Yemen is a lesson in the limits of Western power

It is 3 a.m. in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, and the Horse Shoe nightclub is a tableau to inflame the Jihadi heart with rage. To thumping music, Yemeni prostitutes cavort with fat, thuggish-looking local men. The tables are dotted with bottles of single malt costing $500 each (almost a year’s wages for the average Yemeni).

The hotel which houses the Horse Shoe, the Mövenpick, is assumed to be one of al-Qa’eda’s main targets, after the British and US embassies just across the road.Visiting journalists usually ask for rooms at the back, just in case a truck bomb makes it past the Yemeni army machine-gun emplacements at the entrance.

Still, no one — neither the famously charming and hospitable Yemenis, nor Sana’a’s flinty expat population — seems particularly anxious about an al-Qa’eda attack. That is partly because of the checkpoints ringing the capital and the presence of a secret policeman on every street corner.