THE SCHOLAR: Why Yemen is Not on the Verge of Collapse

The Al-Houthis war in the North, the secessionist movement in the South, and Al-Qaeda cells in throughout the country are not new problems to Yemen. The government, to a certain extent, dealt successfully with each one of these issues in the past. In 1994, it militarily ended the attempt of the Yemeni Southerners to secede from the North. Yemeni troops entered Aden and crushed the secessionist movement. In June 2007, the government signed a peace agreement with the Al-Houthis, calming the troubled Saada district. Meanwhile, Al-Qaeda cells over the past few years have been on the run, hiding from government-led attacks.But something is new this time around. Today, the Al-Houthis, the Southerners, and Al-Qaeda have all regained strength. The Yemeni government will have to deal with each challenge at the same time. To make things worse, the country has reached new levels of poverty, unemployment, and corruption. This situation has received serious attention from Western policy makers and media outlets. Several high ranking U.S. intelligence and Defense Department officials, including CIA Director Leon Panetta and U.S. Central Command General David Petreaus, hinted last year that Yemen is on the verge of implosion and could become another Afghanistan.Yemen, despite all these challenges, is still far away from state failure or regime collapse. There are several indications that the Yemeni regime is more cohesive than perceived. The opposition is weak and unorganized. Presidential candidate and head of the opposition in the parliament, Bin Shamlan, died early January 2010. The opposition holds only 53 seats in the parliament out of 301. What strengthens the government’s position even further is the public belief that the alternative to the government is a widespread state of chaos. Neither Al-Qaeda nor the tribal leaders represents real competition. Unlike the tribal movement in Afghanistan, the tribes in Yemen seek the support of the government, especially in implementing projects for economic and educational enrichment. Some tribes, as in the Maerib district, resort to kidnapping as a means to pressure the government to comply with the tribes' economic wish list. The tribes want the government to work with them and supply them with economic aid, rather than present themselves as alternative to the government or its authority.Al-Qaeda, on the other hand, has appeared only in minor and isolated locations, like the districts of Abyan and Shabwa. Unlike Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda lacks the support and protection of the tribal system, and as a result, has no public support. This lack of support makes Al-Qaeda significantly weaker and is probably one of the most critical factors that determine the balance of power between Al-Qaeda and the government. That is, without significant and obvious support of Yemeni civilians, Al-Qaeda will remain vulnerable and unable to defy the government on its own. To be sure, since the government started attacking Al-Qaeda enclaves in early January 2010, we have not seen any public protests against these operations. We can understand from this that the people, if not supporting the government, are at least not allying with Al-Qaeda nor providing the kind of protection that would weaken the government's position.It is obvious that the Government of Yemen and the United States have benefited significantly from the experience of fighting Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That is, the government has made it clear from the beginning it will not accept any foreign military presence on its soil regardless of how vicious the war against Al-Qaeda becomes. They have accepted all kinds of military and financial assistance from the United States with the exception of direct military intervention. Such an intervention would definitely create stronger public sympathy towards Al-Qaeda, which would make it more difficult for the Yemeni government to continue its attacks against them. Last January, 150 Yemeni imams declared a 'fatwa of Jihad' against the West if they sent troops to Yemen to support the government. Yet they are taking a neutral stance in the current war between the government and Al-Qaeda as long as there is no direct U.S. military involvement.These indicators show that the Yemeni government still holds a strong position and is in fact able to fight on all three fronts: in the North against the Al-Houthis, in the South against the secessionists, and in sporadic areas of the country against Al-Qaeda. Therefore, it is unlikely we will see a state failure or a regime collapse in Yemen. On the contrary, the indirect military and financial support that the government receives from the United States and others will only make its position stronger. As long as the government continues to neutralize the public, we will continue to have an abstract concept of Yemen-stan with no real implication for the crisis.Ibrahim Sharqieh is an adjunct professor of conflict and conflict resolution at George Mason University and George Washington University.