What Yemen is currently witnessing, in terms of disturbances, armed confrontations and acts of violence, is the product of numerous and old piled-up issues, some dating back to before republican rule in the North and unity with the South. Yet the country has, through the war of secession and the forces intersecting within it, as well as the defeat of the Southerners, entered a phase that has exacerbated the old pileups and produced new conflicts as complex as those that preceded them. The government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh is waging a nation-wide confrontation with the Al-Qaeda organization and the Houthi rebellion, and defending against the violent protests of supporters of the Southern Movement, to the point that the differences are melting away between these factions that are supposed to be opposed to and fighting each other. This reflects the extent of the political dead-end and the breaking down of mechanisms of dialogue between internal parties, especially between the ruling party and the official opposition (in the Joint Meeting Parties), the limits of which have also become blurred, such that political programs and public agendas no longer reflect the actual stances of parties. Thus political affiliation becomes mixed up with tribal and local identity, and calls for secession appear in the South. The opportunity provided by such calls was thus quickly seized by Al-Qaeda and the Houthi rebellion, placing it within the framework of plans to confront the Yemeni government, weaken it and exhaust it. Thus, for instance, the purpose of the protests in the South have become mixed up, and it is no longer known whether it is one of protest against an economic policy, of demanding a state of equality and rule of law, of calling for secession, or of mobilization to implement Al-Qaeda's plans. In most cases, these protests end in armed confrontations with security forces, giving impetus to the next confrontation. This while the priority of a military solution to all of these problems, each on its own, is dominant, without the ruling party and the official opposition being able to settle the dispute over sharing power according to a general political program – knowing that this opposition, as well as the ruling party, has an interest in maintaining the state as it is now, and strengthening its positions at the expense of the current tearing apart of the country. Perhaps what poses a greater threat than violence and confrontations, placing Yemen in grave danger, is the inability to learn lessons from past confrontations with the South, and the inability to realize the grave mistake represented by allowing for radical Islamists to take part in the fighting alongside the state, thereby allowing them to take advantage of such a position to spread their influence, their schools and up to their military bases. There is also the inability to comprehend the Houthi rebellion, which has become an integral part of the sets of complex problems. It had, at an earlier phase, seemed that all means to reach power were justified, as were the alliances engaged in by the ruling party. Meanwhile, the chances of peaceful alternation of power, based on the regular elections that took place in Yemen, have become inexistent. Today the “demons” of these alliances have ceased to serve the ruling party and begun to serve their own interests. Moreover, the limited nature of the foreign mediations that have been engaged in so far has become plain, despite being backed by financial assistance, as in the case of the Qatari mediation between the government and the Houthi rebels, where the ink had not yet dried on the agreement that had been reached when fighting resumed between the two sides. Regardless of Qatar's intentions, behind the mediation, it nonetheless suffered from a fundamental problem, which is placing the Yemeni state and an internal armed rebellion on equal footing, while that state dealt with this rebellion as merely a problem that could be solved through partial and technical arrangements with the rebellion's leadership. It is not useful, at the moment, to enumerate the grave mistakes that have been committed in managing the affairs of Yemen in previous phases, especially in the areas of distribution of power and wealth, corruption and development. The only useful thing to do is prevent the Yemeni powder keg from exploding, as the impact of such an explosion will not be restricted to the rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Rather, it will have repercussions in the entire neighboring region, a region which suffers from the effects of the US invasion of Iraq – and what it has involved in terms of unleashing the demons of sectarianism and confessionalism, from the policy of Iranian expansion and the dangers of a military targeting of Iran's nuclear program. Any additional weakness that might afflict the Yemeni government will be in the interest of the forces which Yemen's neighborhood unanimously rejects, especially that the nature of the current conflict in Somalia – which has historically had privileged relations with Yemen – could easily spread to enflame the entire region. In this sense, containing the Yemeni powder keg as quickly as possible becomes of fundamental interest for the Gulf, and no foreign intervention or mediation will be useful unless all the lessons of the previous phases, politically and developmentally, are taken into consideration.
