Seemingly, the tribes woke up and found they were strong – strong enough to strike a mortal blow, not as chance would have it to Saleh personally, but to his physical ability to maintain his regime. With Saleh in a Saudi hospital, is there anyone left to carry on the civil war in his name? That seems doubtful. The Vice President says he will, but I suppose he’s got a job and would like to keep it.
Power that is built on the weakness of and divisions between one’s enemies rather than the strength of one’s support tends to evaporate in one’s absence.
That leaves the tribes face-to-face with the students and their allies in the capital. We’ll see if they can find common revolutionary ground.
Of course, U.S. insistence on hunting down al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula would tend to resolve this conundrum in favor of another, new strongman in Yemen, someone capable of carrying on the hunt. The choice is between our fears for ourselves, and the bare possibility, slim in itself but scarcely able to resist outside pressure, that the revolution in Yemen might actually be able to gain something for the political and civil liberty of its people.
In the past, confronted with a similar choice, we’ve taken counsel of our fears – more than once in Vietnam, for example.
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