Yemen, the new Afghanistan?

In 2011 Ali Abdullah Saleh, the President of Yemen, announced his resignation after 30 years in power. Tomorrow (Tuesday 20^th of February) the Yemeni people will go to the poll to elect a new President, the problem… There’s only one candidate, the old Vice President, Abd Rabbuh Mansur al-Hadi, there’s no doubt that this isn’t very democratic but nonetheless most people are just delighted that the old president is gone. In most dictatorships, the dictator’s family is very important and Yemen is no exception, many of Saleh’s family control many areas of Yemen politics including army commanders. Getting rid of Saleh will require more work than many people think.

Yemen isn’t just an ordinary country though, although oil makes up 90% of its exports, it isn’t a major oil exporter (which is unusual considering its geographical location). Likely more oil will be discovered in future. Regardless of the oil it owns, it is one of three countries on the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, the others being Djibouti and Eritrea. The strait is incredibly important as it connects Europe to the Far East. The security of the strait ties Europe strongly to the country in the hope for oil and good links to the Far East. The even worse problem is this, Al Qaeda is very strong in the country and many fear that it could become the new Afghanistan. Al Qaeda is growing stronger by the day in Yemen, this core reason for this is the terrible poverty experienced by most Yemeni people, 500,000 children are at risk of dying from starvation and most people can barely feed themselves. If Yemen were to fall into Islamist hands it would be a devastating blow to the West’s “War on Terror” as having to deal with one Afghanistan is hard enough. After WWII America funded many European states through Marshall Aid. The point of the aid was to try and help Europe recover and to try and stop the Soviet advancement west-word. It worked, all countries that received Marshall Aid didn’t fall to Communism and began to grow and prosper. The problem now is, America is bust and so is the rest of the West. The only countries that could help to stop Yemen’s fall into anarchy would be the likes of China, and China is not threatened by Islamists.

Yemen is strategically located on the Gulf of Aden and Bab-el-Mandeb Strait