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221. Engaging Islamists and Promoting Democracy: A Preliminary Assessment

Author:
Mona Yacoubian
Publication Date:
09-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
Parliamentary elections across the Middle East have led to a wave of Islamist victories. Islamist parties typically boast leaders who are young and dynamic, with strong ties to the community; their party organizations brim with energy and ideas, attracting those who seek change. The U.S. government has quietly engaged moderate Islamist parties for several years. U.S. engagement has been most successful where democratic reform is already underway and where the government is genuinely committed to political opening. Other factors include the Islamist parties' political sophistication, popular credibility, and openness to working with U.S. organizations. A successful Islamist engagement strategy both empowers individuals and strengthens institutions to yield greater transparency, more accountability, and shifts toward greater moderation. Of the three cases addressed in this paper—Morocco, Jordan, and Yemen—Morocco appears to hold the greatest promise for U.S. engagement with moderate Islamists. Meanwhile, Jordan and Yemen offer important though limited instances of success. U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East affects the ability of U.S. organizations to promote democracy there. At times, Islamist parties have cut off contact with U.S. democracy promoters to protest specific aspects of U.S. foreign policy, such as the war in Iraq. Ultimately, U.S. engagement of moderate Islamists must be understood within the broader political context of the ideological battle in the Muslim world over the place of Islam in public life. Moderate Islamist parties that reject violence and practice democratic ideals are an important counterweight to Islamist extremism, and their work should be encouraged.
Topic:
Democratization, Islam, and War
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Middle East, Yemen, Jordan, and Morocco

222. Post-Election Report on the 2006 Presidential and Local Council Elections in Yemen

Publication Date:
11-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
The simultaneous presidential, governorate council and local council elections in 2006 made them the most technically complex ever held in Yemen. For the first time in the region, a head of state faced a credible opponent in a competitive electoral contest.
Topic:
International Relations, Civil Society, and Democratization
Political Geography:
Africa and Yemen

223. Yemen's President to Be Reelected As Terrorist Plots Revealed

Author:
Simon Henderson
Publication Date:
09-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
On September 20, amid reports of al-Qaeda plots against local American targets, the people of the strategically important but impoverished Arabian Peninsula state of Yemen go to the polls to elect a president. The president will not be new -- the incumbent Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has been in power for twenty-eight years, is expected to be reelected. Apart from last-minute doubts about the poll caused by the security crisis, the main question is how sweeping his victory will be. The last time elections were held, in 1999, President Saleh polled 96 percent, including the vote of his only opponent, a member of his own political party who said he considered Saleh more worthy. This time the field includes four other candidates. Saleh's main rival is Faysal bin Shamlan, a former oil minister who is backed by an alliance of opposition parties and whom Saleh has linked to an arrested "major terrorist."
Topic:
International Relations, Politics, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
America and Yemen

224. Millennium Development Goal 7: An Assessment of Progress With Respect to Water and Sanitation: Legacy, Synergy, Complacency or Policy?

Author:
P.B. Anand
Publication Date:
01-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Access to water and sanitation (target 10) is an important ingredient of quality of life. As per WHO-UNICEF assessments, globally, 77 per cent of population had access to water in 1990. This proportion has increase d to 83 per cent in 2002, thus, on track to achieve the target of halving the proportion of population without safe access by 2015. However, there is considerable regional disparity in progress which remains significantly low in many countries in sub- Saharan Africa. Also, the question remains whether increased access is same as sustainable access. In 2002, some 2.6 billion people worldwide did not have access to safe sanitation options. Of these, nearly 2 billion were in the rural areas. While in almost all countries, the proportion of people having access to improved sanitation in 2002 has increased compared to the status in 1990, in 27 countries including India, Ne pal, Lao PDR, Namibia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Yemen, two out of three people did not have access to improved sanitation in 2002.
Topic:
Development, Health, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
India, Yemen, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Namibia

225. The US And Yemen: A Half-Century of Engagement

Author:
Edward Prados
Publication Date:
01-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies
Abstract:
Yemen has rarely played a prominent role in America's foreign policy or in its national discourse. In fact, until the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in the Yemeni port city of Aden, statements on Yemen often elicited the question: “Where is that?” Yemen is a conservative, Islamic, tribal, Arab nation located in the southwest corner of the Arabian Peninsula. Although Yemen currently produces 438,500 barrels of oil per day, it is considered one of the world's twenty-five least developed countries, with an estimated per-capita GDP of $508 in 2003 and a literacy rate of only 50 percent.
Topic:
Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, Yemen, and Arabia

226. Yemeni President Saleh Comes to Washington

Author:
Simon Henderson and Khairi Abaza
Publication Date:
11-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
The November 10 meeting at the White House between U.S. president George W. Bush and Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh will be the third time the two men have met since the September 11 terror attacks on the United States. Yemen is an oft-forgotten close U.S. ally, arguably as crucial to the success of the war on terror as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, or Egypt. The south Arabian country, with its rugged, desert landscape, remains a sanctuary for al-Qaeda operatives. With seacoasts along the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, Yemen dominates the Bab el-Mandab shipping chokepoint, the route by which oil from the Persian Gulf reaches the Suez Canal and hence the European market. (A French supertanker was badly damaged in an al-Qaeda attack off the Yemeni coast in 2002.)
Topic:
International Relations and Government
Political Geography:
Pakistan, United States, Washington, Middle East, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt

227. Camels don't fly, deserts don't bloom: an assessment of Saudi Arabia's experiment in desert agriculture'

Author:
Elie Elhadj
Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
Abstract:
Severe arid conditions constrained agricultural production and population size in the Arabian Peninsula over the millennia (except around oases and in parts of Yemen). An abrupt change in Saudi Arabia started in the 1980s to make the desert bloom. This study examines whether or not the Saudi experiment in desert irrigation has been worthwhile in terms of cost and benefit. It concludes that the project was a waste of money and water on a grand scale.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, Environment, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Sinai Peninsula

228. Middle East Affiliate Groups and the Next Generation of Terror

Author:
Daniel Benjamin and Jonathan Schanzer
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
Groups affiliated with al-Qaeda are a threat not only in the countries in which they operate, but also at the global level. Al-Qaeda's presence throughout the Muslim world comes largely in the form of these groups; attacks in Bali, Yemen, Casablanca, Iraq, and elsewhere have been linked to such affiliates.
Topic:
Security and Religion
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, Yemen, and Arab Countries

229. U.S.-Turkish Cooperation against New Maritime Threats in the Mediterranean Basin

Author:
Orhan Babaoglu
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
On November 23, 2004, Gen. James Jones, NATO's supreme allied commander for Europe, praised Operation Active Endeavour (OAE) for its role on the war on terror. OAE is NATO's post-September 11 answer to the question of naval security in the Mediterranean Sea. With the threat of terrorism on the open waters gaining increasing attention, especially in the aftermath of the 2000 USS Cole bombing in Yemen and the September 11 attacks, the Mediterranean basin (including the Black Sea) has become a new focal point for policymakers. The basin lies between three dangerous conflict areas -- the Middle East, the Balkans, and the Caucasus. Moreover, as a passageway between developed and underdeveloped nations, with access to three strategically important sea passages -- Gibraltar in the west, the Suez Canal in the south, and the Turkish Straits in the north -- the Mediterranean gives terrorists, human traffickers, and drug and arms smugglers easy access to the long and difficult to patrol coastlines of Europe. Is the West doing an adequate job of confronting the new threats in the Mediterranean? What role does the U.S.-Turkish alliance play in this enterprise?
Topic:
Security and Religion
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Turkey, Caucasus, Middle East, Yemen, Arab Countries, and Balkans

230. Challenges in Iraq: Learning from Yemen?

Author:
Jonathan Schanzer
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
The Yemeni media recently reported that thousands of Iraqis who fled Saddam Husayn's brutal regime and have lived in Yemen for more than a decade are now thinking about returning home. Many of these individuals are encouraged by signs of new infrastructure and a recovering economy in Iraq. If and when they return, they will see a number of stark similarities between their old homeland and Yemen, including primordial federalism, a "triangle" of terrorism, and questions of Sunni-Shi'i relations. Although Yemen is certainly not a model to which Iraq should aspire, San'a does have experience in dealing with challenges similar to those currently facing Iraq. Yemen's handling of these challenges provides reasons for cautious optimism about Iraq's future.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Middle East, Yemen, and Arabia