NYR | OPED by Nabil Khoury | Yemen: In Search of a Coherent US Policy The final session of Yemens National Dialogue Committee concluded on January 25, 2014, with an agreement on a basic constitutional document describing a unified but federated and democratic Yemen. To be sure, there are issues still to be worked out: the number of states to be federated — with some southerners still holding out for two (north and south) and others insisting on four or six — and an arrangement with the Houthi tribe in the north defining their state and the parameters of their local government. U.S. diplomacy has not, to date, contributed to the resolution of these two nagging problems. There will, however, be ample opportunity to help ease the tensions of regionalism with track-two-type ideas and projects to help establish trust among the conflicting regions. Keeping Yemen together is in the U.S. national interest, and spending economic and political resources towards that end is therefore worthwhile. The Gulf Cooperation Council initiative must remain a Yemeni-owned process. But we all have a stake in its success.1 With this statement, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns clearly and succinctly distinguished between intervening in the domestic affairs of another country (à la Iraq) and simply admitting that the United States has a vested interest in an initiative undertaken by the regional states and run by Yemenis themselves. Burns went on to clarify that assisting Yemens democratic transition is not only good for the Yemeni people, but also in line with the U.S. national interest. President Obama has made that point several times, starting with strong pro-democracy statements in his Cairo speech of 2009, well before the early days of the Arab uprisings in 2011. Five years after that speech, however, U.S. policy remains torn between short-term security concerns and the broader view: security through stability and democracy amid a continuing search for a strategy to bridge the gap and get on the right side of history in the Middle East. To be fair, a Yemen Strategic Plan was initiated as a result of the 2009 review of U.S. policy towards Yemen,2 keeping the focus on the short-term security goal of fighting al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), increasing development assistance and working with an international group of donor countries to achieve a multiplier effect. The problem is that these three laudable goals can be contradictory if run in parallel to one another, yet neither the National Security Council at the White House nor the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the State Department have demonstrated much appetite for integrating them. Further, while the United States has been taking direct action in prosecuting the war on AQAP, it has not taken such an approach toward facilitating a smooth political transition in Yemen. The National Security Strategy for 2010 mentions Yemen in the context of overall security goals: Deny Safe Havens and Strengthen At-Risk States: Wherever al-Qaida or its terrorist affiliates attempt to establish a safe haven — as they have in Yemen, Somalia, the Maghreb, and the Sahel — we will meet them with growing pressure. We also will strengthen our own network of partners to disable al-Qaidas financial, human, and planning networks; disrupt terrorist operations before they mature; and address potential safe-havens before al-Qaida and its terrorist affiliates can take root. These efforts will focus on information-sharing, law enforcement cooperation, and establishing new practices to counter evolving adversaries. We will also help states avoid becoming terrorist safe havens by helping them build their capacity for responsible governance and security through development and security sector assistance.3 Yemen, in this text, is lumped with Somalia, the Maghreb (no further specification) and the Sahel as areas where pressure will be applied against al-Qaeda affiliates in collaboration with local authorities.4 This collaboration varies, of course, from areas where the United States can rely on a strong and unified country like Morocco to take its own counterterrorism measures, only seeking advice or assistance from the United States, as and when needed, to places like Somalia, where local government is almost nonexistent. Yemen, in 2010, fell somewhere between the two extremes. The central government of Ali Abdallah Saleh still controlled a strong military, albeit one with limited technical skills. Ironically, in Yemen the same factor that makes the use of drones appealing, from an American security point of view, also taints the intelligence that is a critical part of targeting strikes and verifying results. With no operatives on the ground and with the limited mobility of embassy personnel, the United States is dependent on Yemeni security officials for strike assessments. On at least two occasions, local accounts and investigations by Human Rights Watch have pointed to mistaken targeting and to under-reporting of the number of innocent civilians killed by drone and missile strikes. Five men, killed by a drone strike in south Yemen on August 2012, apparently included two locals, well known in their community, and three others who were strangers. Yemens ministry of defense described the three strangers as members of AQAP, killed while meeting with their fellows.5 The two fellows included Selim Jaber, a 42-year-old cleric who had denounced al-Qaeda in a local mosque sermon, and his cousin, who had gone along to meet the three strangers, at their request. Selim and his cousin Walid were well-known in their village; the AQAP members were not. The assumption is that they were killed by association, assumed to be guilty because they were meeting with AQAP members. Selims brother Faisal has been on a campaign in Europe and the United States to publicize the cost, in innocent lives lost, of drone attacks in Yemen. In addition to honest mistakes, Yemens collaboration against terrorism was also tinged from the start with former President Salehs personal agenda. Hence, his genuine interest in stopping acts of terrorism against U.S. targets in Yemen ran up against the desire to protect sources and contacts who were of personal use to him. A 2009 case involving the assassination of the deputy governor of Marib, Jabir al-Shabwani, raised questions among some Yemenis as to motive; AQAP operatives he had been tasked by the Yemeni government to negotiate with for their surrender were killed along with him. These men had reportedly been to visit several local government offices earlier in the day and had left unharmed. They could have been captured, if the Yemeni government had indeed had damning evidence against them.6 The collaboration was on occasion further tainted by Salehs using U.S. assistance against his own domestic political enemies. Steven Day, addressing the issue of Salehs foes in the south, writes, President Saleh likes to portray his local opposition as a foreign-inspired threat to national security. This is the regimes standard playing card, … labeling political opponents as traitors and placing his confrontation with them in the same category as the U.S.-sponsored war on terrorism.7 Salehs problems with southern leaders like Hassan Ba-Awm and the Bashraheel family (owners of the daily al-Ayam) took on the appearance of a hunt for terrorists when Saleh sent troops — and, at one time, Sanaas U.S.-trained Counter Terrorism Unit — to surround the Bashraheel home and eventually arrest the father, Hisham Bashraheel, on charges of aiding terrorists. In fact, the paper owner had simply defied Saleh and published columns critical of his policies in south Yemen. Similarly, in his fight with the northern Houthi tribe, initially an obviously domestic conflict in Saada, Saleh tried repeatedly to paint the conflict to U.S. and European diplomats as a counterterrorism issue. He claimed he was fighting our fight because the Houthis had as their main slogan, Death to Israel, Death to America, and Victory for Islam — with direct assistance from Iran. Ironically, while he did not have any evidence against Iran at the start of that war, Iran did end up becoming interested and somewhat involved in it towards the latter part of the conflict, 2010-11.8 Using drones for targeted killing when capture by Yemeni troops was a viable option also put in doubt the Saleh regimes motives, or at least cast doubt on the tactical reasons suggested for their use. Gregory Johnsen reports on the case of AQAP leader al-Qadhi, who was killed by a drone strike on November 7, 2012, in a house close to the residence of former President Saleh. Senator McCain asks in a committee hearing, why, given that al-Qadhi was living openly in his house, did the U.S. not seek to capture him?9 On the surface, it appears as if drones are used to minimize escape or heavy resistance, which would lead to casualties. In a case like Qadhis, where the location is known and easy to access, two alternative theories present themselves: either the United States does not trust the local governments ability to execute the arrest, or the local government would genuinely rather not pursue someone who had rendered useful services to the state. Read more: mepc.org/journal/middle-east-policy-archives/yemen-search-coherent-us-policy
Posted on: Thu, 29 May 2014 01:31:13 +0000
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