Syria: calls to arm the opposition – live updates
Guardian UK
10.02am: John Brennan, the US counterterrorism chief, has been visiting Yemen ahead of Tuesday’s one-candidate presidential “election”. Yesterday he gave a briefing to journalists in Sana’a.
It’s clear the US is now heavily engaged in orchestrating a political transition along the lines set out in the Gulf Cooperation Council’s plan – which the outgoing president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, reluctantly signed last November.
At yesterday’s briefing, Brennan talked enthusiastically about the road ahead and transition “through the ballot box” (skimming over the fact that there is only one name on the ballot paper):
Yemen is on the eve of a historic milestone – the election of a new president. Of all the countries in the Middle East that have been affected by the so-called Arab Spring, Yemen has demonstrated that it can transition from the past to the future through the ballot box. Although there have been some difficulties in getting to this point, the Yemeni people should be very, very proud of this moment.
It’s also clear from the briefing that US policy in Yemen is still shaped more by fears of instability and the threat posed by al-Qaida than support for democracy.
An article in The Nation last week argued that US preoccupation with al-Qaida in Yemen has been counter-productive. The Saleh regime profited financially from appearing to fight terrorism – which gave it a strong incentive to ensure that the terror threat continued. READ MORE HERE / LIVE UPDATES
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