If only the Obama White House could bring itself to admit that its strategy in Yemen has failed. Then Obama and his mouthpieces would look substantially less foolish.
As matters stand, they cling to the myth that their “small footprint” strategy against terrorism in Yemen — cooperate loosely with local authorities and blow up terrorists with drones on occasion — is a successful one in the war against terrorism.
White House Spokesman Josh Earnest said as much this Wednesday, even as the Yemeni state was collapsing and its president fled for his life. The so-called Yemen model, Earnest said, once singled out for praise by President Obama, “is a template that has succeeded in mitigating the threat that we face from extremists in Yemen and Somalia.”
Yemen is now in the midst of sectarian violence between two sets of mutually-hostile Islamic paramilitaries, both of which are proven enemies of the United States. It appears likely to degenerate into the next failed state in the region, after Iraq, Syria, and Libya.
Unlike Iraq, Yemen is a poor desert country which America never occupied or invaded. It is now the locus of Iranian regional aggression by the Houthi, who are Shiites, and it has long suffered the presence of Sunni terrorist groups, such as al Qaeda and more recently the Islamic state.
When the Houthis captured the capital city of Sana’a earlier this year, forcing the formation of a new government, Obama reached out to them for help, hoping to become their partner in facing the apparently more dangerous Sunni terror groups. They refused. In retrospect, Obama probably should have recognized that cooperation was unlikely, given that the group’s slogan contains the phrase “death to America.”
As an unintended consequence of Obama’s careless detachment from world events, he is now getting America involved in yet another war in Islamic lands. This time, Obama is helping the Saudi army bomb the same group of gun-toting religious fanatics that he himself was courting just a few months ago.
If that doesn’t seem absurd enough, consider how Obama is straddling the region, trying to play both sides of a deeply-divided Islamic world. In Iraq, he is helping Iranian-backed Shiite paramilitaries fight the Islamic State (to the extent that they are willing to cooperate). In Yemen, he is helping the Saudis fight Iranian-backed paramilitaries. All the while, his negotiations with Iran appear highly likely to leave the Islamic Republic in a position to develop nuclear weapons in a relatively short period of time, much to the chagrin of Saudi Arabia. This is a balancing act he cannot maintain.
This is what a drifting, directionless foreign policy looks like — one that simultaneously rewards and punishes Iranian aggression throughout the region. Iran has backed Hezbollah and Hamas to destabilize Israel and the Palestinian territories. Iran has helped save Syrian dictator and war criminal Bashar al Assad. Iran is currently working to destabilize its arch-enemy, Saudi Arabia, by creating a Houthi beachhead in neighboring Yemen.
This raises an important question. Just what would the Iranian regime have to do in order to convince Obama that it is a bad idea to make this nuclear deal? Based on events so far, the Iranian mullahs would probably need to use a nuclear bomb to convince him of what seems obvious. Unfortunately for the world, that might happen soon enough.
