By Catherine Shakdam
If Afghanistan cost the United States of America more than it ever bargained for, Yemen comes now as a very close second in terms of strategic losses, not only politically but militarily.
Ever the manipulator, ever the meddler, it would appear that Washington has once again failed to adequately assess realities on the ground, so blinded and conceited its officials have been when dealing with Yemen. This poorest and one should add, unruliest country in the Arabian Peninsula is poised to cost the United States a little more than just its shirt.
Used to command and direct those it understands as lesser entities, Washington has - as it now systematically does, thoroughly underestimated those powers which move Yemen, so focus it has been to promote and push its agenda.
Because Washington only understands what it wants and desires, because it only can conceive the world as it would like it to be and more importantly because it sees itself as the very centre and source of all power, an all mighty force which can suffer no challenge to its rule, America has just shot itself in the foot.
This oversight, this inaptitude to recognize Yemen’s complex tribal, political, social and religious make-up; America’s dismissal of the Yemeni people and the power they ultimately hold over the country, might actually lead to the very thing Washington fought to prevent all along – the inception of a popular government under popular rule.
Following decades of political, military and financial tutelage, either by the hands of Al Saud in Riyadh or the White House, Yemen has been offered an historical opportunity. Amid such chaos and confusion, Yemen could now, should its people have the strength and determination to do so, reclaim its lost freedom and establish its sovereignty on the basis of popular will, and thus defeat foreign interventionism.
The very movement which the Houthis started in December 2013 in Dammaj could soon be looked at as the stepping stone of Yemen’s emancipation from foreign imperialism.
Shooting in the dark
By slapping former President Ali Abdullah Saleh with Chapter VII – travel ban and assets freeze - the United States might have just set itself up for failure and consequently spelled the political end of President Abdo Rabbo Mansour Hadi, America’s present favourite patsy in Yemen.
Very much understood as Washington’s puppet by the Yemenis – across it needs to be said, the political and religious spectrum – President Hadi has never been more alone.
Driven out of his own political party, the GPC – General People’s Congress – on Saturday on account of his colluding with the US and the UN Security Council against former President Saleh, President Hadi has been branded a collaborator and a traitor by not just his former party members but the people of Yemen.
For all their bickering and infighting, Yemenis do not take lightly to treason.
By turning Hadi into a political pariah, a president without a party and therefore political legitimacy, the US de facto annulled his presidency, making Hadi politically irrelevant. Bearing in mind that Hadi never had much political traction within his own faction anyway, his political exile only serves to reinforce his lack of substance within Yemen power hierarchy.
While of course President Hadi could have hoped to survive the storm on the back of popular support … after all one might argue that the people of Yemen elected him to be their leader during this time of transition, Yemen’s ever suffering president was never really the people’s choice.
Brought to power on a democratic farce – Lest we forget that President Hadi was the only candidate allowed to compete in Yemen’s 2012 election – Hadi was propelled to the presidency to become foreign powers’ vessel, he was never meant to serve, let alone represent the people, he was only ever meant to follow orders.
And this is where Washington failed. It failed to compute Yemen’s yearning for meaningful change into its equation; it also failed to recognise the Houthi revolution for what it truly was and still is, a popular movement animated and driven by men whose ambitions are rooted in nationalism.
America’s failure, Saleh’s gain
While Washington’s failures in Yemen have been many, America’s dismissal of former President Saleh’s ability to survive and navigate Yemen’s murky political waters could prove to be momentous.
As noted by political analyst, Abdullah Hamidaddin in an OpEd for Al Arabiya, “The timing could not have been worse and that decision [UN sanction] fell right into the hands of Saleh. The Americans literally extended a lifeline to the former Yemeni strongman, pushed him to the limelight, and emboldened his supporters to chant his name again.”
At a time when Saleh was politically collecting dust, burned by three decades spent selling out his people and country to the highest bidder, the man who so famously claimed to dance on snakes’ heads was given a golden political ticket by the very administration which oversaw his demise.
The symmetry of it all is as uncanny as it is surprising. Who would have thought that three years after Yemen uprising, President Saleh would reinvent himself a freedom fighter?
As we currently stand, America’s failures in Yemen have become Saleh’s gains … at least for now.
For all his flaws and shortcomings, former President Saleh has proven to have more vision than many and quite clearly a deeper understanding of the forces which move his country.
Many analysts in Yemen have actually predicted that now that Saleh has been freed from the chains which tied him to Riyadh and Washington his goals will align with that of his people. Having felt the bite of America and Saudi Arabia’s betrayal, Saleh will likely look for a partner in the region who does not make a habit out of betraying its allies – Iran.
However one chooses to look at Yemen, it has become clear that Washington’s trigger-happy or rather sanction-happy attitude has quite dramatically backfired, creating a new power vacuum at a time when the impoverished nation looked set to move past old rancour. Since the UNSC announced it has sanctioned Saleh and two Houthi leaders, several ministers have backed out of the new coalition government, leaving Yemen in institutional darkness.
With at its head a president without a party and a prime minister without a government, notwithstanding the ever growing threat of Al Qaeda, Yemen is set for one tough ride …