The Destruction of Yemen

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Whenever the Americans enter a village, they lay it waste, reduce its once-mighty people to abject humiliation, and turn them into pleading beggars, worn down by the bloodletting of internal conflicts. The Americans have been in Yemen for many long years, and their influence there grows day by day; indeed, they have come to interfere in every large and small matter in the country, behaving as though they are its true rulers. This interference happens only with the blessing and bowed heads of the country’s people, or more precisely, of the country’s leaders, who are no exception to their fellow Arab kings and presidents who subjugate their peoples to serve as a mount for whoever climbs on.

Yemen has been suffering economic, social, cultural, intellectual, and political crises for years, owing to both internal and external causes, and the ruling regime has had nothing to offer but promises of improved conditions and reform. Like other Arab regimes, this regime has been concerned above all with prolonging its own hold on power and feasting on the people’s wealth, leaving the population to groan under poverty, backwardness, tribal partisanship, and the numbing effects of qat. The regime has monopolized power and mobilized its security apparatus to spy on the country’s people, leaving others free to spread corruption throughout the land. As a result, acute crises have emerged in the country, chief among them:

The crisis with the Houthis, who fought wars with the Yemeni army, tension still ongoing between them and the government in Sana’a. The ruling regime should have possessed sufficient wisdom to resolve the problem as quickly as possible, so that matters would not escalate into sectarian or confessional dimensions and produce social rifts that would be hard to heal. It is true that the Houthis need to scale back their demands and accept a solution acceptable to both sides without touching Yemen’s unity, but the greater responsibility falls on the regime, which possesses the instruments of power — institutions, an army, and the capacity for central decision-making. The regime should have known that war is costly, and that the Yemeni people are not economically equipped to bear the expense of wars.

…nor did it develop a concept of equitable distribution, or spread development evenly across the country’s different regions. And since the south of Yemen does not enjoy influence comparable to certain forces in the north, it has borne a greater share of neglect than others. For years the south has been pressing to improve its political conditions and secure a better share in decision-making, but the regime, like other Arab regimes, simply does as it pleases.

Finally, the crisis with al-Qaeda erupted, and it is taking shape with growing severity and bloodshed as the days pass. Will the Yemeni regime search for national methods and means to spare the country and its people the suffering of confrontation and fighting? No.

The great problem lies in American intervention, and in the Arab regimes in the region allied with America. America is not concerned with reform in Yemen, because reform might help raise Yemen’s capacity for free decision-making. America wants a Yemen tailored to its own measurements and desires, and it will not accept any attempt to change the existing situation, whether peacefully or by force, and it is prepared to intervene to thwart such an attempt. And since the Yemeni regime receives money from the United States, it is prepared to sacrifice the country and its people, and prepared to rent Yemen out, or mortgage it, in America’s favor.

America is against the Houthis because they receive support from Iran, or so it is said; it is against the Southern Movement because its members are pan-Arabists who aspire to bring about change on the Arab scene; and it is against al-Qaeda because it calls for a return to Islam as it understands it, and calls for ending foreign control over Muslim lands. In other words, America is hostile to every movement for change in Yemen, or hostile to the demands of the various movements, and it is prepared for war. It is therefore not far-fetched that America will turn Yemen into a new Afghanistan, launching a new cycle of war whose price will be paid first by Yemenis, and second by Saudis.

We must not accept a new Afghanistan in Yemen, and we must not accept American bombing of targets inside Yemen. The Yemeni government ought to seek to resolve its problems with its own people without foreign intervention. And if America has scores to settle with al-Qaeda, then it should pull out its own thorn with its own hand, rather than use Arabs to achieve its ends. And if the Yemeni regime goes on cooperating with America and permits American aircraft to operate on Yemeni soil and in its skies, then we are certainly headed toward a real and enormous tragedy that will not stop at Yemen’s notional borders.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “تدمير اليمن” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.