NEW YORK TIMES: Only months ago, American officials were still referring to Yemen’s negotiated transition from autocracy to an elected president as a model for post-revolutionary Arab states.
Now, days of factional gun battles in the Yemeni capital have left the president a puppet figure confined to his residence. The country appears to be at risk of fragmenting in ways that could provide greater opportunities both for Iran and for Al Qaeda, whose Yemeni branch claimed responsibility for the first Paris terrorist attack this month.
The latest Yemeni crisis raises the prospect of yet another Arab country where the United States faces rising dangers but has no strong partners amid a landscape of sectarian violence. Although the Houthi rebels who now effectively control the state are at war with Al Qaeda, they are also allied with Iran and with Yemen’s meddlesome former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh… (more)
