A supporter of Houthi Shiites holds a Yemeni flag during a rally in support of the Houthis, at a sports stadium in Sanaa, Yemen, Saturday, Feb. 7, 2015.
WASHINGTON — Since September, when President Barack Obama touted Yemen as a successful model to be followed and emulated across the Middle East, the poorest nation of the Arabian Peninsula has all but imploded under the strain of overlapping crises.
“This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years,” Obama told the nation from the State Floor of the White House.
“And it is consistent with the approach I outlined earlier this year: to use force against anyone who threatens America’s core interests, but to mobilize partners wherever possible to address broader challenges to international order.”
Whether or not Obama did indeed see a success story in the 2011 Gulf Cooperation Council-brokered, U.S.-backed transition of power following Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s resignation, realities on the ground have seen competing powers and factions not only challenge the country’s new political order but destroy a carefully crafted, American-vetted, post-revolution Yemen.
Meanwhile, those “partners” Obama referred to in September are no longer in power. President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, Prime Minister Khaled Bahah and Yemen’s cabinet are all gone, and the structure that was intended to support and carry the transition of power that Washington had so carefully negotiated and crafted with its regional partners — the GCC, which consists of Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman — has disintegrated.
The Houthis are now at the helm in Yemen. A formerly obscure tribal faction in northern Saada, located near the border with Saudi Arabia, the Houthis rose to power on the back of Yemen’s 2011 uprising. The Zaidi group — the oldest branch of Shiite Islam — scored significant political advances between 2011 and 2013 by asserting itself as a potent political interlocutor. It came to dominate Yemen’s political and tribal arenas last year, following a series of military campaigns against a rival Sunni faction.
With de facto control of Sanaa and the northern highlands, the Houthis have affirmed their leadership of the republic. Yet Washington has made it clear that the Houthis curry no favor in the White House due to the group’s alleged links to Iran.
“The post-revolution Yemen the U.S. dreamed about is no longer. Whatever Washington thought it was building in Yemen, whether the pursuit of its counter-terror policy or the advancement its political interests, it failed,” Ahmed Mohamed Nasser Ahmed, a Yemeni political analyst and former member of Yemen’s National Issues and Transitional Justice Working Group at the National Dialogue Conference, told MintPress News.
As of January, Washington and Arab and European capitals had withdrawn their diplomats from Yemen, turning the impoverished nation into a diplomatic void cut off from the rest of the world.
While Washington has had a history of pulling out from Yemen due to terror threats and other security-related issues over the past year, Ahmed says the latest “withdrawal resembles more a political shunning than a tactical move.”
“U.S. diplomats ran out of Yemen,” he said. “They did more than just withdraw, it was both a political capitulation and a sentencing against Abdul-Malik al-Houthi [leader of the Houthis]. They left without leaving any communication line open with the Houthis. It’s Iran 1979 all over again.”
AQAP: America’s greatest concern
The Houthis’ seizure of Yemen’s Presidential Palace on Jan. 20, and the subsequent resignation of both President Hadi and the government, stoked American concerns that the collapse of the Yemeni state would automatically undermine the mechanisms Washington set in place with Yemeni security forces and their U.S. counterparts in their war against al-Qaida.
Beyond a simple matter of intelligence sharing lies also the very thorny issue of the U.S. drones program in Yemen. Where Hadi might have been lenient and willing to turn a blind eye as U.S.-run drones patrolled Yemeni airspace, the Houthis have made it clear that such cooperation would never stand under their rule.
Here lies America’s greatest concern: The U.S. sees the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) as a major security threat. Indeed, Washington holds AQAP responsible for a number of successful attacks on U.S. soil and many others that were prevented.
Yet Washington also understands Yemen as a key cog in its counter-terror network. Losing its footing in Yemen would mean risking Yemen falling to radicalism, as Syria and Iraq did, right in the middle of the world’s oil route, Bab-el-Mandeb.
This uneasiness has been further exacerbated by reports that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has now expanded into Yemen, where it is allegedly vying for power with the local branch of al-Qaida. Recent claims that AQAP was behind the January attacks in Paris have only added fuel to the fire.
On Jan. 22, CNN quoted U.S. officials as saying that ISIS was recruiting militants in the impoverished nation, directly competing with al-Qaida. The report read:
“American officials do think ISIS is trying to recruit in Yemen. But one U.S. counter-terror official stressed the view that AQAP remains the dominant force there. The American intelligence view is that while there may be a smattering of ISIS loyalists among Sunni extremists in Yemen, they are likely ‘mid-level AQAP militants who are sympathetic to ISIL’s vision but haven’t broken ranks.’”
Mohammed Abdul-Salam, a senior spokesman for the Houthis, told MintPress, “While Ansarallah [the Houthis’ political arm] will always welcome a U.S. counter-terror collaboration, U.S. officials need to understand that any deal would have to be brokered with Yemen’s best interests in mind.”
“Yemen’s territorial sovereignty and the well-being of its nationals are not negotiable. We cannot allow a foreign military force to operate on our soil and target our people,” he continued. “There are other avenues that can be explored when it comes to fighting al-Qaida, drones are not a viable solution anyway.”
Is U.S. imperialism dead in the water?
With the world watching Yemen, Washington has chosen to act through the United Nations and its regional partners rather than leading any direct action.
The United Nations Security Council said earlier this month that it is ready to take “further steps” if Yemen’s Houthis fail to immediately resume U.N.-led negotiations to halt the unrest. Security Council members confirmed that sanctions could follow.
Resolution 2201, however, does not call for the Houthis to hand over the reins of power, per se, only to withdraw from state institutions, release Hadi and others from house arrest, and return to the negotiating table.
“The fact that Washington took a step back from Yemen, allowing Saudi Arabia and Egypt to stake their claims and voice their threats against the Houthis is a clear sign the U.S. is losing its footing in the Middle East,” Ahmed, the political analyst, told MintPress News.
“By refusing to step up, by playing soft politics and subcontracting its foreign policies to the likes of Saudi Arabia, Washington has become obsolete. U.S. officials have lost touch with realities when it comes to Yemen. There is a difference in between what the U.S. wants to see and what is real on the ground.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. is losing precious ground as capitals across the Middle East — including Manama, Damascus, Beirut and Sanaa — slowly move out from under its shadow and enter into Iran’s gravitational political pull.
Ali Reza Zakani, a Tehran city representative in Iran’s parliament, forecast the waning of America’s influence in the Middle East in September, saying, “Three Arab capitals have today ended up in the hands of Iran and belong to the Islamic Iranian revolution.” He then added that Sanaa was the fourth Arab capital on its way to joining the Iranian revolution.
Looking at dynamics on the ground and how Yemen went from a peaceful transition of power to bitter and violent armed clashes between political rivals — namely, the Houthis and al-Islah, Yemen’s radical Sunni faction — it appears Obama has been relegated to the shadows.
With the Houthis in charge and no Americans in sight, Yemen’s diplomatic vacuum might not stay empty for long, especially not when other powers in the region and beyond could use Yemen as a powerful and strategic political choke point.
“Both Iran and Russia would benefit greatly from a strong footing in Yemen. For Iran it would mean keeping Al Saud’s hegemonic ambitions in check, and Russia could use Yemen as a bargaining chip in its negotiations with Washington,” Mojtaba Mousavi, a political analyst and editor-in-chief of Iran’s View, told MintPress.
“Losing Yemen over a political disagreement is not exactly the smartest decision President Obama took, especially since the Houthis and the U.S. share a common enemy — al-Qaida,” he added.
A tangled Saudi web
Indeed, can the U.S. truly afford not to recognize the Houthis as a worthy interlocutor or a partner in the framework of its war on terror?
Commenting on Obama’s policy in Yemen, Thomas Buonomo, a geopolitical risk analyst and former U.S. Army intelligence officer, stressed:
“The U.S. should be working to support moderate, inclusive governments and to the extent the Houthis demonstrate a willingness to meet that criteria the U.S. should engage with them. As with Iraq, the reality of Iranian influence over various Shi’a factions should not preclude U.S. engagement with them but should rather provide a more compelling case for U.S. engagement to ensure that Iranian misperceptions or deliberate distortions of U.S. policy do not unduly influence groups such as the Houthis.”
Anthony Biswell, an external Yemen consultant at IHS Global Limited, noted that Washington’s political myopia in Yemen is symptomatic of its lack of understanding.
“Washington sees Yemen through military lenses. Yemen is a military asset, therefore politics and diplomacy play second fiddle. Which is why Saudi Arabia has been more visible in handling Yemen’s political crisis than the U.S. It is, however, a dangerous policy to follow, since it has led to a strange diplomatic standoff,” Biswell told MintPress.
Yemen now stands a virtual political and diplomatic island, cut off from the international community at a time when its economy threatens to collapse. Abdul-Salam, the Houthi spokesman, says the state will not be able to meet its financial obligations this month, which means that state employees face the very real risk of not getting their February salary.
Since an economic collapse can only benefit al-Qaida, experts such as Biswell and Ahmed are wondering what games the U.S. is playing in Yemen.
Ahmed speculated that Washington could have painted itself into a corner in Yemen because of Saudi Arabia. “Normalizing relations with the Houthis would anger Saudi Arabia. Washington is contemplating losing Al Saud for the sake of a tactical rapprochement with Iran,” he said. “This is where I think the U.S. is having a hard time.”
Indeed, ending the alliance with Saudi Arabia would essentially put an end to a decades-long power-sharing agreement and force Washington to redefine its footing in the Middle East and the world at large.