Obama and His “Friend” in Yemen

We would be deluding ourselves if we believed that President Obama is “personally” interested in the health of the Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, or that there is a “joint cooperation” between the United States and Yemen on any issue, including the fight against terrorism. I assume that the U.S. president is in need of a “friend’s” help in order to remind him of the Yemen president’s name, and maybe of a “team” to help him pronounce his name properly.

He also makes an effort to identify the location of Yemen shown on the maps that are provided to him, and that is contrary to the news propagated by the Yemeni official news agency, which almost suggests to us that Mr. Obama does not get to sleep anymore out of worry about his Yemeni “friend” and “counterpart,” that he has not raised his eyes from the map of Yemen because he follows all that takes place in Sana'a, Taiz, Aden and Abyan, and that he reproached Sheikh Abdul Majeed al-Zindani for having supported the Yemeni president’s stepping down. Also, he is “very angry” with Sheikh Sadiq al Ahmar and his brother Hamid because the family took up arms against his “friend” Abdullah Saleh and sought to kill him by bombing his mosque.

Such suggestions remind me of an incident that took place several years ago and to which I referred once, as I was in one of the Gulf states participating in a conference among the most prominent of whose guests was Sheikh Muhammad Al-Ghazali. One morning I saw him roaring with laughter, with a newspaper in his hands; having invited me to sit with him at the breakfast table, he pointed out a piece of news highlighted in the paper and talked about the meeting of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Gulf state with his U.S. “counterpart.” Then he said, with words getting stuck on his tongue because he was convulsing with laughter, “On what basis did they consider the U.S. president a counterpart to him? What is the evidence of this?’’ and added that they may not have the courage to describe Obama as his U.S. president, but having described him as a “counterpart” is too “loose.’’ I reassured him that this is merely “media” talk, whereas every one knows one’s real value as well as one’s limit and role.

I read later that American diplomats sent to our countries to convey instructions and give dictations are advised, during their meetings with Arab leaders, to praise them, flatter them and delude them that they seek guidance from their opinions and enlightenment from their directives. This is what I have had a very sure understanding of and sparked my attention when Obama arrived in one of the Arab capitals, and declared at the airport that he came to listen to the advice of His Majesty the Arab king, and to derive from the sea of his wisdom.

No one can deny that the U.S. is interested in Yemen. Yet, that interest has nothing to do with President Ali Abdullah Saleh or with the two tribes, Hashid and Bakil, or with the Yemen people as a whole. However, they consider that the activity of al-Qaida there is a threat to their interests and their national security, and because they have “interests” in Yemen, the president was one of the guards. Once he opened the land and the skies of the country wide to the activities of the United States, which invoked the fight against terrorism as a pretext, they were eager to calm the situation there, not out of their eagerness for its regime, but in order to devote themselves to the pursuit of those they accuse of being al-Qaida members.

For this reason, the U.S. ambassador in Sanaa played a crucial role in handling the dialogue over the transfer of power and resolving any confusion there. For that same reason, the Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman visited the Yemeni capital last week and made contacts with various parties to promote resolution efforts for the crisis. Concerning this point, perhaps I will not exaggerate if I say that the U.S. efforts, along with the European ones, that are made to remove Yemen from the impasse exceed the Arab efforts in general and the Gulf States’ more particularly. You might have noticed the amazing absence of the Arab League and its Secretary-General on the Yemeni arena, which gives the impression that what is taking place there, is a U.S. and Western business more than it is Arab!

The bitter truth that should be recognized in this regard is that since the collapse of Egypt, and since that collapse reached the peak when it signed the Camp David agreement with Israel in 1979, it was a watershed in the shift of Egypt. It unfortunately dragged most of the Arab countries behind it, gradually from independence to dependence. The collapse of the Soviet Union and later the United States’ singular leadership of the international scene as a catalyst factor that contributed to that.

Since then, the Arab World has not only enrolled in the U.S. Obedience Home, but the negative atmosphere had revived the dreams of the old colonial powers, France and England in particular, and so they came back to try to restore their influence in several Levantine and Maghreb Arab countries.

You can say that the Arab world, after the defeat and the regression of Egypt, recalled the idea of a Western Mandate to shape its policies and manage its affairs, in a shape that appeared to be close to the Mandate Palestine underwent after World War I. I once said, when a Time magazine reporter asked me about the Islamic caliphate, that the U.S. President has become the Caliph of Muslims now, since he appoints and dismisses some of the “governors,” and is pleased with some and discontented with others. He also arranges the escort issues to the “provinces” which pay him taxes on a regular basis. Out of sympathy for his governors and to take good care of them, he pats them on their shoulders from time to time and addresses them as his counterparts and friends.