Center for a New American Security

A favorite Republican pastime is comparing Democratic presidents and presidential wannabes with Jimmy Carter, who, fairly or not, is remembered by many as having been both hapless in terms of foreign policy and weak toward the enemies of the United States.

Theoretically, that should be really difficult to do with President Obama. Most Americans have a tough time taking seriously those who would call "weak" the guy who a) gave the order to thwack Osama bin Laden, b) surged in Afghanistan, and c) successfully directed the air campaign that removed Qadhdhafi from power.

But now those Jimmy Carter comparisons are a lot easier to make in practice. In an eerie echo of Carter's decision to allow the embattled Shah of Iran to travel to the United States to undergo medical treatment, hastening the Islamic Revolution, President Obama has allowed the equally embattled leader of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh, to do the same.

That sound you subsequently heard this evening was America's Yemen experts (all three of them!) banging their heads on their desks in frustration. What kind of message does it send to the people of Yemen and the greater region when the United States allows an abusive autocrat to take refuge in a New York hospital while his people demonstrate in support of democracy in the face of bullets from his security forces? Just whose side is the United States on in the Arab Spring? If Bashar al-Asad gets pancreatic cancer, should we expect for him to be treated at Johns Hopkins?

How, you might ask, did this golf foxtrot come to pass? An aforementioned strength of this administration -- its ruthless and successful campaign to decimate al-Qaeda and its affiliates -- is also a weakness in that it overshadows everything else and causes the administration to see entire regions of the globe through a CT-shaped soda straw. The United States does not have a Middle East policy or even a Yemen policy. It has a counterterrorism policy, and all things Yemen are viewed through that prism. It is telling that the lead administration official responsible for the decision to admit Saleh to the United States was not the Secretary of State but rather the president's chief counterterrorism advisor, John Brennan.

The Obama Administration is making the same mistakes many Gulf regimes are making: thinking, to paraphrase Toby Jones, that it can continue into 2012 with 2010's assumptions -- as if 2011 never happened. Does the Arab Spring matter or does it not? If it does not, the United States can continue its relationships with Gulf states dominated solely by issues related to counterterrorism and oil. If it does, though, the United States has to think more broadly -- both in terms of its bilateral relationships in the region as well as how what it does in one country will be seen elsewhere in the region.

I know the administration will say they have a plan to use this time Saleh is out of the country to shepherd him from power, to which I say the administration is being too clever by half. As Gregory Johnsen noted, the Saudis did not manage to keep Saleh in Saudi Arabia, so what hope do we have to keep Saleh here? And will any clever backroom negotiations to end Saleh's rule matter to millions who will not see beyond the United States offering refuge to a brutal dictator? The administration will also argue that it understands the comparison with the Shah and the attending risks -- but I think knowing and then ignoring the lessons of history is even worse than being ignorant of them to begin with.

I'll just conclude by noting that the administration has yet to name a successor to Colin Kahl at the Department of Defense, so as all of this takes place, the United States does not have anyone behind the wheel of U.S. defense policy in the region. Merry Christmas!

I was away the entire day and returned to the office this afternoon only to be met with the news that Chris Boucek had passed away. I was floored. Chris was 38. Chris was also a tremendous scholar, and the policy community was lucky to have had him. I first met Chris on a trip we took we took to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia with Jon Alterman. Chris was bright, incredibly knowledgeable about issues relating to the Arabian Penninsula, and was in firm possession of a delightfully wry sense of humor.

The policy community that works on Islam and the Middle East is often filled with hucksters and ideologues, but Chris was the real deal: he was a serious scholar who approached his subject dispassionately but with great intellectual curiosity and rigor. His work set a high standard for the rest of us.

My heart and prayers go out to Chris's family -- and especially his young children. Rest in peace, Chris. 

Yesterday, friend-of-the-blog Gregory Johnsen released his new report on Yemen for the Council on Foreign Relations. I am no Yemen specialist, but knowing something about both the broader region and military operations, I was one of the people gathered by the CFR a few months ago to help Greg with his recommendations. I predict Greg's paper will become one of the primary points of reference for U.S. policy-makers working on the region and am always impressed by Greg's work.

One of our research interns here at the Center for a New American Security, Dana Stuster, has been following developments in and U.S. policy toward Yemen quite closely. Dana is also a fan of Greg's work and has some constructive criticism, which is published below.

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The commentary (mine included) on the Yemeni uprising has been focused on what is happening, and not necessarily how to proactively address it. There are reasons for this. On account of its continuing counterterrorism cooperation with the Saleh regime, including an increased tempo of drone strikes, its collaboration with Saudi Arabia to deal with the current crisis and its dogged persistence in advocating a dead-end proposal, the United States has limited credibility in Yemen and it is uncertain that it is in a position to sway the Yemeni government or the opposition. And to be fair, analysts have criticized the Gulf Coordination Council proposal for the sham that it is. Constructive criticism, though, has been lacking and I am very glad that Gregory Johnsen, whose blog Waq al-Waq is required reading for anyone serious about Yemen, has started a discussion of how the United States should change its policies with a memo for the Council on Foreign Relations titled “Resetting U.S. Policy Toward Yemen.”

Johnsen rightly identifies that the essential goal must be Saleh leaving office, and that the mechanism for this must include the removal of the commanding officers from the elite military units led by Saleh’s son and nephews that are bolstering the regime. This cannot be stressed enough. Saleh’s son Ahmed, who commands the Republican Guard, has emerged as a more powerful power broker than the Yemeni vice president, Abd Rabu Mansur Hadi, who has been delegated the authority to negotiate and sign a transition agreement on Saleh’s behalf. Even if Hadi were to sign, it is unlikely that an agreement could be enforced and legal loopholes abound for Saleh and his family to sidestep their obligations to leave office. In the memo, Johnsen outlines a strategy to remove Ahmed and his cousins from their military positions, which they are using to prevent a political transition.

Johnsen proposes that “The United States should, in conjunction with the GCC, inform Ahmed and his cousins that [U.S. financial assistance for counterterrorism to elite Yemeni military units] as well as GCC funding will be cut off and targeted UN sanctions will be applied if they do not step aside and agree to a military reshuffle and a transition council.” He continues to suggest a three-stage process in which the ultimatum is delivered in private, then in public, and if it has not yielded results, the finances will be cut and the sanctions implemented.

The problem is that the incentive structure assumes that Ahmed and the other commanders care what happens to their forces and Yemen after the implementation of an agreement that will, most likely, result in their early and luxurious retirement to another country. There is no reason to believe this and in fact, the loyalist military’s brinksmanship with protesters and the defected 1^st Armored Division in recent weeks, which have risked civil war, demonstrate how little Ahmed and his cousins share the interests of their country and the units under their command. Johnsen’s proposal, as it stands, would amount to another delay in the implementation of a transition. After five months of delays waiting for the GCC deal to move forward and the recent escalation between defected and loyal military forces, I am concerned that time is running too short for that, if it is not too late already.

Cuts to CT funding will not induce Ahmed and his cousins to yield to a transition agreement. What is necessary is removing their base of support while providing positive incentives to push them in the right direction. Johnsen clearly recognizes this. The cut in funding and imposition of sanctions, he observes, will make it difficult for them “to buy the continued loyalty of their troops.” The United States should be working on increasing defections from elite units. Even as the United States delivers its ultimatum – which should be done loudly and in public, to reassure the opposition that the United States is not conspiring to maintain Saleh – it should already be working on cutting funding and imposing sanctions (a funding freeze will be necessary in the event of any transition, until a positive relationship with the incoming leadership can be assured). Throughout, the United States should be using whatever influence it has in Yemen and through its regional allies to whittle away Saleh’s base of support. These efforts should target, wherever possible, towns and tribes with significant representation in the Republican Guards and Central Security Forces. Johnsen has observed that all the major players in the three-way struggle for Sanaa (between Saleh, his defected general and a notable tribal family) belong to the Hashid Tribal Federation. The Hashid is a large association of tribes and is by no means monolithic, as the standoff demonstrates. This should be exploited to draw down Saleh’s most critical base of support.

This will have to be coupled with positive incentives. However unpalatable it will be to the protesters, the United States must be able to offer an alternative to Ahmed: retirement, probably in Saudi Arabia, with personal security and protection from international prosecution. He must be offered a reason to leave, or else he will have no reason not to try his chances of winning a civil war. I’m tempted to express this as a graph, but that just might be from reading this blog for so long – at some point, though, the value of accepting that retirement package will exceed the value of potential success as their forces diminish.

A policy like this will not be easy, and it will largely rely on the connections of U.S. allies in Yemen, especially Saudi Arabia. The Saudis maintain patronage networks to influence Yemeni tribes that would be invaluable to influencing defections from Saleh’s base of support, inside and outside of the loyalist military. I’m not as sure as Johnsen that “there is a growing realization within Riyadh that despite Salih’s return he will never be able to reunite the country.” The fact that he returned at all signifies that they are either considering allowing him to return to office or gross negligence, and say what you will about Saudi Arabia, gross negligence with regard to the governance of neighboring countries is not a Saudi trait. I truly hope they’re working with the United States to assure a transition; it’s time to put this to the test.

The rest of the memo is excellent: both thought-provoking and forward oriented; I’m looking forward to seeing Johnsen’s ideas developed and fleshed out further in the coming days. I just hope the right people are listening.

Each year, around this time in the (lunar) calendar, Western newspapers are usually filled with stories about the latest exciting Ramadan soap opera everyone is watching. Nothing happens during Ramadan, the story goes, so most reporting on the Arabic-speaking world is of the human interest variety.

It's worth pausing to consider, then, how remarkable this year has been and continues to be. I woke up this morning to images of Hosni Mubarak in a cage, on trial in Egypt. This is a stunning image for me to see, so I can only imagine the effect it has on 83m Egyptians and about 250m other people in the region.

Elsewhere in the Arabic-speaking world, meanwhile, violent civil wars and upheavals continue to press for the fall of the Qadhdhafi regime in Libya, the al-Asad regime in Syria, and the Saleh regime in Yemen. If I had to place my bets, I would bet all will ultimately and bloodily be successful.

Remarkable. Ramadan mubarak indeed.

I know you are all focused on Egypt at the moment, and for good reason, but I asked Dana Stuster, another intern here at CNAS with some experience in the Middle East, to write something for the blog on alternatives to Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen. Just trying to get ahead of the curve. Take it away, Dana:

On January 24, President Salih addressed the Yemeni people and offered the compulsively quotable wisdom that Yemen is not Tunisia (for the reasons why, see Brian O’Neill’s work over at “Always Judged Guilty,” among others). But if Yemen is not Tunisia, or Egypt for that matter, then what is it?

 

To begin with, Yemen is not on the cusp of a revolution. It’s easy to get caught up in the heady events in Tunisia and Egypt, but Yemen just does not have the socio-economic preconditions for the types of revolts seen in the past two weeks. Even if something were to take hold, the opposition movement in Yemen is incredibly fragmented. It’s unclear just what the mix of ideologies has been in the protests in Yemen these last few weeks, but even if the movement could depose Salih, there’s no clear outcome. If anything follows, it will begin with a motley assortment of groups jockeying for influence – a volatile cocktail of religious and political factions. In all likelihood, though, they won’t get that far.

 

Salih will stay in office, at least in the near term. The pressing issue in Yemeni politics remains, as it was before the constitutional amendment was proposed, who will be president after his term ends in 2013. Will Salih run in 2013, despite issuing a statement that he won’t? It wouldn’t be the first time Salih announced he would withdraw from the presidency only to run come election season. He may even try to consolidate his power and stay in office by force. In response to the protests, he has raised monthly salaries for Yemen Armed Forces soldiers, a hedge against disloyalty and an investment in the future stability of his regime.

 

Or maybe this time he’ll step down and allow a new president. Even if he doesn’t, Salih is now 78-years-old; it’s past time to start thinking about the looming succession crisis in Yemen. In his address on Monday, Salih called rumors that he would name his son Ahmed his successor, “rude.” The statement does not mean that Ahmed, who is commander of the Republican Guard and the subject of speculation that he is being groomed for the executive office, won’t choose to run on his own. The second most powerful man in the country and leading commander of the Yemen Armed Forces, Brigadier General Ali Mohsen al Ahmar, has hinted that he won’t tolerate Ahmed becoming president. Al Ahmar has waited in the wings for all of Salih’s now-32-year term. He may run, or he might just cross the Rubicon and take the government. A third possibility would be a candidate from the Islah Party, perhaps Hamid al Ahmar. Power would remain concentrated in the same cabal of northern tribesmen – al Ahmar is the leader of the Hashid Tribal Federation, to which Salih and B Gen al Ahmar also belong – but with a different slant. While Salih has been fairly secular (by the standards or Middle Eastern governments) and intent on walking a balance beam between northern and southern, Shi’a and Sunni, and various tribal divides, Islah is composed primarily of conservative converts to Wahabbi Salafism. One of the patriarchs of the party is Sheikh Abdul Majid al Zindani, a peculiarly Yemeni institution in and of himself (aside from his hennaed beard, he is known for being a financier of al Qaeda and is accused of having a hand in the attack on the USS Cole). B Gen al Ahmar financed jihadis as well, arranging the travel for Yemenis to go to Afghanistan (first to fight the Soviets, then the Americans) and Iraq.

 

There are no good options in Yemen. As long as Salih retains his tenuous hold on power, the United States will be forced to deal with an autocrat, but then again, he always has been. Yemenis call their brand of politics “decorative democracy,” a façade which was only instated in an effort by Salih to regain American aid. Now, though, Yemen is an integral part of U.S. counterterrorism efforts and cannot be neglected as it has been in the past. Salih knows that his place is assured – it’s the confidence that allowed him to propose the abolition of term limits in the first place. The State Department will have another couple years of the same fair-weather ally they’ve come to know, but it will only postpone an inevitable transition. None of the candidates to succeed Salih seem conciliatory to U.S. interests, and it will not be enough to hope that Yemen’s coming resource crisis will force the prospective Islah Party government or al Ahmar military regime into a dialogue. The United States needs to start making friends now, especially outside of Sanaa, with local and tribal leaders. The tribes are a constant in Yemen; the government, after a 30-some year hiatus, is about to be a lot less so.

This weekend's news has already generated a lot of comment, and as I am not a bona fide Yemen expert, the best I can do in terms of analysis is point toward Greg Johnsen's piece in Foreign Policy as well as Leah Farrall's post on AQAP. (Two other people whose opinions I would be seeking right now would be Chris Boucek at Carnegie and April Alley at ICG.) The last thing I myself wrote on Yemen, with Rich Fontaine, I wrote a year ago, but as I read through it this morning, I think it is still pretty solid. (Like all things I write for CNAS, I sent it out for some external review beforehand to avoid saying something stupid.)

A few things have bothered me about the way in which the media has reported the bombing plot thus far, though. You'll remember that last week, concerning Central Africa, I wrote that policy-makers should ask four questions -- in sequence -- before considering an intervention:

1. Will an intervention make the situation better, or worse?
2. If better, should the U.S. government participate in this intervention?
3. If yes, should the U.S. government lead this intervention?
4. If yes, what should the U.S. government do?

Reading the Wall Street Journal on the way into work this morning, I could not help but notice the focus has been almost exclusively on Question #4. Typically, we Americans are always asking ourselves, What is our government doing? (And why isn't it doing more!)

Though I am not a Yemen expert, I have spent more time in 2010 elsewhere in the Arabian Peninsula than in any other year, including two trips to Saudi Arabia and one to the UAE. I got the opportunity, during both of these trips, to speak to a variety of policy-makers in each country, and one of the things I wish U.S. reporters would do more of is ask some of Yemen's neighbors how they would solve the problems of Yemen. This latest plot was apparently tipped off by Saudi intelligence (BTW: shukran, ya ikhwani) and involved bombs passing through both Qatar and the UAE. So the other nations in the region have a bigger interest than we do in shepherding the demise of AQAP. I guess what I am trying to say here is that I want fewer articles with datelines from Washington and more articles with datelines from Doha and Abu Dhabi and Riyadh. (One of the reasons I'm still feeling pretty good about that policy paper written last year is the stress it put on regional engagement and solutions.)

Also, we have now dodged two bullets from Yemen, but that does not mean we do not have the time to slow the bleep down and first gather a little situational awareness before screaming for policy makers to DO SOMETHING. As an Afghanistan expert tweeted this weekend, "Whenever something like the Yemen event the amateurs scream for revenge or bombs or ninjas. But people need to take a step back and THINK."

Leaving aside my stated policy preference for pirates over ninjas, I think that's pretty good advice.

I am hardly the pro's pro on Yemen, but I want to call two things to your attention. The first is this excellent reported essay from yesterday's New York Times Magazine by Bobby Worth, who I can say has done some solid reporting from Yemen for the past year at some personal cost. It's great to read a talented reporter -- and all-around good guy -- like Bobby in long form. Second, I cannot find anything about this on the Washington Institute's website, but April Alley and Chris Boucek are supposed to be speaking there at an event tomorrow on Yemen which I would most definitely attend if I did not have other business. Those two would be at the top of my list on people to consult on matters relating to Yemen (residing in or around the 202 area code), and I am sick to miss the event. So if you have the chance, work in DC and can find the details, do attend.

Tom Friedman's column today about how we can build more schools and defeat terrorism is one of those things that sounds right but probably isn't. Leave aside the fact that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab -- by Friedman's own admission, the only reason he is in Yemen right now -- is a graduate of University College London and the product of a superb secondary education before that. Alan B. Krueger and others have shown that the causal relationship between education and terrorism is weak. Very well-educated men and women can fall under the sway of extremist ideologies and go on to do evil things -- like blow up airliners and buy Coldplay albums.

This is no reason not to build schools. Building schools is a lovely thing, and as the great Greg Mortenson pointed out to me in Kabul once, when you teach little girls to read, you teach entire villages to read. (Because the girls teach their mothers.) And female literacy then leads to a healthy drop in birth rates and less poverty. That's all wonderful. Education transforms societies. But education only has a place in counterinsurgency -- most naturally a subfield of stabilization operations -- if you can prove that a lack of schools is a driver of conflict. And as far as counter-terrorism is concerned, well, the idea that more schools will lead to a drop in terrorism remains one of those things that sounds good when discussed at dinner parties but has yet to be proven and is, if we are to trust our research thus far, most likely false.

[All that having been said, allow me to stress once again that building schools in underdeveloped societies is something we should all support. Maybe not for reasons of counter-terrorism or counterinsurgency but for more altruistic reasons. So everyone buy Greg Mortenson's new book to help the cause, okay?]

There was a good article in the Independent today about the situation in Yemen. Keeping in mind the recent discussion on this blog about what to do, two paragraphs particularly stood out.

"But, in an office guarded by soldiers with AK-47s and crowded with lieutenants and allies including a uniformed army brigadier, he added: "There are no new troops, no new army." The governor said he lacked helicopters needed to pursue militants if there was an incident outside the capital.

Mr al-Misri went out of his way to stress that "social development" help from the international community was urgently needed for his country, the poorest in the Arab world. Airstrikes and military force were not the "solution", he added. "We need more help to get the tribes to kick them [al-Qai'da] out. The government does not have the resources to do that."

Abu Muqawama and Richard Fountaine rode into this argument early on in their On the Knife Edge policy brief arguing for a "whole of government" approach while Marc Lynch has said that we should we careful of expensive and potentially pointless blundering (yes, it's fun linking to the Tehran Times re-print of his piece).

Steve Tatham and Andrew Mackay support a point David Kilcullen makes when addressing these Yemen-style conflicts we are bound to see more of in the future:

"‘(W)e typically design physical operations first, then craft supporting information operations to explain our actions. This is the reverse of al-Qaida’s approach. For all our professionalism, compared to the enemy’s, our public information is an afterthought. In military terms, for al-Qaida the “main effort” is information; for us, information is a ‘supporting effort'."

In Londonstani's opinion, this really hits the nail on the head and is absolutely relevent to Yemen. Al Qaeda chose to establish themselves in Yemen. The success or failure of the underwear bomber was probably not judged to be as important as the spotlight it will cast on a country with multiple problems which play into the hands of AQ strategists. In the international game of Judo playing out over multiple timezones, AQ is  making the West use its force against itself again and again.

Londonstani has a little experience of Yemen, and remembers it as being very similar to Pakistan and Afghanistan's Pashtun territories in many ways. The danger is that AQ will be able to do what it has done in Pakistan. It has failed to make the population rise up in its support but it has succeeded in allowing the Western world to make itself so deeply unpopular that in the longer term the outlook of AQ is changing the ideological structure of the society.

Reading Tatham and Mackay and relating their arguments back to Pakistan, Londonstani is increasingly convinced that the answer will come from information and influence and building that into aid and diplomacy. If Washington and London can convince Yemenis (and others) that AQ "isn't probably right" and its allies and domestic supporters aren't the only people who can provide justice, peace and security that would be a good start. It can't be about "tricking the natives with plastic beads" but effectively communicating your intentions and achievements. It sounds easy, but even that start is pretty far off.

UPDATE: Also, take a very good look at al Qaeda's own "comprehensive approach"

"Only a fraction of pledged Western aid has been disbursed because of serious corruption and capacity problems in Yemen's government, with the result that per capita development aid is significantly below that of some poor African countries...

...Saying the jobless toll in Abyan is 50 per cent, compared with an estimated national average of 40 per cent, in a country where 45 per cent live on less than $2 a day, he describes how al-Qa'ida adherents insert themselves into local tribes, often nomads who do not see TV and know little of the movement's existence. First, he asserts, a member who belongs to the particular tribe will introduce others who will bring financial and practical help – like the digging of water wells – to the local community.

"Say the government is paying someone $50, they will pay $100. At the same time al-Qa'ida Islamic "scholars" will "collect" some of the tribe's young people, jobless and naturally religious, to begin "training", while also providing them with occasional financial help. Mr al-Misri says he cannot tell how many adherents it has but adds: "they are growing because the environment in Abyan helps the groups to grow because of the economic and employment problems."

Nearly two years ago, Londonstani wrote his first post for this blog. It was based around an interview Londonstani conducted near one of the Palestinian camps in Lebanon with a young al-Qaeda fighter returning from Iraq. The camp itself looked like a transiting station. Londonstani saw young Arab fighters buying military clothing, handing out ammunition, testing weapons and picking up documents. During the conversation about al-Qaeda's strategic rationale when it came to deploying WMD, the fighter mentioned that al-Qaeda was re-deploying its fighters.

"When Haider first entered Iraq through Syria, there had been about 2,000 foreign fighters like himself inside the country. Now they were leaving and only about 150 remained. Most of the foreign fighters inside Iraq had always been Saudis and Yemenis, a few other nationalities, such as Turks were also present, he said. The Saudis and Turks were mainly going to Afghanistan and the Yemenis to Yemen or Somalia, where al-Qaeda was keen to establish a presence."

As the fighting picked up in Afghanistan, Londonstani often thought back to the fighter's off-hand comment about the Saudis and Turks. His off hand reference to Somalia made some sense, but Londonstani often wondered what the Yemen thing had been about. The Christmas Day airline bomb attempt snapped the months' old conversation into focus.

Now we know that al-Qaeda is operating from Yemen, a number of commentators have said the loosely controlled, troubled country is an ideal stomping ground for Osama Bin Laden's followers. In Londonstani's opinion, the retroactive attention shouldn't be limited to Yemen as a country. It's also worth looking at Western policy in countries where extremism is growing.

Yesterday, the U.S. announced a doubling of counter terrorism aid to Yemen. London has said it will work with Washington to provide counter terrorism assistance to Sanaa. But like in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the problem will not be solved by military means alone. Yemen suffers "crushing poverty" to quote the president and the state hardly functions and where it does it has a reputation for corruption mismanagement and brutality. There is also a Shia/Sunni conflict going on. All in all, it really is an AQ haven waiting to happen. But countering this situation with an immediate military response plays straight into AQ's hands.

US Deputy National Security Adviser for Homeland Security and Counter Terrorism John Brennan says AQ probably has "several hundred members". Yet, concentrating on a military response is likely to increase that in weeks. Al Jazeera English reports:

"Al-Shabab, the leading anti-government armed group in Somalia, said on Friday that it was ready to send reinforcement to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula should the US carry out retaliatory strikes, and urged other Muslims to follow suit."

A military element has its place, but by looking like they are ready to support a government with questionable competence at a moment's notice, London and Washington again fit themselves neatly into the unofficial AQ public relations playbook. Presently, the strongest message AQ has states that Western powers pull the strings of dictatorships across the Muslim world that line their own pockets while serving foreign domination. The message works because none of these governments have proved very good at governing. When efforts to address the governance issue (like the Kerry Lugar bill) in Pakistan finally do appear, they are enacted too late to counter the perception. In the case of Pakistan, they are seen as another plank of the same policy.

It's not realistic to aim to be able to "fix" every country that AQ lands in. But proving the group's point is not the answer either.