Here, via excerpts from Reuters and Armin Rosin\’s article at businessinsider.com, is the latest news from Yemen – which, just last year, President Obama classified as a “success story”:
Houthifighters entered Yemen\’s presidential palace after a brief clash withthe compound\’s security guards, witnesses and security sources toldReuters, a day after some of the worst battles in the capital inyears.
Withthe Houthi rebels strippingdown Yemen\’s existing state apparatus ever since marching intoSa\’ana in September, some in the teetering Yemeni government arealready characterizing the attacks on the presidential residence asan attempt to take over the country.
“Thisis a coup. There is no other word to describe what is happening but acoup,” Saleh al-Jamalani, a Yemeni army colonel,told The Associated Press. He said that the rebels likely had theassistance of elements inside the current government, headed bypresident Abdu Mansour Haddi.
CNNquoted the Yemeni government\’s information minister calling thesituation “the completion of a coup” and saying that thepresident had “no control.” The New York Times alsoreported that Haddi was inside of the presidential compound as itwas being shelled, and that a US diplomatic vehicle briefly cameunder fire near a Houthi checkpoint.
Yemen,which borders Saudi Arabia to the south and is home to nearly 25million people, was one of four countries to replace its leaderduring the “Arab Spring” uprisings, along with Libya,Egypt, and Tunisia. Now, it threatens to become another one of theregion\’s violent political and military vacuums – with the addedcomplication of Yemen\’s desert periphery being home to AlQaeda\’s most capable foreign affiliate.
Want to know the scary part? Compared to Iran, and Libya, and Russia (among others) this might very well be a “success story”.
Such is the string of foreign policy disasters we have suffered through during the presidency of Barack Obama.
His two major “successes”? Pulling troops out of Iraq (which President Bush, not Obama negotiated) without leaving any significant residual forces, and pulling out of Afghanistan (after first tripling the number of troops there to absolutely no positive end). Take a look at what is going on in both places since our troop pullouts; then talk to me about “success”.
Two more years of this and the nightmare will be over. I count the seconds.
