The Revolution is Over…

…or it might as well be. I wonder what the people of Yemen will have gotten for their trouble.

The dialectical analysis of an historical entity fails when a larger such entity intervenes, to some degree removing its possibility of self-determination. The smaller entity is no longer free to work out its own contradictions – among other things redoubling the difficulty of dialectical analysis. Now any movement for changes in the state is or may be at the instance, or subject to the approval, of the larger entity and its interests. It’s not a new pattern. What usually happens when the United States, or any other such power, feel they have something to fear about, or gain from, the goings on in a sovereign, independent nation?

So when I posted that the revolution in Yemen was in a dangerous place, the devolution into tribal, prerevolutionary conflict was one danger. The result is worse still, because the first success of that phase was won by al Qaida, when forces under their influence gained control of some provincial capital in the south.

Since then, the U.S. has been exploring the resumption of military aid to the regime, which, apart from procuring the absence of Saleh, gives no appearance whatever of having a revolutionary agenda. It’s too busy struggling with al Qaida, and the tribes who think al Qaida represents their interests – though, to be sure, not their economic interests.

Next, the regime managed to drive al Qaida out of some of the positions they had captured. But at a philosophical distance, the action resembles nothing more than the historical norm of tribal conflict.

So the internal forces are pushing the country backward, and so is the external force majeure being applied by the U.S. To an extent, Yemen still is self-determining, but in a movement that is fundamentally counter-revolutionary. At the end of this movement lies another strongman – at least one strong enough to alternately conciliate and cow the tribes, if not to make himself universally feared.

The revolution in Libya is not in much better condition, though the retrograde movement has not been so rapid. Things seem to have stabilized at a point short of more or less continuous armed conflict. There are reasons to think someone with strong political, nationalist instincts could still overcome a provincialism that cannot be in the interest of the Libyan people as a whole.

So long, Saleh!

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.