war to fight the leftist rebellion.
After crushing the southern secessionists, the
government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh became
increasingly authoritarian.
increased. Unlike most
elections for the president and parliament have
continued, but they have hardly been free or fair. Saleh
officially received an unlikely 94 percent of the vote
in the 1999 election. And in the most recently election,
in 2006, government and police were openly pushing for
Saleh's re-election amid widespread allegations of voter
intimidation, ballot-rigging, vote-buying, and
registration fraud. Just two days before the vote, Saleh
announced the arrest on "terrorism" charges a campaign
official of his leading opponent. Since that time, human
rights abuses and political repression - including
unprecedented attacks on independent media - have
increased dramatically.
Obama was elected president as the candidate who
promised change, including a shift away from the foreign
policy that had led to such disastrous policies in
and elsewhere. In
be pursuing the same short-sighted tactics as its
predecessors: support of a repressive and autocratic
regime, pursuit of military solutions to complex social
and political conflicts, and reliance on failed
counterinsurgency doctrines.
Al-Qaeda in
any military action should be Yemeni-led and targeted
only at the most dangerous terrorist cells. We must also
press the Yemeni government to become more democratic
and less corrupt, in order to gain the support needed to
suppress dangerous armed elements. In the long term, the
needed development aid for the poorest rural communities
that have served as havens for radical Islamists. Such a
strategy would be far more effective than drone attacks,
arms transfers, and counterinsurgency.
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