Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wound up her tour of the Persian Gulf on Thursday with some strong words: Arab leaders must liberalize their political systems and clean up their economies or risk “sinking into the sand” of extremism, she told a stern audience in Qatar. If the Persian Gulf is to move forward, she said, its leaders must do more to fight corruption and roll back repression of women and religious minorities. Yemen in particular, with its growing culture of religious extremism, is in need of reform. When Clinton visited, she met with opposition leaders at the U.S. embassy; the next day, the government announced that permits would be required to visit foreign embassies.
