Yemen

Yemen-it's the new Iraq. Or Iran. Or some bad foreign country. All of a sudden, it's the Republicans' favorite target for abuse, even though they seem to have never heard of the place before, oh, two weeks ago.

I first started to worry about Yemen when I lived in the Middle East, about a decade ago. I can't claim to be any kind of expert about the place, but I would like to report what I think I know. First of all, here it is on a map:














It's down there, at the bottom of Saudi Arabia, right near Somalia, the Sudan and several other notable areas of total political chaos.

There is a lot to like about Yemen. It is home to some spectacular indigenous architecture:











It also has what, as far as I can tell, the best Arabic food in the world- certainly the best I have ever had. Call me simple-minded, but I believe these sorts of things say a lot about the people that live there.

Now, if you read the typical political descriptions of Yemen, you will be told that it is a constitutional republic. Of course, you need to take that with a gigantic grain of salt. Here is sort of what you really have:

First of all, Yemen is made up of a couple of dozen tribal areas. In many if not most of them, loyalty to the tribe is far more important than loyalty to the country. Insurgencies which have taken place over the years often have more to do with tribal issues than anything else.

Now, on top of that, Yemen is roughly evenly divided between Sunnis and Shias. As seems so often the case, the government is largely Sunni. This, predictably, has produced an insurgency of several years' standing in the largely Shia north and west of the country. These areas are only nominally under government control. Furthermore, there have been, over the last couple of decades, simmering leftist insurgencies also.

I want to diverge for a moment, to remind you that Germany and Italy were likewise made up of small principalities and kingdoms, until they were united in the late 1800's- not that long ago, really. Of course, we don't refer to Bavaria, or the Kingdom of Naples, as "tribal regions." I wonder why that might be. Anyway, what you have here is an area delineated as a country on maps, and with a nominal national government, but which is not a country in the same sense as, say, France or Norway. It is far more like what existed in Germany and Italy in 1800 or so. There is no one really capable of insuring that groups like Al Qaida can't thrive there; and so all of the bluster and all of the military threats in the world aren't going to do much good.

I have been waiting for several years for this to play out. Just like other countries in the region which have only nominal governments, such as Afghanistan and Somalia, Yemen has become a logical place from which to run a terrorist organization. As we make it risky to do so in other countries (at the expense, by the way, of making their own populations hate us,) these insurgencies are going to move to the place of the least resistance; if and when we attack their new haven, they leave for the next place, leaving the country's population to bear the price of our war.

There's got to be another way. At least, thank heaven, Obama is trying to find that way, instead of relying solely on the mindless violence which was the last administration's answer to every foreign problem.

Comments

Poll P. said…
Good info on yemen. I was pretty ignorant...ie, totally ignorant about its people, culture, politics, etc. I especially liked the architecture and food b.g., to give a sense of what the Yemenis were like. Also dug the Euro-tribal comparison. Thanks.
Capt. Fogg said…
Wow, I guess I was misinformed. I had thought the country was settled in the early 70's when the real hippie movement died and there was an exodus from California. Tangier was already ruined, so they kept going and they named the country Yeah Man! because of all the good vibes.
Green Eagle said…
Well, at least they're eating well. I'm a serious foodie, and I love Yemeni cooking.

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