Analysis: U.S. efforts in Yemen limited by realities of the region

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Analysis: U.S. efforts in Yemen limited by realities of the region
By Kevin Baron, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Tuesday, January 12, 2010

WASHINGTON — When it was revealed that the Nigerian man suspected of trying to bomb an American airliner bound for Detroit on Christmas had once passed through Yemen, the U.S. wasted little time dispatching Gen. David Petraeus to the chaotic Arab nation.

Counterterrorism experts have long cautioned that the U.S. ignored Yemen at its peril, but now the head of the U.S. Central Command was suddenly needed to put a very public face on the effort there. Petraeus carried with him a promise that the U.S. would double counterterrorism funding for Yemen, and he persuaded the government in San‘a to promise to crack down on the Islamic extremists it had long tolerated — al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, the terror group that backed suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

Yet experts on the region say that Washington’s response was misguided and offers little hope for tangible benefit.

“This is focused entirely on the U.S. domestic audience,” said Joost R. Hiltermann, deputy program director for the Middle East and North Africa at the International Crisis Group. “They want to see action after the plane incident, that’s what it’s about. And so they need to go stomping into Yemen in order to show the American public that the Obama administration means business. But what it does in Yemen is an entirely different matter, and that’s the danger. So, it’s a real dilemma. There’s obviously no easy solution to it.”

Yemenis have never been particularly anti-American, at least relative to attitudes in the region. But Yemenis across the country have been rebelling against President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s regime for several years.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=67171