POMED Notes: “Rethinking U.S. Policy Toward Yemen”

On Tuesday, March 26, the Atlantic Council and the Project on Middle East Democracy hosted a discussion titled “Rethinking U.S. Policy toward Yemen.” It was held at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The discussion included Hafez al-Bukari, director of the Yemen Polling Center, Steven Heydemann, Senior Adviser for the Middle East Initiatives, U.S. Institute of Peace, Danya Greenfield, Deputy Director of the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, Atlantic Council, and was moderated by Stephen McInerney, Executive Director of the Project on Middle East Democracy. The event was a follow-up discussion to a letter that was sent to President Obama outlining recommendations for U.S. policy in Yemen.

For complete event notes continue reading, or click here for the PDF.

Moderator Stephen McInerney began the discussion by acknowledging positive changes in U.S. policy toward Yemen in the past four years but stating that “there’s significant room for improvement.” He said that the letter sent to President Obama makes a series of recommendations, the underlying theme being that despite positive efforts, the perception of U.S. policy in Yemen is that the U.S. is focused on short-term counterterrorism objectives, and these are largely unpopular with the Yemeni people.

Following McInerney’s remarks, Hafez al-Bukari spoke about the statistics gathered by his polling center. He stated that when he refers to the public opinion in Yemen, he is including both the opinion in cities and in rural areas. Al-Bukari’s main point was that Yemenis are not mainly concerned with politics; instead they care more about poverty, the economy, unemployment, and the “services that should be provided by public institutions.” When it comes to the discussion about civil society in Yemen, a discussion held by many in the international community, al-Bukari states that more Yemenis are concerned about their daily lives and only care about the development projects that will have a tangible effect on their well-being. Al-Bukari also stated that sometimes development projects create more instability at the local level because tribes fight to control the funding and there are no good standards for managing the projects. Al-Bukari then stated that foreign military assistance is not popular among Yemenis because Yemenis view their military as corrupt. He argues that international support for Yemen’s police would be more positively viewed because the police have daily contact with Yemenis and this would show that the international community is not solely concerned with fighting terrorists. Al-Bukari recommended that to effectively fight extremism in Yemen, the educational curriculum needs to be revised and the focus of the government and international community should be on strengthening the state and rule of law in Yemen.

Steven Heydemann gave credit to the Obama Administration for acting on its expressed intent to move America’s Yemen policy beyond counterterrorism. He added, however, that “these efforts have been completely eclipsed by the start of the Yemeni uprising in 2011,” and that there has been an “extraordinarily dramatic increase” in U.S. funding for counterterrorism. Since the uprising, U.S. policy in Yemen has become “almost entirely defined by counterterrorism” and a “reliance on drones.”  Heydemann argued that this is a problem because counterterrorism fails to address, and possibly exacerbates, some of the “broad underlying drivers of conflict” such as poverty, unemployment, and other socioeconomic issues. The National Dialogue, he argues, will likely lead only to an elite consensus that satisfies the Gulf Cooperation Council and the U.N., and the U.S.’s ability to help is “encumbered by the perception that its policy is focused on counterterrorism.” Heydemann concluded that Yemenis could very well emerge from the National Dialogue “with very few of the core drivers of conflict having been addressed,” and that this would force the U.S. into a position where it will need to expand its counterterrorism policies.

Danya Greenfield, who recently returned from a trip to Yemen, said that she recognizes “how difficult the task is” for the U.S. to achieve its multiple objectives, and that there is a “myriad of challenges” to consider. She feels, however, that American development and humanitarian assistance is “outweighed” by counterterrorism policy and that there is disconnect between Washington and Sana’a on the implementation of policy decisions. “The policy is holistic, but what’s being done on the ground doesn’t reflect that,” she said. One of the major problems, she argued, is that in Yemen, there is a sense of a lack of consistency by the U.S. and that this “breeds a lack of trust of what the U.S. is saying and doing.” She added, “In order to achieve our core objectives… we need to have the buy-in of the Yemeni people.” One way to do this is to decrease our reliance on drones, she argued. Speaking to the letter to President Obama she said, “Were not necessarily saying there is never a need [for drones], but that it should be a rarely used tactic in an overall strategy.” Instead the U.S. should be strengthening the Yemeni security forces and addressing the issues that lead Yemenis to extremism.

Greenfield then recommended policy shifts for the Obama Administration. She said that we need “a long-term strategy” to help the Yemeni government address the roots of extremism. She also recommended reevaluating America’s reliance on drone strikes and said the administration should pay attention to the “political and tactical costs” associated with the strikes. Greenfield added that the U.S. should be more careful and gentle about how it engages the Yemeni political process, saying, “When the U.S. is seen as dictating the terms, it perpetuates the negative views that Yemenis have of Americans and undermines President Hadi’s credibility.” Beyond reaching out to political elite, the U.S. should be reaching out to youth and independent voices “in order to help generate a new generation of young leaders,” who currently feel marginalized by the international community.

Moderator Stephen McInerney then asked Hafez al-Bukari about the need to strengthen the state. Al-Bukari said that in 90% of rural areas there are no police or judiciary institutions and “when there are judiciary institutions in these areas, they are corrupt.”

McInerney then opened the panel to questions from the audience. In response to a question about the probability of secession, Steven Heydemann stated that the issue is “a critical fault line.” He added that the U.S. doesn’t have mechanisms in place to deal with secession and that al-Hirak, the main southern opposition party, feels “quite reasonably” that the National Dialogue will fail to address “the full spectrum of possible solutions to their concerns.” McInerney then pointed out that the letter to President Obama recommended that the U.S. push President Hadi toward numerous reforms including “confidence-building measures” in the south, and that “progress in the south is really essential for the National Dialogue to be viewed as credible.”

Responding to a question about the primary drivers of conflict that the Dialogue is failing to address, Heydemann stated that there is an “enormous diversity of grievances,” and that a “fairly sophisticated strategy of dialogue” would be needed to ensure all the grievances were addressed. He added that socioeconomic conditions contribute to Yemenis’ willingness to join movements that are “quite hostile to the Yemeni state,” and that it “isn’t a surprise that Yemenis are often drawn to extremism.” Greenfield said that the Dialogue will fail to address “some of the key drivers of instability,” namely economic issues and government corruption.

In response to a question about the probability of elections in 2014, al-Bukari said he expects presidential but not parliamentary elections in 2014. Heydemann and Greenfield agreed.