Nowhere has the Obama administration been more reluctant to embrace the revolutions sweeping through the Middle East than in Yemen. This is, in part, understandable.

According to the administration’s own intelligence officials, Yemen is home to the most dangerous al Qaeda affiliate on the planet, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which has authored a string of terror plots against the U.S. And administration officials see President Ali Abdullah Saleh, although corrupt and duplicitous, as perhaps the only partner in the country capable of offering vital counterterrorism assistance. Should Saleh fall, he could easily be replaced by someone worse, either by an Islamic fundamentalist or someone who is at least more sympathetic to the jihadist cause.