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17/01/2010 | Yemen - America's Next Afghanistan?

Benjamin Joffe-Walt and Adam Gonn

MidEast analysts warn against an increased U.S. role in Yemen.

 

Ever since the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility for the attempted Christmas day bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner, Western eyes have turned to Yemen.

Geopolitical analysts adorn the airwaves with warnings that with a weak central government, Yemen has become the global radical Islamists' destination of choice, providing an ideal staging ground for future terror attacks on Western interests in the Gulf, the Red Sea gateway to the Suez Canal, and beyond.

U.S. politicians have meanwhile ratcheted up the rhetoric against the Gulf state, warning that without quick military intervention, Yemen will soon be America's next Afghanistan.

"If we don't act presumptively," warned U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman on Fox News, "Yemen will be tomorrow's war."

The U.S. has already been conducting covert strikes on Al Qaeda targets in Yemen and has pledged to double military assistance to the embattled government.

But while some U.S. politicians are agitating for a broader American military role in Yemen, many regional analysts are warning that such responses represent a 'knee jerk' approach to foreign policy that will ultimately destabilize the Middle East.

"I think there are some American policymakers that already see Yemen as the next Afghanistan," Dr Stephen Steinbeiser, Resident Director of the American Institute for Yemeni Studies told The Media Line. "The U.S. is going to double its military aid in 2010 and that's not necessarily going to make things better because a lot of these problems don't really have military solutions."

"Yemen is a perfect incubator for terrorism because there are many social problems that don't get much coverage in the Western media," he stressed. "The price of sugar has more than doubled in the past couple weeks, refugees are a huge issue, and half the country lives below the poverty line. Terrorism will thrive unless you can solve those social problems, but I don't know if anyone in Washington knows how to do that right now."

"So military power and money alone is not the answer," Dr Steinbeiser added. "There needs to be strong leadership within the country. It's not clear who the current president's successor will be and hopefully someone is working on identifying a natural, charismatic leader who can unify the country."

Beyond the growing Al Qaeda presence, Yemen has a smorgasbord of problems, from a serious impending water crises and an economy overly dependent on a dying oil sector to Somali pirates, a secessionist movement in the south and a Houthi rebellion in the north.

While the Yemeni government has shown some concern over Al Qaeda's presence in the country, this is a relatively recent development seen by many as a ploy to please the U.S. With around two-thirds of Yemen under the control of separatist groups, rebels or local tribes, the Yemeni government is much more concerned with consolidating its power than fighting the growing band of radical Islamists in the Yemeni mountains.

"The government essentially only controls the cities," said Dr Steinbeiser. "There are daily reports of strikes, terror attacks and protests outside the cities."

"Anything that poses some sort of threat to the President's power is going to be his primary concern," he said. "Al Qaeda really doesn't pose a threat, so there is definitely a difference in priorities between the Yemeni and American administrations."

"In Yemen all of the news has been about the Houthis not Al Qaeda style terrorism," Dr Steinbeiser said. "Then all of a sudden after the Christmas bombing Al Qaeda became the president's primary concern so as to please the U.S. It worked, and now he is getting all this money from the U.S. We've been down that road before."

Shadi Hamid, a fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institute, echoed Dr Steinbeiser's concerns.

"Every couple years or so there's some kind of terrorist incident and then there's more international and American attention," he told The Media Line. "Then people forget about Yemen and that cycle kind of continues every two years."

"The cycle that we've seen over the last two weeks is unprecedented," Hamid said. "That could be a good thing if the international community comes together and develops a smarter, longer term strategy. There has to be a broader assistance effort to improve the economic situation in the country and also to facilitate political reform."

"However, some of the indications that we've seen so far, at least on the American side is this continued obsession with military and security solutions and not committing enough attention and resources to the more systemic economic and political issues facing Yemen," he warned. "Yemen is essentially not a failed state but it's at least a failing state and that's something that Al Qaeda has been able to exploit quite effectively."

"Yemen is one of the poorest Arab countries," Hamid continued. "Couple that with one of the highest fertility rates in the region and you have a dangerous situation. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has been able to benefit from Yemen's abject poverty, its lack of responsive institutions."

"It certainly makes sense to make the connection between Yemen's economic problems and the broader security issues," he said. "These two are directly related even though sometimes analysts and policy makers in the U.S. don't always acknowledge it."

Sheila Carapico, a Yemen expert at the American University in Cairo, contributing editor to the Middle East Report and chairperson of University of Richmond's Department of Political Science and International Studies, also argued against the U.S. taking a security-based approach to the country.

"In combating al-Houthi rebels in the north and disaffected populations in the south, Sana'a has violated many international human rights standards, for instance by placing civilians in the line of fire, denying relief to tens of thousands of displaced persons, and harassing or shutting down independent newspapers," she told The Media Line. "I'm concerned that framing the country's problems in terms of terrorist threats and the risks of state failure amount to a rationale for bolstering a police state, and I hope the U.S. doesn't provide assistance to create a more effective military dictatorship."

Home to almost 24 million people, Yemen is one of the poorest nations in the Middle East and the government has long had a mutually beneficial relationship with radical Islamist groups, particularly during the country's civil war when the northern Yemen army used radical Islamists during the civil war against the south.

After 9/11 the Yemeni government became more hesitant of cooperation with Al Qaeda affiliated groups and last year, following the merger of Al Qaeda in Yemen with their Saudi counterparts to form Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the government launched a number of military operations against the group's strongholds but has not had the resources to develop a forceful campaign against the group.

"The Yemeni administration is pretty weak right now and doesn't have the necessary power and means to combat in conflict regions," Dr Steinbeiser said. "All of these conflicts are raging and are ideologically very different. Their only commonality is that they are working to weaken Yemen's central government. So in the short term I don't think supporting Yemen's government is going to work."

"In the long run if they are interested in helping to build Yemen as a state, then there may be a chance," he said. "Yemen is strategically located and the U.S. certainly recognizes that. The U.S. approach now is certainly different than its initial approach to Afghanistan, in that they are cooperating with the Yemeni government. That's a welcome departure from the past and an admirable approach, but unfortunately I'm not sure that's going to work."

"If these raging conflicts can't come under control by the summer," Dr Steinbeiser warned, "the U.S. might want to try taking a different tack and seeking a different kind of leadership for Yemen."

The Media Line (Israel)

 


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