Two important confessions made by Yemeni Prime Minister Ali Mohammad Majjour and his Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qurbi reveal the difficult situation and circumstances in Yemen. Majjour affirms that Al-Qaeda exploits poverty, political divisions, and the infighting in his country, and this requires an international commitment to back Yemen; or else, its soil will constitute appropriate grounds for Al-Qaeda and its likes. He called on the Gulf capitals to support Sana'a by hosting Yemeni laborers and providing them with job opportunities. Al-Qurbi for his part asserts that his country is threatened to become a failed country if the international community does not help it in developing its economy, by providing alternatives for the youths, instead of letting them tread on the path of extremism and fanaticism. Some observers have come to believe that Al-Qurbi and Majjour's matching statements reveal a governmental failure, and aim at attracting new financial aid from the Gulf countries and the international community, which would go to the government and fill the pockets of the ministers and officials and thus block the chance for any solution. However, the bad situation in Yemen at the present time and the difficulty of the situation on the ground raise the need for a logistic international interference and for accelerating the pace of aid and support to improve its people's situation, before Al-Qaeda and the Houthis establish aggressive military camps, akin to Taliban in Afghanistan and Hezbollah in Lebanon, or even transform it into another Somalia. Beyond any doubt, terrorism will flourish in Yemen in light of poverty and unemployment, and this requires drafting serious governmental plans to contain the youths and their capacities and ideas. This should also coincide with a clear-cut governmental desire to implement comprehensive developmental plans that do not distinguish between the north and the south, so that Yemen does not become in the near future a failed state by all standards. I believe that if Yemen wants to get rid of its crises, it should complete many tasks and rehabilitate itself and its internal situation to achieve the required coherence and face the “dangerous triangle” which is close to tearing it down and spreading chaos in the entire region. This triangle is comprised of the Houthi insurgents, the southern secessionists, and the immigration and presence of Al-Qaeda members on its territory in order to reorganize their ranks and launch their activities from the Yemeni mountains and caves and target others. For example, Nigerian national Omar al-Farouq attempted to detonate an American aircraft lately and Al-Qaeda organization in Yemen claimed responsibility for this failed attempt. Before that, an assassination attempt targeted Saudi Interior Minister Prince Mohammad Ben Nayef. The challenges facing Yemen are an accumulation of domestic crises that grew and developed until they exploded and spread locally and expanded to other countries, ranging from increased poverty rates to 46% according to a previous statement by Representative of the world Food program of the Office of the United Nations in Yemen Mohammad Cohen, and increasing unemployment rates that reached 35%. In addition, Yemen witnesses widespread illiteracy, amounting to 50% in a country whose population exceeds 32 million and in light of limited resources and low national income. More serious even is the spread of administrative and financial corruption and the spread of bureaucracy and nepotism. The country also suffers from chaos resulting from the spread of arms, tribal conflicts, the race to abduct tourists, and the gatherings for chewing Khat [a very prevalent custom in Yemen]. This takes place while the government abstains from stimulating [the people's] interest in the culture of labor and production and encouraging the youths to think about the future, in order to train an educated generation. This underscored the need to implement rulings and laws that do not exclude a tribe's sheikh, arms' trader, or Khat chewer, in order to establish a new and developed Yemen, a country that is able to establish itself by itself. The meeting of the donor states and organizations hosted by London last week put forth a 10-point reform plan, the most important point of which was a recognition of the problems that turned Yemen into a suitable environment and incubator for the spread of terrorism, one represented by the absence of development. This meeting represented a first step in the right direction, especially since the meeting stressed supporting reform in Yemen on the financial, security and political levels. It also stressed supporting the government of Ali Abdullah Saleh in the face of the domestic crises, and this is what Yemen needs at the present time. I wish that the meeting adopted a project to form an international committee of the donor countries to follow up and monitor the implementation of the agreed-upon reform package, starting with the security concern and combating corruption, as well as learning how to spend the money to create balanced and equal projects that fulfill their national objectives. There is no doubt that Riyadh's hosting of the conference of donor countries at the end of this month is a pressing need to activate an “almost absent” Arab role, after Lebanon and Palestine obtained the grants and aid, although Yemen is the most important country at the geographical, security, and strategic levels for Riyadh and the Gulf capitals. Yemen should not be left to fight alone on many fronts, especially since some sides are lurking with ambitions related to it, and since some countries seek to manipulate the bad situation in favor of their regional agendas. This raises the need to help Yemen and prompts it to implement political and economic and security reforms that enable it to defend its security and that of its neighbors against the remnants of Al-Qaeda, the insurgency of the Houthis, and the roars of the secessionists. In addition, programs and projects that raise the hope of the “public” should be implemented, in order to handle the growing challenges at home, because what happens on the ground will not be settled by military action solely. What is more important in the coming stage is that Yemen does not face the “dangerous triangle” alone. Otherwise, failure will be its destiny.
