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World Citizen: Yemen Is a Failed State in the Making

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MrPrestige
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World Citizen: Yemen Is a Failed State in the Making

Postby MrPrestige » Sat Nov 07, 2009 8:57 am

Written by World Politics Review.
Nov 06, 2009 at 01:47 PM
As we near the final year of the decade that brought us 9/11, it's worth recalling one lesson our experience on that date has etched with painful clarity: Failed states can become breeding grounds for violent extremists -- with devastating consequences far beyond their borders. Before 9/11, no one could have predicted that attacks concocted in remote, impoverished Afghanistan might have such a cataclysmic impact on history. Now we know that we ignore such states at our own risk. That's why remote and impoverished Yemen, a country undergoing what by all appearances is a slow-motion collapse, is likely to draw increasing attention -- and cause increasing alarm.

Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world, is facing a triple assault on its precarious stability. In the face of this growing crisis, the embattled government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh is doing a less-than-stellar job of averting catastrophe.

The country at the southwestern end of the Arabian Peninsula is under assault from both man and nature. The government faces two dangerous rebellions: one from northern Shiite rebels, the other from southern separatists. By some accounts, government forces control less than one-third of the national territory. All the while, the Sunni forces of al-Qaida are strengthening in Osama bin Laden's ancestral homeland, garnering only mild concern from the president. Looming over the political and security challenges are a crumbling economy and a growing ecological crisis that threatens to leave already dry Yemen without enough water to sustain a functioning society.

Saleh's attention is mostly occupied with the threat in the North from the Houthi rebels, who take their name from their fallen leader, Houssein Badredin Al-Houthi, killed by the government in 2004. The Houthi follow the Zaidi branch of Shiite Islam, which created tensions with the Sunni-controlled central government. They had also accused the government of short-changing their region and of being too close to the U.S.

Al-Houthi created the Shabab al-Moumineen (Believing Youth) to promote his anti-Western, anti-government views. The government believed he presented a dangerous threat to its authority and to the state, saying the Shabab were modeled after Hezbollah. After Al-Houthi was killed, the fighting intensified. Battles between government forces and Houthi militias have intensified, with thousands killed and tens of thousands displaced.

International observers were sharply critical of government -- and rebel -- tactics in the civil war, particularly during Saleh's aptly named Operation Scorched Earth, which killed large numbers of civilians.

Saleh has accused Iran of backing the rebels, and Yemen recently reported the capture of an Iranian ship that entered Yemeni waters illegally. Local media said the ship was carrying weapons for the Houthis. Allegations of foreign involvement are also coming from the rebels, who recently accused Saudi Arabia of siding with Yemen's government and allowing it to launch raids from its territory.

While it fights this civil war in the North, an old conflict has come back to life in the South, complicating Saleh's hold on the country. North and South Yemen have fought before. The two only came together as one country in 1990. But even since then, there has been much violence.

Marxist forces took power in South Yemen in 1970, forming the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen. Unity came in 1990, with Saleh, the leader of the North, assuming control of the unified country. Civil war between North and South reignited in 1994, but Saleh managed to retain power.

Regional divisions have not disappeared, though. Violence resurfaced this year, when a rally to mark the anniversary of the 2004 separatist uprising spiraled out of control. Secessionist sentiment is growing, driven by complaints that the South receives insufficient resources from Sana'a. Some go so far as to declare that they live under occupation by the North.

As Saleh focuses his attention mostly on fighting Houthis, he is turning something of a blind eye to al-Qaida's resurgence. Saleh has used Sunni-Shiite rivalries to strengthen his hand in the past, allowing al-Qaida to do some of his dirty work against Houthis. Al-Qaida has now taken up positions in lawless areas of the country, already making it a no-go area for foreigners.

U.S. military chiefs are concerned about Saleh's attitude towards al-Qaida. According to recent reports, U.S. Gen. David Petreaus traveled to Sana'a this summer and told Saleh that the U.S. believes he is not taking the threat the group poses seriously enough.

Saleh has a history of looking the other way on the issue. Yemen has occasionally helped Washington's efforts targeting the terrorist network, but he has been less than consistent. In 2006, 23 al-Qaida operatives, including several involved in the attack on the USS Cole, escaped from a Yemeni jail. The attack against the USS Cole five years earlier had killed 17 American sailors during a port call in Yemen. Many in the West believed the escape, one of several, could not have succeeded without government acquiescence.

Meanwhile, as threats to stability grow from Northern rebels, Southern separatists, and al-Qaida extremists, Yemen is losing its viability for human habitation. The country faces a major water crisis, one that could be reversed with concerted government action. But action is not forthcoming.

Most of Yemen's scarce water resources are being used to grow the mild narcotic, Qat. Poor planning is resulting in the depletion of aquifers and the absolute neglect of other agricultural production, making the country more dependent on food imports that deplete its meager treasury. Meanwhile, the economy relies on oil exports, which are steadily declining.

Falling incomes, declining resources, a population explosion, armed conflict, and a weak central government all add up to a country falling apart. Yemen is a failed state in the making, reminiscent of Afghanistan before the al-Qaida attacks on the World Trade Center. Before 9/11, the world could pretend this was not its problem. Today, it can no longer avert its eyes to a disaster that, much like Afghanistan, is likely to have repercussions in the Persian Gulf, the rest of the Middle East, and possibly even in the West.

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