Re: Yemen is the New Black! Posted by Shadi Hamid

I have to agree with Michael that I find the overblown rhetoric on Yemen the past week somewhat bizarre. It's not as if Yemen suddenly developed a terrorist problem for the first time. And, even if did, I think we should adopt a general rule to err on the side of underblown, rather than overblown, rhetoric on anything having to do with terrorist threats, unless, of course, threat-overhype would serve our strategic interests more than those of al-Qaeda, something, which I suspect is unlikely to be the case.

That said, that is why I don't think we should excessively rely on narrow national security interests to justify what, in my view, are broader, messy - and perhaps necessary - interventions that are tied to long-term transformation of failing states (I hope that sentence doesn't scare people!). This was our problem in Afghanistan: the Obama administration was making what was essentially a moral case - or what could have been a moral case - in largely amoral terms. The two - interests and ideals - go well together and I think we have some work to do to get the balance right.

This problem isn't as acute in Yemen because, for better or worse, I don't think the freedom and prosperity of the Yemeni people keeps most people in DC up at night.

For better or worse, we're in some sense tied to Yemen. Yemen is yet another Arab ally, led by yet another very unimpressive repressive dictator. So we should be wary of making President Saleh another anti-terrorist frontline. He will likely use any further support he gets, financial or political, to cement his grip on power. And Saleh's authoritarianism is certainly a source of burgeoning discontent, particularly among young Yemenis with dim prospects.

Michael, as for your question

Why should we devote more resources to a country that we barely understand; that has myriad economic, social and political problems; that is run by a unaccountable and corrupt dictator; and where our interests and capabilities are quite limited. Above all, why should we devote more resources when even the authors acknowledge that it won't cure Yemen's problems?

It deserves a longer answer than I'm able to give right now, but we barely understand most Arab countries. That should not be a pretext for disengagement, but, rather, for doing a better job of understanding most Arab countries. It's not as if the expertise isn't there. It is. There are a number, albeit small, in the U.S. who actually know Yemen, have spent months if not years there, speak Arabic, and know the political actors on the ground. One of them is Jillian Schwedler. 

It's also worth noting that Yemen is somewhat politically developed in a way that makes the situation less despairing than we might think. Despite Saleh's best efforts, Yemen can still claim a pluralistic political system, with some strong non-governmental actors, including the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Islah party.

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