Yemen: all you want (2011-2015)

[Dayuhan]

"Broken" as in they have a government their populace does not approve of. WE like it just fine.

Again, nobody here speaks for the Saudi populace or any portion thereof.

Who is the "we" in "we like it just fine"? The US has been expressing discomfort and disapproval for the Saudi's human rights record, treatment of women, etc, ad infinitum for a long time. Of course the Saudis don't give a damn and it's not like we can change any of it.

What we do or do not "like" is irrelevant. The Saudi government exists, and we can't change it, so we deal with it. What else are we going to do? We don't sustain it or enable it to oppress its people, but as in so many other places (China, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, etc), we've little choice but to deal with what's there. The Saudis are not exactly a US client and we have exactly zero leverage over their internal policies.

Not all of the populace obviously, but Yemen is the convenient sanctuary the active insurgent element takes refuge in, (those who are not among the thousands languishing in Saudi prisons waiting to be "de-radicalized)

Add up the most charitable estimate of the Saudi radical presence in Yemen and the political prisoners in Saudi jails, and what percentage of the Saudi populace do you have? If that's "the problem" for the Saudi government, they're in pretty good shape.

We are being played by all of these guys who know very well how to leverage our fear of oil disruption and terrorism in the US to get us to do what is the exact opposite of what we should be doing to get at the roots of this problem.

In practical, specific terms, what should we be doing to "get at the roots of this problem"? What should we do, that is, that would have any realistic chance of accomplishing anything?

But hey, it's always interesting to see how my comments can be twisted and taken places I surely never imagined. I am sure these will come back well-twisted as well.

Practical, specific suggestions are difficult to twist. From your earlier post:

So long as Saudi Arabia is broken, Yemen will be broken as well. I think too often we see fixing problems in Yemen as the key to solving problems in Saudi Arabia. I would argue that it is the other way around.

You refer quite specifically to "fixing problems in Yemen".

It is only once the Saudi government has committed to the substantive and reasonable reforms desired by the moderate majority of their populace that we will see an end to the disruptive presence in Yemen of their radical minority.

Again, whether this is true or not (and again, we don't know and shouldn't assume that we know what anyone in Saudi Arabia wants), it remains true that we cannot compel or persuade the Saudi government to commit to anything, least of all changes in their form of government.

How is that twisting anything?

This whole link to Saudi Arabia seems to me only very marginally relevant: Yemen has a huge crop of problems that have nothing to do with Saudi Arabia or Saudi radicals. The use of Yemen as a refuge for Saudi radicals is a consequence of Yemen's chaos, not a cause.

What can we do about Yemen? Nothing much, to put it simply. No point in trying to keep Saleh in power, and we don't seem to be doing that. We'll probably see who comes after, and try to deal with whatever mess emerges. Fairly safe to predict that there will be one.