Yesterday saw an outbreak of Yeminitis, with Westminster focused on Osama Bin Laden’s ancestral home after the foiled bomb plot.
To CoffeeHouse readers, this will come as no surprise. Last year, the Spectator prophesised that Yemen would be the “sleeper issue” of 2010. And so it has proved.
But what have successive British governments been doing since the threat began to grow?
UK policy towards Yemen is an exemplary case of cross-government cooperation. Rarely do the FCO, DFID and the MoD collaborate as closely as they do over Yemen. Alan Duncan, now a Minister for International Development, has taken a personal interest in the country, flying to Sana’a earlier in the year and drawing on his network in the Gulf to engage Yemen’s leadership.
The government isn’t flying blind. It has funded research into the country at Chatham House and the Carnegie Endowment.
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