The Fiction of Yemen’s Government Shouldn’t Be a Straitjacket

On November 10, 2024, U.S. and British forces reportedly struck at Houthi weapons depots in and around Sana’a. While culling the Houthi arsenal is a strategic interest, the failure of Washington and London to address Yemeni governance realistically remains a poison pill to effective policy and ultimately toward defeating the Houthis.

While the Houthis took Sana’a, Yemen’s capital, a decade ago, the international community never recognized their stewardship of the country.

Ali Abdullah Saleh rose through Yemeni military ranks during a tumultuous period in which civil war and military coups were rampant in the so-called Yemen Arab Republic, or more popularly, North Yemen. Saleh described ruling Yemen as akin to “dancing on the heads of snakes,” but by that analogy, he became Fred Astaire. He dominated the country for more than 30 years until his January 2012 ouster.

Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, Saleh’s deputy, succeeded him. The United States, the United Nations, and most other countries immediately affirmed their recognition of Hadi. On paper, the continuity of leadership should have contributed to Yemeni security but, in reality, the practicalities of Yemeni society meant Hadi never had a chance. He was vice president as a political and diplomatic convenience, but northern Yemenis were never going to accept him.

Yemen is like Somalia or Afghanistan: deeply tribal, where identities are more local than national. While there were two Yemens during the Cold War—the Arab nationalist North and communist South—most scholars suggest a more natural breakdown would have between six, twelve, or even several dozen natural entities in Yemen. After the fall of the Soviet Union, North and South Yemen united but the cultural differences between the two, exacerbated by nearly a century of British Indian colonial rule and decades of communist domination in South Yemen, were too great to enable easy integration. In 1994, South Yemen sought to secede from its union, but lost the resulting civil war. To create an illusion of unity, Saleh appointed a southerner—Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi—to be his vice president.

The vice president lacked power; he was merely a bauble to symbolize Yemeni unity. Saleh never envisioned a scenario in which Hadi would succeed him. Nor did most Yemenis, about 80 percent of whom lived in North Yemen. A southerner was no more welcome to rule in Sana’a than a man from the backwoods of West Virginia would be to rule in Berkeley, California. Therefore, when Hadi suddenly became president, few Yemenis accepted him. He sidestepped this problem by appointing Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, a prominent general born just outside Sana’a, to be his vice president. In practice, while the international community bestowed legitimacy upon Hadi and recognized him as head of state, absent Ahmar, Hadi was unable to navigate any northern city.

In 2022, Hadi resigned and dismissed Ahmar. With the approval of Washington, the United Nations, and the international community, he transferred power to a new eight-member Presidential Leadership Council chaired by Rashad al-Alimi, a former Hadi advisor, now 70 years old, who hailed from a village near Taiz, the traditional seat of the Yemeni monarchy prior to its overthrow by Arab nationalists.

The United States and much of the international community threw their weight behind the Presidential Leadership Council as an umbrella group to unite most Yemeni factions. The theory is that a broad-based government brings peace. The reality is that seldom works. Take a U.S. example: Would Washington work better if Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton shared power? Or if Rand Paul and Anthony Fauci shared a cubicle?

While Alimi presides over the Presidential Leadership Council, there are four vice chairmen representing the Southern Transitional Council, the National Resistance, and two members of the Islah party. Other members represent tribal or regional groups.

Not all groups are equal, however. The Southern Transitional Council is the most professional group and the only ones who not only control territory but also run it professionally as a state. If the United States or United Kingdom recognized South Yemen tomorrow, it effectively would transition into an independent state, one that functions far better than Yemen itself.

On the other hand, Islah, Yemen’s Muslim Brotherhood affiliate, flirts with terrorism. On October 7, 2024, the U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned Hamid al-Ahmar, a Yemeni businessman and Islah financier for his work funding Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Herein lies the incoherence of U.S. policy. On one hand, the Biden administration recognizes the terror linkages of Islah. On the other, U.S.-funded groups like the National Democratic Institute assist Islah in its effort to undermine South Yemeni governance and civil society.

Democracy is a noble goal, but to prioritize democracy-in-the-process over democracy-as-the-result backfires. The 2006 Hamas embrace of elections is a case in point. The cynicism of some dictators is open. Decades before rising to Turkey’s presidency, for example, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan quipped, “Democracy is like a streetcar; you ride it as far as you need and then step off.”

The advantage of a Trump administration is that it is less beholden to received wisdom and diplomatic straitjackets. There is a bipolarity to American policy today in which diplomats and congressional staff familiar with Yemen recognize that not all factions within the President Leadership Council are equal, yet they still defer to the wishful thinking at the heart of its creation.

If Trump wishes to defeat the Houthis and allow a Yemeni government to emerge that poses no threat to its neighbors or itself, it is time to prioritize those who control territory in Yemen rather than those who sit in Istanbul cafes dreaming of power.