“The international conference about Yemen held in London last week reminded me of one of Saudi King Abdullah’s favorite quotes from the Koran: ‘Truly never will Allah change the condition of a people until they change it themselves.’ That statement sums up his approach to what we in the West call nation-building. As Yemen slides toward a failed state through a combination of bad governance, suspected Iranian support for Houthi separatists, unchecked Al Qaeda proselytizing and recruitment, a secessionist movement in the south, and 35 percent unemployment, the United States should consider asking King Abdullah to offer his vision of nation-building to save the Yemeni state. But in seeking to contain the security threat, Washington must not repeat the errors of the Bush administration in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the US focused excessively on solving immediate security problems without addressing the larger context of the terrorist threat.” (02/04/10)