They interact in complex ways that defy full comprehension. Thereare no simple solutions. It is possible, indeed, that there are nosolutions at all. A small handful of people, including my distinguishedcolleagues on this panel, are conversant enough with the situation onthe ground to be called experts in Yemen. The rest of us who areconcerned about America's interests and security will have to learnquickly.

For the one thing that stands out clearly is that danger in Yemen isreal, likely, and even imminent. The state is deeply corrupt andineffective. Its civilian and military leadership is a patronagenetwork as much as (perhaps more than) a government. President AliAbdallah Salih has ruled for three decades and is the only leader there-unified Yemeni state has had. His General People's Congress holds anoverwhelming majority in the elected house of parliament (Salih selectsthe members of the upper house) and is a reliable rubber-stamp. Salihhas concentrated power in his own hands to such an extent thatparticipation in the Yemeni political process is not an attractiveoption for his opponents.

Salih faces two potentially existential challenges to his rule: theal Houthi insurgency in the north and the southern secessionistmovement. The al Houthi movement challenges the legitimacy of Salih'srule. Putting a very complex issue simply, al Houthi founders and coremembers believe that only direct descendants of the Prophet Mohammad(Hashemites) are legitimate rulers in the state. Salih is not aHashemite; the al Houthi family members are. From Salih's perspective,the al Houthi claims are probably the most dangerous single domesticchallenge he could face. If the al Houthis could persuade their fellowZaydis of their viewpoint, the basis for Salih's rule among the verypeople on whom it depends would be destroyed. Whatever the intentionsof Hussein Badr al Din al Houthi, the movement's founder, and whateverthe likelihood of the triumph of his interpretation of religion andtradition, Salih has shown a hyper-sensitivity to the movement thatbelies a real fear of this threat.

The southern secessionist movement is less violent and, possibly,less threatening to Salih. It stems from the grievances of some of theinhabitants of the former People's Democratic Republic of Yemen whobelieve that Salih has discriminated against them, impoverished theirregion, and excluded them from any of the benefits they expected thatthe 1990 unification of the country would bring. In principle, themovement--some of whose leaders call for the re-partitioning of thecountry--threatens Yemen's integrity and, indeed, survival. Salih hasshown significant concern for this threat, but not as much as he hasshown for the al Houthi threat, either because the secessionistmovement has so far been less violent or because he is confident in hisability to defeat the southerners having already done so decisively inthe brief 1994 civil war.

These two threats have occupied much of Salih's attention at theexpense of the impending economic crises Yemen faces, which include therapid depletion of its oil and water resources. He has spent asignificant proportion of Yemen's small GDP on his military forces,including signing multi-billion dollar contracts to purchase advancedtanks and aircraft from the Russian Federation. He has also enlistedthe support of tribes hostile to the al Houthis and of Salafist groupsand individuals, including some who are members or supporters of alQaeda.

The combination of state ineffectiveness, corruption, andpenetration by Salafists has contributed to a Yemeni counter-terrorismapproach that has been at best ineffective and at worst ambivalent.Since 9/11, Yemen has captured a number of al Qaeda leaders andreceived a number transferred from U.S. custody. Many have eitherescaped or been freed. Recently, the Yemeni military has worked moreaggressively on targeting (often killing) al Qaeda leaders andcooperating with the American military, but we may have seen thispattern before: after 9/11 Salih also cooperated with the U.S. to takeapart the al Qaeda network in his country, but he was unwilling orunable to prevent it from reconstituting.

The prospect of pushing forward with such a cycle of cooperation andneglect would be distressing in any case, but might be the lesser evilif it seemed to be sustainable. Yemen's other internal crises make itunacceptable. Salih has been unable to end the al Houthi insurgency inthe north or the secessionist movement in the south. Yemen spends alarge portion of its GDP on the military, but cannot maintain internalsecurity. The al Houthi insurgency has grown enough to trigger themilitary intervention of Saudi Arabia. Unconfirmed reports suggest thatthe insurgents receive aid from Iran. Yemen also faces the prospect ofimminent economic catastrophe, as both its oil and water reserves areprojected to run out within a decade. Its oil production is alreadydeclining, significantly reducing the government's ability to maintaineven the unstable equilibrium it has been literally buying over thepast few decades with the oil revenue. If current trends continue,there is every likelihood that the Yemeni state will fail. Statefailure will likely result in internal violence in which Yemen'sneighbors become involved and which provides an environment conduciveto the establishment of a serious al Qaeda safe-haven.

American military intervention in Yemen is extraordinarilyundesirable for reasons that require no elaboration. Yet the U.S.cannot view with equanimity the creation of a new terrorist strongholdin a chaotic and violent failed state--particularly when the terroristgroup has already made one attempt to attack America directly. The bestcourse of action is to mobilize all of the resources of the U.S. andthe international community to avert the disaster before it is upon usand our choices are constrained. If ever there were a time and placefor the aggressive application of "smart power," this is it.

Before we decide what to do, we must be clear about what needs to bedone. So far, much of the reaction to the Christmas bombing attempt hasfocused narrowly on pressing President Salih to pursue al Qaeda moreaggressively. Some commentary has suggested that the U.S. carefullycraft its policies to avoid entanglement in Yemen's internalproblems--and the U.S. has historically worked to prevent Salih fromusing American aid to combat his other internal enemies.

The trouble is that the U.S. is hopelessly entangled in Yemen'sinternal problems the moment we decide that we must act against alQaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Targeted airstrikes are a form ofintervention in Yemen's (or any country's) internal affairs. PressingYemen (or any state) to adopt particular counter-terrorism laws,policies, strategies, and tactics is a form of entanglement. The U.S.may desire to restrict the conversation to those issues alone, but theYemeni government will be both unable and unwilling to do so.

President Salih will not consider the requirements for using hissecurity services against al Qaeda separately from the problem offighting the al Houthi rebels or the southern secessionists, no matterhow much we might wish him to do so. He will not separate our demandsthat he target Salafists affiliated with or supportive of al Qaeda fromhis own relationships with them. He will not separate our insistencethat he fight our enemies on his soil from what he perceives to be therequirements of maintaining himself in power. The only question we faceis whether we choose to engage with President Salih on the basis of acommon understanding of the situation and both sides' equities orwhether we develop strategies based on false assumptions that are boundto fail.

America's objective in Yemen can be stated more simply than it canbe achieved: the U.S. and its international partners must seek todefeat al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula by, with, and through thelegitimate Yemeni government and security forces and to createconditions that will avert the collapse of Yemen and/or there-emergence of a terrorist safe-haven there in the future. The U.S.should make every possible effort to achieve this objective withoutintroducing American military forces into Yemen--indeed, the strategyshould take avoiding the necessity for such a deployment as a secondaryobjective in itself.

U.S. policy must be clear about the internal challenges to PresidentSalih's rule. We cannot expect Salih to serve our interests in fightingal Qaeda while we remain agnostic about the outcome of the armedinsurgency now underway in the north. We need not--and shouldnot--attempt to resolve the conflict ourselves, impose terms, mediate,or simply help Salih crush the Houthis militarily. We can--andshould--pressure Salih to make reforms and concessions to address atleast some of the Houthi demands, as well as those of otherincreasingly restive and potentially violent sources of oppositionwithin his state.

But we must recognize that we have already chosen sides. If ourstrategy is based on the assumption that Salih will be our partner,then we must be prepared to help him end the violent armed insurgencywithin his state. If we are not prepared to do so--and one could arguethe undesirability of doing so--then we cannot base our strategy on theassumption that he will be our ally. Put simply and brutally, we cannotexpect Salih to commit to supporting us if we refuse to support him. Ifwe decide, therefore, that we simply cannot commit to helping Salih endthe armed insurgency for whatever reason, then we must develop astrategy that does not require his assistance. It is hard to see howsuch a strategy could be other than one of two things: allowing thelikely growth of AQAP to continue for some time or choosing to useAmerican military force directly in Yemen. Neither option is desirableif there is any alternative.

Let us try to find an alternative strategy. Its contours are clear,if the means of accomplishing it are not. The key challenges are:

• Helping the Yemeni government establish its legitimacy with itspopulation, including the reconcilable elements of the al Houthiinsurgency and the southern secessionist movement;
• Helping,encouraging, and cajoling the Yemeni government and security servicesto separate themselves from Salafist extremists who support al Qaedaand its aims;
• Working with the Yemeni government to disentangleal Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula from the reconcilable tribal elementsthat now support and shelter them;
• Improve the capacity of theYemeni security services to combat al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsulaand irreconcilable elements engaged in armed insurgency against thestate;
• Help Sana'a and the international community develop andimplement plans to avert the immediate crises of impending oil andwater shortages;
• Work with the international community toencourage and cajole the Yemeni government to establish a functioningstate structure that meets the minimum standards of effectiveness andtransparency required to secure its legitimacy in the eyes of itspeople;
• Encourage and cajole the Yemeni government to makereasonable concessions in pursuit of peaceful resolution of internalconflicts while assisting it in efforts to defeat irreconcilableelements who insist on using organized violence to pursue their aims;
• Work with Yemen and its neighbors to integrate Yemen into the GCC and the international community.

The U.S. does not have a recent successful model for the developmentand execution of such a strategy. Examples in Iraq and Afghanistan areof dubious utility because the civilian efforts there have dependedheavily on the presence of large numbers of American and internationalmilitary forces and planning staffs. It might be tempting to view Yementhrough the prism of the military's foreign internal defense model(FID), but this temptation must be resisted. The problem is muchgreater than improving the capabilities of Yemen's military, and FIDdoctrine does not extend to reforming the host nation's government andstate apparatus. The U.S. government will have to design and implementa new model for accomplishing this important mission, and fast.

Frederick W. Kagan is a resident scholar and director of the Critical Threats Project at AEI.

Photo credit: DoD photo by Sgt. Zach Otto, U.S. Army/Released