Yemen

[audioplayer src="http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/workingwithal-qa-eda/media.mp3" title="Ahmed Rashid and Douglas Murray discuss how the West is working with al-Qa'eda" startat=38] Listen [/audioplayer]After plunging Syria into five years of a bloody civil war that has killed 300,000 and displaced 10 million, Bashar al-Assad is preparing for the endgame. He has been digging a bunker for himself, creating an enclave in the mountains around the coastal city of Latakia where his community, the Alawites, are in a majority. The Iranians are helping him set up this new retreat, but his hope of hanging on to Syria is dying.

Whatever happened to America’s desert kingdom? In the four months since Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud became king of Saudi Arabia, everything we thought we knew about this supposedly risk-averse US ally has been turned on its head. In a ruling house long known for geriatric leadership, the new king has pushed aside elder statesmen and seasoned technocrats alike in favour of an impetuous and uncredentialled son, Mohammed bin Salman, who may be in his late twenties. Now the world’s youngest defence minister, the princeling is already second in line for the throne, prompting grumbles from Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, about ‘inexperienced youngsters’.

After years of hearing how terrible Western interventions are in the Middle East (Exhibits A, B and C the fiascos of Iraq, Afghanistan and post-Gaddafi Libya), it will be interesting to see how a Saudi-led all-Muslim intervention fares in Yemen. My prediction is it won’t be much better than those of the infidels. For a start we are dealing with the poorest country in the Arab world. Whereas Iraq sits on a lake of oil, squandering the proceeds with a venality that is ghastly to behold, Yemen is running out of water, let alone oil. With an estimated GDP per capita of $2,500, the country comes 187th in the world. The figure for Saudi Arabia, incidentally, is $31,300. The last thing Yemen needs is more war.

At this point in the war between the jihadist group known as the Islamic State and a US-led international coalition, many observers are wondering how Isis keeps winning. Isis is up against western air power and powerful regional opponents, and yet has apparently seized a territory larger than the United Kingdom, and is expanding into Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Yemen, and elsewhere. It seems incredible. But the truth is that it’s difficult to say Isis is winning by any objective measure. In Iraq, the group has been put on the defensive in the provinces of Nineveh, Salahaddin, and Diyala, and may soon face a major offensive on its stronghold of Mosul. It’s true, unfortunately, that Isis is on the offensive in Anbar province, and could potentially capture new territory there.

Sometimes you wait and wait for an event, and nothing ever happens. Pakistan is always said to be teetering on the brink of collapse but never quite edges over the precipice. The same used to be the case with Yemen. In fact, Coffee House predicted that Yemen would implode last year, but Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh managed to hold the country together in the face of terrorism, irredentist movements, insurgency and, recently, pro-democracy protesters demanding his resignation.   Now, however, the wily leader may finally have run out of road. Heavy clashes have erupted in the capital Sanaa, a day after Saleh again refused to sign a Gulf-brokered power-transition.

Call it the domino effect, if you like. After Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, Yemen is the latest country to drag its rulers to the precipice — and it could push them over, too. The latest news is that several Yemeni generals have joined the protesters in calling on President Saleh to stand down. One source tells al-Jazeera that 90 per cent of the army could do likewise by this evening. The broad consensus is that the current regime is wheezing to a close. So what next? From this vantage point, Yemen is certainly one of those countries where change should be greeted warily. It's not so much the emerging prospect of a military junta, but more the encroaching presence of al-Qaeda in the margins (aka "the mountains").