Our Views: Tough Battle in Yemen Aid
Author(s): Opinion Page staff
Original Post: Our Views: Tough Battle in Yemen Aid
Type: Op-Ed
Date: 01/16/2010
When they run out of oil in Yemen, really run out, what are the United States’ chances of reining in terrorist activity there? Probably not great.
Even if, as President Barack Obama has promised, America doubles its aid to one of the poorest of the Arab countries, and one that is riddled with al-Qaida activists and sympathizers.
The small country at one corner of the Arabian peninsula has farms, which are consuming its scarce ground water, but virtually all government revenue comes from oil. Industry analysts predict production could fall to zero by 2017, according to Richard Fontaine and Andrew Exum of the Center for a New American Security.
Fontaine was with a U.S. Senate delegation that visited Yemen in August. The two, writing in The Los Angeles Times, outlined the depressing prospects for the country. “The government has done little to plan for its post-oil future,” they said. The population is exploding, and “an incredible 45 percent of Yemen’s population is under the age of 15. These trends will exacerbate large and growing environmental problems, including the exhaustion of Yemen’s groundwater resources.”
While Islamic extremism is not purely an economic phenomenon, there is no question that Yemen could be a breeding ground for disaffected youths willing to blow up themselves and others. The Nigerian bomber who attempted to blow up a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day is said to have trained with Yemeni backers of al-Qaida.
What good will American aid do? Surprisingly enough, Fontaine and Exum suggest that if targeted toward not only anti-terrorism work but basic governance and a government drive against corruption, there’s reason to believe U.S. aid could make a difference.
“The goal of U.S. foreign policy toward Yemen should be for the country to emerge as a stable, functioning state, one that presents no sanctuary for transnational terrorist groups,” Fontaine and Exum said. “U.S. policy alone can’t bring this about. It can, however, attempt to mitigate the worst of the coming challenges that will plague Yemen.”
To avoid a failed state that is a base for al-Qaida terrorism is apparently going to bring Americans into more contact than they ever expected with an end-of-the-alphabet country.
Topic(s): Regional Security Challenges, U.S. Foreign Policy
People: Andrew M. Exum, Richard Fontaine
