Yemen’s regime teeters

Beleaguered Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh this week alternately appealed for dialogue and threatened “bloody civil war” as his generals and diplomats deserted him. Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, a key army commander and the president’s half brother, defected to anti-regime demonstrators, some 50 of whom were killed by government forces last week. As clashes intensified, Saleh’s offer to step down by the end of the year had not appeased his opponents. “He has one option,” said opposition spokesman Mohammed Qahtan, “and it is to leave now, right now, without delaying, without conditions.”

Saleh, Yemen’s ruler since 1978, “is clinging to power by his fingertips,” said Nick Baumann in MotherJones.com. But if he goes, Yemen could become a huge headache for the U.S. Saleh has been covering for the American military as it bombs and strafes al Qaida militants, who have major strongholds in Yemen. Anwar al-Awlaki—the U.S.-born “al Qaida propagandist” who directly encouraged both the Fort Hood shooter and the “Underwear Bomber”—is hiding “somewhere in Yemen’s vast hinterland.” Without Saleh, Yemeni cooperation with U.S. counterterrorism

efforts “will be totally up in the air.”

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The entire country could descend into chaos, said Jacqueline Head in AlJazeera.com. Yemen, a fractious, tribal country, has been riven by several civil wars since the 1960s. Because the opposition movement draws from many elements and is not “spearheaded by a strong figurehead,” war could break out even after Saleh goes. The U.S. and Saudi Arabia fear al Qaida could flourish even more if Yemen becomes a failed state.

That is a likely outcome, said Daniel Byman in Slate.com. The best that could be hoped for is that one of the generals who defected this week will replace Saleh “as a new dictator, balancing tribal and military power.” But given the tribal tensions that have been simmering for decades, any new leader could well be even weaker than Saleh was. “Yemen’s future may be worse than its present.”