President Ali Abdullah Saleh has shown an extraordinary ability to absorb all forms of opposition, along with all the internal pressure towards a peaceful resolution to the crisis. He also showed great tenacity when it comes to gambling on consecutive wars in his country to stay in power, and a persistent resistance to foreign initiatives aimed at resolving the crisis, political and diplomatic pressures included. The Yemeni president seemed unaffected by the increasingly tense situation in the capital, the growing incidence of armed confrontations between dissidents and loyalists, including both civilians and the military, and by the tribal divisions occurring along political lines in the country. It seems that the president - unlike his deputy whom he assigned to engage in dialogue with the opposition - is not concerned about the situation deteriorating into a civil war, a war whose extent and catastrophic repercussions no one can predict, whether at the level of the country's unity or what is left of it, or that of its complicated social fabric. The president still believes that the opposition, or whoever maintains that he should step down to allow the emergence of a new regime, has “missed the train”, i.e. is outside his calculations, along with their political demands. It is no accident that the wide-scale attack on armed extremists in Zinjibar coincided with the assassination of the spiritual leader of Al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen. Simultaneously, the president was accusing the opposition in the Joint Meeting Parties of providing Al-Qaeda with arms through the rebel battalion led by Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar. He wanted to send out a message saying that his domestic opponents are supporting terrorism, and that he is the only one capable of fulfilling the task required from the regime in Sana'a, i.e. fighting this terrorism. Hence, to the president, the issue is not about a familial presidential regime that is no longer capable of meeting the minimum level of popular demands; rather, it is about the fight against terrorism. This is while bearing in mind that he himself had used the Islamic movements – even the extremist ones at times – in his internal battles. Moreover, these movements reached their peak after he sought their help in the war of Southern secession, and relied on them to ensure a parliamentary majority before he came to secure such a majority in elections that lacked integrity and transparency. Ali Saleh used all sorts of political maneuvers to thwart the Gulf initiative, which leaned on the opposition's political demands and the protection of the presidential position, as part of a settlement that would eventually lead to a peaceful transition of power. The president thus circumvented political demands, held on to his presidential seat and tried to turn this initiative into a weapon in his hands to consolidate his position. He even used his attempted assassination, whose details are still unclear, to strengthen his grip over power. In this context, his long presence outside the country for treatment did not help grant his deputy the powers that would allow him to implement the initiative, while the president evaded the call made by the Security Council to implement the Gulf initiative and America's call for him to step down in accordance with the latter. In truth, a Security Council resolution would not have better odds than previous international efforts. Ali Abdullah Saleh remains inflexible with regard to the domestic opposition and the long months of protests and sit-ins throughout the country, which he went as far as confronting with violence and killing. Ali Abdullah Saleh also remains intransigent in the face of a massive military dissent, and he has forced the presidential guard and the central security services to confront it. He remains unyielding in the face of a tribal rebellion by using parallel tribal support, and summoning religious clerics to defend him as the “legitimate ruler”, rather than an elected president of the republic, all in order to confront the Islamic movement's opposition to his tenure. He also remains obstinate in the face of the country's increasing slide into a wide scale civil war, and also in the face of the GCC's initiative – his primary financier – and international pressures, especially those put by the United States and the West.
