Yemen: all you want (2011-2015)

[Dayuhan]

Comment on the Yemen/Saudi situation...

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articl...dilemma-061611

[davidbfpo]

Dayuhan,

Good catch the cited article, the last paragraph says it all for the Yemen:

Like their counterparts in Tunisia and Egypt, the demonstrators who have taken to the streets in Yemen over the past months want a new political order, not more of the same. They want a transitional government of national unity, composed of technocrats, that will function until new parliamentary and presidential elections can be held. This, in effect, means the establishment of a democratic order -- an outcome that Riyadh, for ideological and practical reasons, will be reluctant to midwife. This leaves Saudi Arabia caught between two contradictory policy imperatives: maintaining its influence in Yemen and rendering the country sufficiently stable so as not to pose a threat. In Yemen, Riyadh is confronted with difficult choices and no easy solutions.

We know Saudi Arabia supported Mubarak in Egypt till the end, then acknowledged his removal was popular and granted an unconditional US$4 billion loan. So they can move rapidly when needed to change partners.

I wonder if President Saleh will be able to exit his hospital.

[davidbfpo]

The headline says it all and is if by magic:

Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen's embattled president, who is being treated for shrapnel wounds in Saudi Arabia, will not return home, according to a Saudi official.

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...turn-home.html

[davidbfpo]

An Australian academic, Dr Sarah Philips, from the Centre for International Security Studies, University of Sydney, has published several papers on the crisis in Yemen, partly based on first-hand research in-country.

'Yemen: Developmental Dysfunction and Division in a Crisis State' (Feb 2011) is on:http://www.dlprog.org/ftp/download/P...is%20State.pdf

A summary:http://www.dlprog.org/ftp/download/P...20Division.pdf

Deeply patrimonial systems of power are not transformed overnight, and many of Yemen’s structural and human barriers to developmental change remain in place. The defection of key members of the inner circle to the opposition was not in itself a signal that a more developmentally inclined elite is in the ascendant, although many of the young protesters have been articulating demands for a fundamental revision of the political system. Those who defected from Saleh’s inner circle have been instrumental in instilling the dysfunctional political settlement that brought Yemen to this point. By joining the protest movement they have not necessarily heralded a new era for the Yemeni people. Indeed, none has gone so far as to openly renounce the patrimonial system of government, or the ‘rules of the game’ that will shape the behaviour of anyone who might follow President Saleh.

This week IISS has published an extended edition of her work, Adelphi Paper 'Yemen and the Politics of Permanent Crisis' and earnt this review comment by Nabeel A. Khoury, director of the Near East South Asia Office of the US DoS bureau of political analysis:

An important, timely and well-written book that delves into the country’s informal power structures and comprehensively addresses the Yemeni dilemma for Arab and Western governments.

Link:http://www.iiss.org/publications/ade...manent-crisis/