Yemen Draws U.S. into Another War

While America continues to wage war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Pentagon is sending more and more advisers and weapons to Yemen. American generals plan to crush al Qaida forces in the government, which has a tribal element. However, this strategy has caused a split in Washington. The State Department fears that Yemen’s leader will use U.S. aid against his opposition.

U.S. Central Command has proposed supplying Yemen with military aid of $1.2 billion over the course of the next six years. The aid, which is somewhat secretive, according to information from The New York Times, will consist of delivering weapons and training the Yemeni army.

Specifically, the Americans are supposed to provide Yemeni soldiers with automatic weapons, patrol boats, transport planes and helicopters. American advisers would accompany Yemeni soldiers during military operations.

Why would the U.S., which has gotten bogged down in Afghanistan and continues to wage war in Iraq, consider getting involved in yet another conflict in the Middle East? The fact of the matter is that al Qaida has gained a foothold in Yemen’s government, where internal political alignment is still defined in large part by intertribal relations. Al Qaida numbers about 500–600 people.

Yemeni terrorists have already managed to do a fair amount of harm to America. Ten years ago they attacked an American destroyer in the port of Aden, killing 17 sailors. At the end of last year the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al Awlaki, a U.S. citizen likely hiding in Yemen, sent his student to America on a suicide mission to blow up an airplane headed for Detroit. The sabotage was prevented, but the Pentagon deemed that Carthage must be destroyed.

Such a militant strategy finds support in Congress. “Yemen is the most dangerous place. We’re much more likely to be attacked in the U.S. by someone inspired by, or trained by, people in Yemen than anything that comes out of Afghanistan,” stated Jane Harman, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

However, those in U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration who oppose such an aggressive course regarding al Qaida in Yemen fear that the president of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh, will use American aid against his political opponents. This will cause an outbreak of anti-American sentiment and destabilize the country even further.

Obama’s administration is essentially split on the Yemen issue. State Department officials are in favor of American intervention being limited, saying that the U.S. should concentrate its aid on the training of Yemeni special forces on remote bases.

In a conversation with Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Pavel Gusterin, a research fellow with the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, gave a reminder that “in Soviet times our missile-carrying submarines got into Aden and planted strategic bombers there. In 1994 Russia left Yemen. Nature abhors a vacuum. The U.S. wants to obtain a staging area in Yemen. Preparations have begun for the construction of a base on the island of Socotra.”*

The fight with al Qaida is a different aspect of American strategy, but the expansion of American interference is causing public protests. The Yemenis are inclined to be strongly anti-American. The most that can be achieved through mass expansion of U.S. aid is the displacement of terrorist cells to another country.

With this scenario it is not only destabilization that is possible but also a split in the government. After all, tribal sheiks rule entire regions. In the north, a revolt of al Houthi followers, who are dissatisfied with how foreign financial aid has been dispersed, tends to die down and then flare back up. In the south, proponents of secession from that region have become more active. The fact is that the south is rich in oil. Southerners were cheated when key posts were appointed in the capital, and they believe that they could live much better if they created their government anew. Separatist tendencies are gaining strength, and Yemen could share Somalia’s fate as a result, an expert believes.

*Editor’s note: This quote, though accurately translated, could not be verified.