A Unicycle on a Tightrope

After the underpants bomber botched his plot to blow up an airliner over Detroit on Christmas, Yemen became the consensus destination for the next chapter in the war on terror. It was there that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab studied Arabic and developed ties to Al Qaeda, which has been largely ignored by a Yemeni government already besieged by two other homegrown rebellions. Meanwhile, Islamism there has grown in recent years. But the United States has little presence in and scant intelligence of the deeply tribal country. It does, however, have an ally—and opponent of Al Qaeda—next door, in Saudi Arabia. NEWSWEEK's Andrew Bast talked with Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic & International Studies about how to (and who should) fight terror in the poorest country of the Arab world. Excerpts:

What is Saudi Arabia's strategy in Yemen?
First, during the time of King Saud [in the mid-20th century], Saudi Arabia essentially became involved in a low-level border war with Yemen. Later, as Yemen's population built up, Saudi Arabia's low-priced labor was generally Yemeni. Then Yemen backed Iraq in 1990, and a lot of Yemenis were expelled from Saudi Arabia: it became far less desirable to have a labor force whose loyalty was uncertain. Today, Yemen's population is immense by regional standards—it is about the same as Saudi Arabia's.

[Eventually], Saudi Arabia reached a border settlement with President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The tensions diminished. But Yemen's population kept rising; the economy kept declining. Everybody's pointing to this as if it was a sudden crisis—it's probably older than you are. When the Houthi rebels in Yemen became a problem and they moved into Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia had to send in troops and airstrikes to back the Yemeni government, which was too weak to deploy in the northern area. You're looking at what has been a source of continuous trouble and problems for Saudi Arabia ever since Saudi Arabia was formed as a modern state.

Has it come to the point where the Saudis serve as a protector of Yemen?
They really don't, because Saudi Arabia cannot possibly afford to deal with Yemen's economic and defense problems. Saudi Arabia is concerned with stability, but nobody knows how to provide development and stability in a country whose regime is less and less able to juggle competing factions, whose economy is going to hell in a handbasket, whose unemployment is at least 35 percent, and for young Yemenis probably far higher. It has no clear educational system, and its economy has become so oriented around a mild narcotic called khat that its former exports—like coffee and other agricultural products—virtually don't exist. You're looking at a structure that is likely to be unstable almost indefinitely.

What about Saudi Arabia's relationship with Saleh?
He's the only game in town. And Yemen's rebellious northern tribes become very difficult to deal with. Part of the problem is that the Houthi rebels are not Sunni, which leads to complaints that Iran is supporting them (which have not been substantiated by U.S. intelligence). But the other problem is that you've got a significant Al Qaeda presence in South Yemen, and there are real limits to what the Saleh government can do because Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula [AQAP] has ties to a number of major tribes.

Can you talk more about Al Qaeda's ties to the tribes? Is it politically impossible for Saleh to fight them?
This is an extremely conservative Islamic country—far less developed than the Gulf is, extremely poor, very divided—where every tribe sees the other tribes as rivals and sees the government as failing to give them the support they need. Some of the key members of AQAP are Yemeni, members of those important tribes, and they've worked out deals where they get extended hospitality. While people tend to forget this, Saudi Arabia was threatened from 2003 on by these terrorists far more than the U.S. was, and part of the reason AQAP is in Yemen is that it was driven out of Saudi Arabia.

Where do the Saudis stand with respect to AQAP?
They are very actively cooperating with the U.S. and with Yemen in counterterrorism. But there are limits to how open Saleh can be, and he has to constantly balance Saudi and U.S. pressure against alienating tribes. The politics and culture of these tribes describe any use of modern military force as somehow ignoble, but of course any alternative use would mean essentially that you have to revert to tribal standards. It's one hell of a juggling act. You're juggling three major sources of internal political dissension while you're riding a unicycle down a tightrope between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. It's not the easiest act in the world.

Is the long-term solution to build up the weak, fragile, and failing states like Yemen or Afghanistan or Somalia? What is the long-term vision here?
Everybody would like one, but first the sheer scale of the program would have to be immense to have real effect. Second, there's no one to administer it—no functioning government that can run a national-development program. Third, development aid tends to get stolen or disappear. So it's all very nice to talk about draining the swamp, but the fact is that you can't, in any practical sense, do it.