Would they also be worried that U.S. interference in Yemen might cause a political upheaval?
Potentially. If you remember, al Qaeda, or rather Osama bin Laden, effectively split with the House of Saud over the presence of foreign troops in the land of the two holy shrines. And for more troops to come in would be inviting trouble from terrorists. The Yemenis are also, like the Scots, incredibly nationalistic people, who would object to foreign intervention in their country. If we start going in to Yemen, inevitably we will kill a child, and it will almost certainly be the most beautiful young girl, and that picture will be flashed around every Internet site, it will be on the front page of all the newspapers, it will be in Al Jazeera and so on and so forth. It seems the more likely outcome is that Yemen does not solve its problems and continues to deteriorate. Is that catastrophic from our point of view? From the West’s point of view, possibly not. Al Qaeda already has havens in the broken country where the government is less strong than it might be. And finding one or two arme
