Yemen left with little wiggle room
By Stephen Zunes
The United States may be on the verge of involvement in yet another
counter-insurgency war that, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, may make a bad
situation even worse. The attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Northwest
Airlines flight by a Nigerian and apparently planned in Yemen, the alleged ties
between the perpetrator of the Fort Hood massacre to a radical Yemeni cleric,
and an ongoing US-backed Yemeni military offensive against al-Qaeda have all
focused US attention on that country.
With a population of about 24 million, 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 world's poorest countries, with a per-capita
income of less than US$600 per year. More than 40% of the population is
unemployed and the economic situation has worsened for most Yemenis as a result
of a US-backed structural adjustment program imposed by the International
Monetary Fund.
The county is desperate for assistance in sustainable economic development. The
vast majority of US aid, 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 United States has long been concerned about the presence of al-Qaeda
operatives within Yemen's porous borders, particularly since the recent
unification of the Yemeni and Saudi branches of the terrorist network.
Thousands of Yemenis participated in the US-supported anti-Soviet resistance in
Afghanistan during the 1980s, 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 Yemen for the exiled al-Qaeda leader, even among those 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 Saudi Arabia. There, exposure to 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 US Navy ship Cole in
the Yemeni port of Aden, killing 17 American sailors. This led to increased
cooperation between US and Yemeni military and intelligence, including a series
of US missile attacks against suspected al-Qaeda operatives.
At present, hardcore al-Qaeda terrorists in Yemen - many 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 Iraq fighting US
occupation forces. The swelling of al-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 US invasion and occupation of Iraq correctly predicted
that the inevitable insurgency would create a new generation of radical
jihadis, comparable to the one that emerged following the Soviet invasion and
occupation of Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the George W Bush administration and
its congressional supporters - including then-senators Joe Biden and Hillary
Clinton - believed that a US takeover of Iraq was more important than avoiding
the risk of creating of a hotbed of anti-American terrorism. Ironically,
President Barack Obama is relying on Vice President Biden and Secretary of
State Clinton - as well as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, another supporter
of the US invasion and occupation - to help the US get out of the mess they
helped create.
Not a failed state
Yemen is one of the world's most complex societies, and any kind of
overreaction by the United States - particularly one that includes a strong
military component - could be disastrous. Bringing in US forces or increasing
the number of US missile strikes would likely strengthen the size and
radicalization of extremist elements. Instead of recognizing the strong and
longstanding Yemeni tradition of respecting tribal autonomy, US officials
appear to be misinterpreting this lack of central government control as
evidence of a "failed state". The US approach has been to impose central
control by force, through a large-scale counter-insurgency strategy.
Such a military response could result in an ever-wider insurgency. 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 Zaidi branch of
Shi'ite Islam. The United States has 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 US threatening more direct military intervention in Yemen to root out
al-Qaeda, the Yemeni 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 US military 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 US and Yemeni governments want destroyed.
For this reason, most Western experts on Yemen agree that increased US
intervention carries serious risks. This would not only result in a widespread
armed backlash within Yemen. Such military intervention by the US in yet
another Islamic country in the name of "anti-terrorism" would likely strengthen
Islamist militants elsewhere as well.
Cold War pawn
As with previous US military interventions, most Americans have little
understanding of the targeted country or its history.
Yemen was divided for most of the 20th century. South Yemen, which received its
independence from Great Britain in 1967 after years of armed anti-colonial
resistance, resulted from a merger between the British colony of Aden and the
British protectorate of South Arabia. Declaring itself the People's Democratic
Republic of Yemen, it became the Arab world's only Marxist-Leninist state and
developed close ties with the Soviet Union. As many as 300,000 South Yemenis
fled to the north in the years following independence.
North Yemen, independent since the collapse of the 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 in 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 US military mobilization in
response to what the Jimmy 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 Arabian Sea as a show of force. Bypassing approval
of the US Congress, the administration rushed nearly $499 million worth of
modern weaponry to North Yemen, including 64 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 US attempt to send such expensive high-tech
weaponry to a country with some of the highest rates of infant mortality,
chronic disease and illiteracy in the world.
The communist regime in South Yemen collapsed in the 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
Yemen one of the most genuinely representative governments in the region.
Later in 1990, when serving as a non-permanent member of the United Nations
Security Council, Yemen voted against the US-led effort to authorize the use of
force against Iraq to drive its occupation forces from Kuwait. A US
representative was overheard declaring to the Yemeni ambassador, "That was the
most expensive 'no' vote you ever cast." The United States immediately withdrew
$70 million in foreign aid to Yemen while dramatically increasing aid to
neighboring dictatorships that supported the US-led war effort.
Over the next several years, apparently upset with the dangerous precedent of a
democratic Arab neighbor, the US-backed regime in Saudi Arabia engaged in a
series of attacks against Yemen along its disputed border.
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 jihadi 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. United States support resumed
and aid increased. Unlike most US allies in the region, direct elections for
the president and parliament have continued, but they have hardly been free or
fair. Saleh officially received an unlikely 94% of the vote in the 1999
election.
And in the most recent 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
Iraq and elsewhere. In Yemen, his administration appears to 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 counter-insurgency doctrines.
Al-Qaeda in Yemen represents a genuine threat. However, any military action
should be Yemeni-led and targeted only at the most dangerous terrorist cells.
The Yemeni government ought to be pressed to become more democratic and less
corrupt, in order to gain the support needed to suppress dangerous armed
elements.
In the long term, it would be better for the United States to significantly
increase desperately 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 counter-insurgency.
Stephen Zunes is a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus and a professor
of politics at the University of San Francisco.
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