Though Yemen has close relations with the US as well as the west, yet, its geo-political situation dictates that the US should provide caveates for the country under the current circumstances and irrespective of whether the regime is good or bad.

Yemen from its own perspective, is faced with two important problems as aptly put by Dr. Lynch. The first is the war against the Huthis, and the second is the growing call for seperatism by the South of the country. Therefore, to defeat the Huthis militarily and stump out any attempts of seperatism are the priorities of Yemen, while al Qaeda comes in third place and only with the insistence of the US, that Yemen is sending troops now to al Qaeda areas.

Essentially, many quarters close to the regime and its various state apparatus structures, are very reluctant to deal with al-Qaeda and its sympathisers in the country, on purely opportunistic grounds, lest al-Qaeda can become useful at one point as an asset, to be used against the Zeidi Huthis [a Branch of Shi'ism], or the Socialists of Southern separatism.

Here comes now the caveate one is talking about. In this context, the US can provide Yemen with financial aid and military hardware assistance in order to defeat the Huthis and keep the country as one, thus taking out al Qaeda from the formula of being thought of as a likely assest by some Yemeni power quarters, and provide the necessary incensitve to the regime, to add al-Qaeda to the list of its wars, but initially in this process, the US may have to turn a blind eye to al-Qaeda in yemen; if not totally.
khairi janbek.paris/france

Marc,

I agree with you: relying on Saudi Arabia to do the bidding of the US in Yemen would be a mistake and not at all what I was attempting to argue in the post. Rather, my point was that the US must get Saudi Arabia to agree not to subvert US goals within Yemen, which is rather different, I believe, from what you suggested I was arguing.

So, what exactly should the United States do in Yemen? Clearly, we cannot afford to ignore the country anymore. If there is a lesson to be learned from the attempted terror attack on Christmas Day, is it the fact that international terrorism will not go away so long as the root causes of political extremism dominate countries across the globe.

Clearly, the United States would be ill advised to send thousands of troops into Yemen as a response. With Iraq and Afghanistan still draining taxpayer money out of Washington's bankroll, a third war with a large American presence would not do much good. But this does not mean that the U.S. should sit on its heels and pretend like the attack did not happen.

Development aid should be a substantial part of the U.S. counterterrorism strategy in Yemen. Dr. Lynch points out that "Development aid sent to the Yemeni government will likely simply be funneled...like water in the ocean." This may be true if the U.S. just handed over money to the Yemeni Government unilaterally and without any preconditions. But what if the aid was handled- and monitored- by a consotorium of countries that are worried about Yemen's domestic troubles?

While Yemen is certainly struggling to survive in a number of respects (corruption, economic opportunity, poverty, unemployment, radicalism), it is an area that can actually bring the Middle East together. It is in everyone's vested- interest including the United States- to at least contain the violence and spur some sort of functionality.

Some academics seem to forget that Yemen has always been at the center of Islamic fundamentalism. Remember the 2000 U.S.S. Cole bombing off the coast of this fragile Arab state? Being ill-prepared could be just as destabilizing as overreacting.

http://depetris.wordpress.com

is indeed a Shi'a Zedi, however though one is reluctant to resort to the archaic and archane in western minds, to explain the situation from this angle, it may still prove to be interesting.

The Zeidi Shi'a Imamate; which the Houthis are accused of wanting to restore to Yemen, recognises only leaders whom are Hashemites, ie. direct descendants of Prophet Muhammad, and Presidentt Ali Abdullah; though himself is a Zeidi Shi'a, he is not a Hashemite.

If indeed it is true, that the Houthis are belivers in the restoration of the Zeidi Imamate to Yemen [President Ali Abduallh still accuses them of that], then it means that they never actually recognised his authority before, and when they got the chance they made this clear violently, and are likely also in the future; whenever they get the chance, to make this clear once again.
khairi janbek.paris/france

I generally find myself not sympathetic to your opinion on these thorny issues but this in large part seems a fairly reasonable analysis - excepting of course for your shameless Obamaphile cheer leading, which apparently your ilk just can't help themselves from engaging in - the vapid romanticism of Obama's 'outreach' program can be grafted onto your skeptical inertia viz Yemen and thereby assume the guise of a thoughtful strategy, but the connection is tenuous at best - never mind suboptimal outcomes, better to call Obama's approach the emptiness that makes a nice sound - sub suboptimal, not outright failure if we're lucky - in other words, you do a good job of pointing out that Yemen is a shit hole and we should be very careful where we step, but your 'solution' to the problem is in the end a meaningless convenience - an endless side stepping that offers up the illusion of moving ahead.

I notice that media coverage is about as uncritical and prone to repeating a few facts as it has ever been. Examples are such as "INSERT TOWN NOBODY'S HEARD OF HERE was bombed" and "TERRORIST NOBODY KNEW ABOUT sent a video". There isn't any investigation of tribal systems, who the Houthis are (not that I'm quite sure either), or what conditions are like for most of the people in Yemen, probably because very few journalists have gone to Yemen. Replace a few of the names and you get Pakistan, Algeria, Nigeria, and quite a few other countries. I'm starting to wonder if humans even write the stories anymore or if they just spell check what a machine spews out at random.

On another note, as a blogger on Al-Sahwa pointed out, Al Quaeda does seem to have better organization and more resources for media than it did in Afghanistan. That isn't to say that Al Quaeda is stronger in Yemen, simply to compare and contrast different focuses in different nations.

I think part of the AQIY-problem for the yemenite forces is that there is a larger network of former mujahedin that are from many clans, subgroupings, etc. And that these, while not directly AQ will quite possibly side with their former comrades in a conflict.. SO the fight at the moment is containable and sustainable, but an all-out campaign may trigger retaliation that is not..? Quite similar to the afghan dynamics.

On the whole-state approach, isnt it about time to start fiancing a real international taskforce of competents, preferrably with a lot of muslims? Is there any good-guy variant of School of Americas, where people from these countries learn irrigation, recycling, energy-conservation, how to create companies, internet and so on and so on? Or is the US still thinking with its hammer only?

Does it not look funny to US people that their country wants war to one one underdeveloped and illiterate nations of the world.
US fought with Russia and japan in history made some sense under the concept of same kind of power of war technology shared by these developed nation.
But seeing the pathetic living conditions of Afghanistan and Yemen, you people should look the level of your apprehensions and creation of deadly games for other people and countries who are far behind in technology, human and mass development than you.

"The U.S. simply does not have the resources to embark on a military mission in Yemen"

au contraire mon doctaire'!

Annihilating suspect camps, inserting hunter killer teams and generally putting the Schwerpunkt in their hood are well within American capabilities.

Perhaps some of the "high priests" of COIN doctrine believe and advocate that ungoverned spaces should be sought out and treated with COIN intervention (leaving aside that not all ungoverned spaces are afflicted by insurgencies). But the mere fact that adherents of a particular mode of thought also advocate certain policy positions does not imply that those positions flow from those odes of thought. Counterinsugency doctrine, as you well know, doctor, is not a framework for the setting of global counterterrorism policy. Rather, it is a set of operational guidance for the achievement by foreign military forces of particular politicao-military objectives in places where they are deployed to protect the established authority and face a particularly constituted opponent in doing so. Whether the U.S. gets itself (or its military personnel more to the point) involved in such situations going forward pursuant to its efforts at countering the threat to it from global terrorism is entirely a policy question to be determined by our highest civilian authorities in their decisions about how the fight against terrorism will be pursued. Those officials are in no way beholden to the tenets of COIN doctrine across any range of policy questions beyond those to which they have already chosen to apply it (ie, Iraq and Afghanistan). Nor, to my knowledge, are most experts on COIN doctrine itself advocating that they do so. Am i unaware of particular quarters in which the power of COIN doctrine has been so lionized that it not only represents the only acceptable response to ongoing military efforts beset by insurgencies, b ut in fact is embraced as the right and proper response to any and all 'ungoverned territories' from whence terrorism directed at the U.S. may originate? I'd like to see any reporting I may have missed indicating the institutionalization of COIN doctrine for that expansive set of purposes in important policy offices of the U.S. government or important policy analysis centers that are influential thereto.

It is demoralising that the first reaction to a threat to the USA is military action. Military intervention should be an option that is kept on the table, sure, but it should be the last one thing to be reached for as an actual solution. Not only for the fuzzy moral reasons, but for reasons to do with the deaths of our own young men and women in the name of an ill-defined and ephemeral cause, and because of the massive hostility and long-term friction that such action provokes wherever and wherever it is used throughout history.

It also stuns me that the enormous non-military capabilities that the USA has at hand are not even discussed any more when the specter of terrorism lurches out of the fog. If killing people was the only real means of dealing with political conflict and social upheaval, we would have wiped ourselves out many times over during the Cold War. The leadership of that time, freshly scarred and chastened by the mania of WWII explored every non-military option possible before contemplating sending in soldiers, and it proved to be the wisest of all possible strategies.

http://drbrydon.wordpress.com/

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that the US had already informed the Yemeni government officially in early 2009, that fugitive al Qaeda fighters from saudi Arabia, well already seeking sanctuary with the Yemeni al Qaeda.