February 24, 2012 Brian O'Neill
Tariq al-Dahab, an al-Qaeda leader and briefly the emir of the Yemeni
town of Radah, was murdered earlier this month by his half-brother. This was
more than a family dispute. Hizam, the half-brother, was pressured by local
authorities to take care of the al-Qaeda menace in their midst. Predictably,
this led to spasm of revenge—and ultimately, to Hizam’s death. And while this story is brutal and tragic and
seemingly anachronistic, its details help to pave a path to U.S. policy toward
al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and, more importantly, toward Yemen as
a whole.
To say Yemen is “in transition” would be understatement: it discounts
the country’s many ongoing transitions. The most obvious one is the apparent
end of Ali Abdullah Saleh’s decade-spanning reign—“apparent” because one never
knows exactly what Saleh has planned, and he may yet manage to stage another
(often literally) death-defying escape. But with the official election this
week of Field Marshal Abed Rabbo Mansour al-Hadi, the former vice president and
Yemen’s acting president since November (not to mention the only person on the
ballot), this important transition has already happened.
U.S. policy has focused on this presidential election and the transition
of power after Saleh. The United States helped to guarantee the Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC) agreement in November whereby Saleh stepped down in
return for legal immunity. It has also been quick to recognize Hadi as the
successor and has spoken with the general about legitimizing his rule with
clear signals of a push for reforms. But although it is important for the US to
capitalize on this moment, it is far from a guarantee of stability. This is
just one of the many revolutions inside Yemen.
No matter who is at the reins in Sanaa, power will be limited: the
center region has lost the north and the south. In the north, the Huthis used
the rebellion’s chaos to consolidate power, acting (for the moment) as an autonomous
region. The south is an uneasy amalgamation of liberal secessionists and
Islamic militants, not operating in coordination with one another. And though
al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) does not encompass all the Islamic
militants, it is still the most prominent. Thus, while America does indeed need
to pay attention to revolts of the Arab Spring archetype, it also has to
realize that their outcome will not change the nature of AQAP, Hirak (the
Southern Separatist Movement, which has demanded secession from the central
republic since 2007), or the Huthi rebellion.
The United States cannot expect, nor try to impose, a central government
that controls its map-marked territory. Yemen’s territory has never been
brought under central control and Saleh’s attempts to do so in the 20 years
since unification have fully collapsed. America has been often slow to
recognize that, in Yemen, the title of president does not necessarily guarantee
power, and that legislating laws is a different thing than seeing them
recognized. One only need look to the USS Cole incident for an example: the
U.S. demanded that the perpetrators of the bombing be arrested. But even if Saleh had desired to do so, he
ultimately had to make sure that he did not trample on tribal prerogatives. The writ of Sanaa was extremely limited.
While these divisions are not permanent, in the short term there is no
chance for a reconciled state. The same Saleh-type system will be in place, and
neither of the rebellions will be quick to seek reunion. Too much blood has been shed, and it cannot
be erased merely by the departure of Saleh. There is, however, a good chance
for a cease-fire without reconciliation. The Huthis, who are more formed and
possess a more centralized leadership than the relatively inchoate Hirak, can
cut a deal with the central government, but after years of war, neither can be
expected to jump back into the fold.
Contrary to some views, admitting that the modern Western state is not a
feasible model for Yemen is not a patronizing idea. The political system of
decentralization and negotiation in Yemen existed for a millennium before the
Treaty of Westphalia; it didn’t need modern trappings. More importantly, the
United States should realize that the limit of central government—and the
reality that the next president will be unable to centralize authority— is not
absolutely negative. In contrast to what many fear will be a Somalia-like
scenario, Yemen will not be lawless. Instead, it will be ruled by decentralized
negotiation between tribal and regional leaders.
The US must encourage autonomy for the south and in Huthi areas, but
without severing communication between these groups and Sanaa: a separation,
not a divorce. In order for this to happen, the US has to find the real
powerbrokers in the tribes and autonomous regions—they are the ones with more
sway over the actions of the people, and they rule in areas where the central
government has no reach.
And that leads to the United State’s most immediate priority in Yemen:
the destruction of AQAP, the most dangerous franchise in al-Qaeda’s sprawling
business. As many have argued, the AQAP should not be the top priority and the
single-minded focus on them at the expense of other issues is
counter-productive. Luckily, the way to go after AQAP dovetails with the way to
help Yemen overall.
In the example at the top of the article, regional leaders orchestrated
the murder of an al-Qaeda leader. US policy need not be so violent, but it
should recognize that power lies in the hands of the tribes. These are the
people to whom we should be reaching out. Al-Qaeda has done so, by marrying its
members into the tribes—enabling them to take over cities, build an army, and
hide from drones. There have been
numerous instances where Saleh’s army had to back off from going after AQAP
members, despite pressure from the US, in order to avoid war with the tribes.
Tribes provide AQAP shelter not necessarily from ideological alignment, but
because al-Qaeda plays by the local rules and knows how to gain access. They have things to offer to the tribes. We
do as well.
Al-Qaeda can offer water, food, medicine, but not in the amounts the
U.S. can provide. That is the key to defeating them and to helping Yemen. Right
now, the biggest problems the country faces are not transnational
terrorists. They aren’t even necessarily
the crippling political problems; the major long-term issues are drought,
famine, rampant poverty, and an increasingly young and desperate population.
But aid is not the only answer, and this is where direct contact with the
tribes comes in. Distribution of aid should not be through Sanaa, but through
regional leaders, cutting away the layers of distribution and potential
theft. This allows for more trust
between the parties, and undercuts AQAP. USAID already has some experience
working outside of Sanaa, since it targets "vulnerable" subgroups in
specific regions, such as al-Jawf, which involve more local distribution. If
America shies from working through the corruption of the central government and
instead works with the real power brokers, it can have two-fold success: it can
actually help the Yemeni people, preventing the country from imploding—and
vitally weaken al-Qaeda. This is a tactic that requires subtlety and
flexibility—as well as the willingness to work outside the comfortable zone of
familiar actors and reassuring titles—but it is the only policy that has any
real chance of success.
Brian O’Neill is an independent analyst based in Chicago who has
analyzed Yemen and the broader counterterrorism context for numerous
publications and broadcasts.
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