Yemen is a mosaic of conflicting authorities, though this authority may be confined to a few villages. Larger communities include the Shia in the north of the country near Saada with whom the government has been fighting a fierce little civil war. The unification of North and South Yemen in 1990 has never wholly jelled and the government is wary of southern secessionism. Its ability to buy off its opponents is also under threat as its oil revenues fall as its few oilfields begin to run dry.    

It is in this fascinating but dangerous land that President Barack Obama is planning to increase US political and military involvement. Joint operations will be carried out by the US and Yemeni military. There will be American drone attacks on hamlets where al-Qa'ida supposedly has its bases. There is ominous use by American politicians and commentators of the phrase `failed state' in relation to Yemen as if this somehow legitimises foreign intervention. It is extraordinary that the US political elite has never taken in board that its greatest defeats have been in just such `failed states' such as Lebanon in 1982 when 240 US Marines were blown up; Somalia in the early 1990s when the body of a US helicopter pilot was dragged through the streets; Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein; and Afghanistan after the supposed fall of the Taliban.    

Yemen has all the explosive ingredients of Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan. But the arch-hawk Senator Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Committee for Security was happily confirming this week that the Green Berets and the US Special Forces are already there. He cited with approval an American official in Sanaa as telling him that "Iraq was yesterday's war. Afghanistan is today's war. If you don't act pre-emptively Yemen will be tomorrow's war." In practice pre-emptive strikes are likely to bring a US military entanglement in Yemen even closer.