Perhaps so. But none of those threats validate keeping a corrupt and illegitimate government in power. Similarly, there is little to suggest that such an unpopular government would have the resources or influence to address those hazards. The Saleh regime has no moral or logistical ground to stand on. Backing Saleh may exacerbate rather than mitigate chaos and/or radicalism.
In panic, in the face of an increasingly united citizen uprising, Saleh’s government has deployed disproportionate force to quell protests by unarmed civilians, banished or imprisoned journalists, and generally followed the playbook of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi. The US must suspend the grotesquely inflated military assistance it has provided to a regime resorting to extrajudicial murder of demonstrators.
