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Implosions, more and less advanced

While the rest of the world catches up with the question of “how does Libya end,” which I dealt with yesterday, let’s take a look ahead.  Today’s big news was not the explosions in Libya, but rather the implosion in Yemen, where President Saleh is now facing an opposition strengthened by defections from his army, government, parliament and diplomatic corps.  He is appealing for “mediation” by the Saudis, which is being interpreted in some circles as a plea for Saudi guarantees if he agrees to step down in six months.  He had already agreed to step down at the end of his present term in 2013.

It very much looks as if Washington may lose its spear carrier in the fight against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).  This is a problem, since no one–including Saleh–seems to think AQAP is a serious threat to Yemen, which it uses as haven and launching pad.  No one in his right mind would want to try to govern it.

Washington will have to convince whoever takes over–the betting seems to be on General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, but these things are inherently uncertain–that AQAP merits his attention.   This will be difficult:  Yemen is a place with a lot of problems.  Water and oil are running out, there are more or less perennial rebellions both north and south, the population is high half the day on qat, and the authority of the government barely extends to the outskirts of Sanaa, the capital.

In Syria, the process of popular protest is far less advanced, but firing on demonstrators by the security forces has reaped an increase in demonstrations in the south.  No telling whether the Syrians have the stomach to go all the way to revolution, and Bashar al Assad is a clever autocrat.  But he too is lacking resources and tied to Iran in ways that make it difficult for him to do what most Syrians want:  an opening to the West and foreign investment, which necessarily entails reducing ties to Iran and Hizbollah and settling up somehow with Israel.  Syria also has ethnic and sectarian issues:  Kurdish citizens treated as second class and a Sunni majority governed by an Alawhite (more or less Shia) but secular majority.

Bahrain, now under Gulf Cooperation Council protection, seems to be doing its best to turn its rebellion into sectarian strife, which is not how it began.  It is hard to believe that is in the interests of the (Sunni) Khalifa monarchy, which governs a less than prosperous Shia majority.  But when Saudi Arabia decides to embrace you, I guess you have to hug back.

It has already been an extraordinary few weeks in North Africa.  While the monarchies in Jordan, Morocco and Saudi Arabia seem to be learning how to keep the lid on, the pot is boiling over in Yemen and may still do so in Syria and Bahrain.  It would be nice if the heat rose under the Iranian pot, but that does not appear to be happening, no matter how often the Secretary of State and the President wish it so.