16 June 2011
Why Hillary Clinton Is So Busy in Yemen
If anyone doubts the political influence of the petroleum and petroleum services industries, the Administration has had very little to say about the forceful suppression of dissidents in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. In Yemen, however, the US has a significant, strategic interest in being able to establish a permanent base for our military and military support facilities: to protect our petroleum supply from that region.
Yemen is not an oil producer, but from that country a military presence can control commercial shipping going through the Red Sea to and from the Indian Ocean and protect pipelines from the oil fields in Saudi Arabia. The US tried to establish its regional military position in Somalia, Eritrea and Ethiopia only to see that region dissolve into failed nation states and ongoing tribal warfare.
The loss of strategic location in Africa meant that the importance of Yemen remaining available for future US military bases has grown significantly for the protection of our petroleum supply. To lose Yemen to a radical Al-Qaeda political governance would jeopardize Saudi Arabia directly and enable an Al-Qaeda link with terrorist operatives in the Horn of Africa that could cut off the Red Sea passage for trade between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean.
One interested party has remained silent, yet should Yemen become a nation base for international terrorism, China could see its mineral and chemical concessions in Northern Sudan and an independent southern Sudan threatened by such an outcome.
The changes in strategic political and military alliances caused by Chinese active involvement in resolving the Yemen and southern Sudan threats from local Al-Qaeda forces could make for strange yet logical bedfellows on the Security Council and in strategic alliances.
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Yemen is not an oil producer, but from that country a military presence can control commercial shipping going through the Red Sea to and from the Indian Ocean and protect pipelines from the oil fields in Saudi Arabia. The US tried to establish its regional military position in Somalia, Eritrea and Ethiopia only to see that region dissolve into failed nation states and ongoing tribal warfare.
The loss of strategic location in Africa meant that the importance of Yemen remaining available for future US military bases has grown significantly for the protection of our petroleum supply. To lose Yemen to a radical Al-Qaeda political governance would jeopardize Saudi Arabia directly and enable an Al-Qaeda link with terrorist operatives in the Horn of Africa that could cut off the Red Sea passage for trade between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean.
One interested party has remained silent, yet should Yemen become a nation base for international terrorism, China could see its mineral and chemical concessions in Northern Sudan and an independent southern Sudan threatened by such an outcome.
The changes in strategic political and military alliances caused by Chinese active involvement in resolving the Yemen and southern Sudan threats from local Al-Qaeda forces could make for strange yet logical bedfellows on the Security Council and in strategic alliances.
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