By Steve Hynd
Over at the FoxNews website, they've a discussion post with almost 400 comments asking if the U.S. should mount an all-out invasion of Yemen.
Threats from Al Qaeda have prompted the U.S. and the U.K. to shutter their embassies in Yemen -- and Obama's top counterterrorism adviser says the U.S. does not plan to open a new front there. Do you think U.S. troops should organize an offensive in Yemen in response to the terror group's growing presence?
The comments are of the quality you'd expect from Fox fans: "nuke 'em!" and "Obama does not have the stomach for the job" being fairly representative, as are "lets use B-52 strikes and UAV stricks around the clock if needed to get rid of them. one pokes his head about the sand put a 500 pound bomb on it and his camel" and "Just let the military do what the military does best and it won't take long".
This is the kind of gung-ho, ignorant, militarist jingoism that bogged down the U.S. in Bush's Wars. Lulled by the COINdinista's false PR claim that, finally, America has learned how to successfully fight nation-building, anti-terrorism wars, it appears that many lovers of "shoot first" foreign policy haven't learned a thing from the last decade.
But maybe these armchair warriors - and those in D.C.'s "very serious person" set - should educate themselves about Yemen, listed as the 24th most corrupt nation on earth this year, before they drum up support for yet another foreign quagmire. Reuters has a Q&A today which paves the ground for appreciating just what a potential mess Yemen is for foreign intervention:
Islamist militancy is only one of myriad economic and security challenges facing President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
A Shi'ite revolt in the north and southern secessionism are other symptoms of central government weakness in a country where rampant corruption and declining oil income undermine any effort to tackle poverty, unemployment and failing water resources.
...U.S. President Barack Obama told Saleh in September that Yemen's security was vital to that of the United States, offering more help to the impoverished country.
U.S. General David Petraeus, who discussed military cooperation with Saleh in Sanaa on Saturday, has said Washington will more than double its $70 million security aid to Yemen.
Yemeni armed forces, with at least indirect U.S. assistance, have staged several raids on al Qaeda targets in recent weeks.
But militant threats prompted the U.S. embassy, which was attacked twice in 2008, to close temporarily on Sunday. Britain and France have also shut their missions in the capital.
The United States has largely refrained from criticising the "Scorched Earth" military offensive that Saleh launched against Zaydi Shi'ite rebels in the north in August. But it has not endorsed government claims that Iran is supporting the rebels.
Alarmed at Yemen's slide toward chaos, the United States is throwing its weight behind a corruption-tainted government whose legitimacy and control is tenuous across swathes of the country.
Anti-U.S. sentiment is already rife among Yemen's 23 million people. Deeper U.S. entanglement in combating al Qaeda may spark more sympathy for the militants in a country awash with weapons.
Yemen also has an active Southern seccessionist movement, a problem with refugees from other wartorn nations like Somalia and such poverty that over half its children show signs of malnutrition. Sending over $140 million in security aid into such a nation, under Pentagon control and with the usual lack of oversight, is a recipe for disaster all on its own - a full military intervention, more so. The BBC reports that Western embassies in the country have been closed because Yemeni security forces"lost track of" six trucks full of arms and explosives in the capital, Saleh. The trucks may have fallen into extremist hands - and in Yemen, it's a toss up whether the guards or senior officials were bribed to look the other way in the meantime. We've seen this movie before, and its too long, has too high a ticket price and comes with no happy ending in sight.
A Yemen intervention also comes with even more potential for neighbourhood blowback than even Iraq and Afghanistan. Simon Tisdall at The Guardian notes:
The wider implications of direct US involvement in these murky regional intrigues are potentially damaging. Jousting with Iran over Yemen will not assist the arguably more important western objective of securing a nuclear deal with Tehran. Similarly, deepening Saudi involvement in a polarising conflict in Yemen may undercut Riyadh's current efforts to reconcile Fatah and Hamas and thereby facilitate an Arab-Israeli peace deal � a prime Obama objective. It could also weaken the Saudi regime, by creating a rallying point for internal opposition.
The negative impact of internationalising Yemen's multiple conflicts on neighbouring Horn of Africa countries should also give Washington pause. Both the Yemeni and Somali governments complain about the mutual support systems between rebel groups in the two countries. Somalia's al-Shabaab Islamist militia said last week that it would send reinforcements to Yemen should the US carry out attacks there. As usual, Eritrea's dysfunctional anti-western government is also in on the act, smuggling arms to insurgents of every hue.
An estimated 200,000 Somali refugees from the country's civil war are in Yemen. An unknown number have since joined al-Qaida, staying there or returning home. Expected, renewed US and British efforts to mandate a UN-led peacekeeping mission in Somalia are unlikely to be successful. That means an anarchic, largely ungoverned, largely hostile Somalia would provide the disruptive backdrop to any attempt to "secure" Yemen.
Yem-Som could easily make AfPak look like a minor disturbance to world stability. Yet Tisdall also notes that the hawks' voices are powerful, and that Obama may still decide to heed them:
Despite Republican barbs about supposed weakness, Obama may yet opt for a low-profile, partly covert approach. But the decision is balanced on a knife's edge. As matters stand, it would not take much to trigger muscular American intervention and with it, a new desert storm.
That would be Al Qaida's wet dream.
Steve, you might want to look at Pat Lang's comments. He served in Yemen after all and knows the personalities and land at first hand.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of invading Yemen is absurd.
There's a larger question that I think is more to the point. If weak and corrupt government is a breeding ground for terrorism, particularly in places with histories and cultures that might incline in that direction, isn't the solution stronger, more honest government? Or even just stronger government?