The Third Front

Shortly after Christmas, the blighted terrorist attack of a young Nigerian on a Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit suddenly moved Yemen into the world public’s focus. The Yemeni al-Qaeda trained the 23-year-old, equipped him with explosives, and ordered him to bring down the airplane over American territory.

A noticeably shocked world public asks how the small country at the edge of the Arabian Peninsula could have become a headquarters for planned attacks on the United States. At the same time, evidence accumulated that the U.S. government is being put under pressure to act against the Yemeni al-Qaeda branch, and Germany fears that the Americans could take military action.

The United States does not need a third front to go along with Iraq and Afghanistan. However, they should not allow a Yemeni organization to commit terrorist attacks on American targets. In similar situations, every administration is pressurized internally to react in a determined and visible manner for the public. Furthermore, Washington has to act based on objective considerations. Since 2006, the al-Qaeda in Yemen have gained strength – and if that development is not stopped soon, further terrorist attacks could follow.

The first step was quite obvious: The U.S. government announced that it would expand its cooperation with Yemen in terms of security questions. Here, one could pose the questions of whether this step is really an appropriate way to deal with the problem and whether it can contribute to a solution. After all, the United States has been cooperating intensely with the Yemeni government ever since 9/11 and has already attacked several al-Qaeda targets from the air. In November 2002, the U.S. used an unmanned aerial vehicle for the first time to bring down an al-Qaeda leader in Yemen.

Nevertheless, the organization managed to hold its ground in Yemen, use the country as a retreat and hub for logistics, and plan attacks in Yemen and Saudi-Arabia since 2009. Therefore, because the previous political approaches have failed, the U.S. should look for alternative methods to add to the now solely repressive fight against al-Qaeda.

Indeed, the American reaction to the events points to a serious mistake in the Western fight against terrorism. It overlooks the fact that the authoritarian regimes of the Arabian world are part of the problem, but only conditionally part of the solution.

Al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups emerged from the dispute between their countries’ dictatorships. Only when their leaders realized in the 1990s that they would not be successful in overturning the governments in Cairo, Riad, or anywhere else, did they begin to take action against the powerful supporter in the West. The result was the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States.

In Yemen, the Sanaa regime also has major difficulties keeping the nation together – despite its authoritative character. The policies of the government resulted in a civil war against Zaidite rebels in the north during 2004 and a revolt of separatists against Sanaa in the formerly socialist South Yemen.

Al-Qaeda is especially powerful in this region because the Yemeni state is so weak. If President Ali Abdallah Salih does not manage to change course fast, Yemen could be a failed state in only a few years. In such a case, the jihadists could possibly become even stronger – just as they recently did in Somalia.

Even if the expansion of the security cooperation with Sanaa lacks an alternative, a political strategy for fighting terrorism in Yemen is necessary. First, this strategy must take into account that cooperation with the administration of President Salih must not lead to an authoritarian consolidation of the regime which, in turn, would fuel yet another resistance of the opposition. Second, it would have to establish the basis for a slow stabilization of the state to avoid Yemen’s collapse. The most obvious step towards consolidating these two goals would be striving to end the civil war in the North.

Neither side is able to militarily defeat the other, and a negotiated solution would grant the country a much-needed break. Also, it is almost as important to relieve tensions between Sanaa and the separatists in the south of the country. In the long run, western policies should aim at fundamental reform of Yemen’s political system. Important first steps would include increased participation and constitutionality.

Resources of the United States and its allies are limited, and the stabilization of Yemen is a demanding task. However, the country is too important to be ignored. If Yemen became a second Somalia, shipping in the Gulf of Aden and the southern Red Sea could be threatened from the Yemeni side as well. Even more importantly, Saudi-Arabia would be impacted by the instability of its neighboring country, causing it to intervene. Saudi Arabia could then find itself in a downward spiral, as well.

In the end, the experience with Afghanistan and al-Qaeda proves that even seemingly remote geographic areas – if ignored long enough by international politics – can turn into a threat for the western world.

In that regard, the attempted terrorist attack in Detroit is a clear warning. Western politics must not ignore countries like Yemen any longer if it wants to effectively prevent future conflicts and terrorist attacks.