Revolution in the Arab World - Observation of a lost soul Blog

foreign policy • revolution in the arab world • rumblings
building public services and civil society. Brennan, one of the most adamant
in the Obama administration about the threat of al Qaeda in Yemen, made
his trip here in September 2010 with a letter from Obama to Saleh calling
the United States “committed” to helping Yemen.
No one doubts that the threat to Saleh’s government from the few hundred
al Qaeda fighters here is real. But no one doubts, given Saleh’s history,
that the Yemeni leader is trying to exploit that threat to gain foreign aid and
squelch political opponents and dissidents.
The West, the Arab states in the Persian Gulf, and others have already put
$5.7 billion on offer to Yemen since 2006, as Yemen’s al Qaeda threat grew.
But Saleh’s ineffective government has been unable to come up with concrete
spending and monitoring plans that satisfy the donors. The Friends
of Yemen conference was intended to sidestep those concerns and come up
with a way to push development regardless, perhaps by establishing an additional
development fund for the country.
What Yemen needs most isn’t more cash, though, but a government that
spreads its cash to the people, rather than steals it. Military and domestic aid
given without the strictest of conditions and oversight will only let Saleh’s
government continue to ignore all pressure for reform, perpetuating the
disaffection and suffering that sustain insurgencies and al Qaeda.
When it comes to short-sightedness regarding Yemen’s best interests,
Saleh and his ruling family circle have demonstrated a near unerring propensity
to err since he assumed the presidency in 1978, after leading a military
coup in 1962. Since then, Saleh has built a power system based heavily
on buying the goodwill of Yemen’s tribal leaders, allegedly paying them to
deliver the votes of their people in election after election.
In the first Gulf War, Saleh cast what became known as the most expensive
“no” in history—voting against international deployment to roll back
Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. Yemen’s Gulf neighbors expelled
Yemeni workers from their countries, lastingly depriving Yemen of remittances,
the mainstay of its tiny economy.
The blunders continued. Saleh allowed al Qaeda members to make their
homes here as long as they didn’t target his government (a gentleman’s
agreement broken only in recent years). Instead of incorporating southern
Yemenis after the 1994 north-south civil war, Saleh marginalized them, po-
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