The GCC settlement actually settles nothing -- it hasn't even been able
to provide a reprieve from the political violence in the streets of
Sanaa, Ta'iz, and Aden. Wednesday, April 27, two days after both the
regime and the opposition agreed to sign the deal, was the bloodiest day
in Yemen in more than a month, with plainclothes gunmen in Sanaa firing
into crowds of anti-government protesters. Bullet-pocked ambulances rushed the injured to official or makeshift hospitals. Twelve died, and al Jazeera now estimates
more than 140 deaths in the past three months. That may be a
conservative estimate. Last Friday's march, which filled the 60 Meter
Road highway in the capital, was dubbed the Friday of Honoring Martyrs.
The GCC, a regional organization consisting of Saudi Arabia, the United
Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman, has been eager to
staunch the Arab Spring, which they fear could threaten their own
regimes. One month after the first protests in Bahrain, the GCC
bolstered the Bahraini regime with a Peninsular Shield force of 1,000
Saudi troops. Saudi Arabia, the most influential member of the council,
has a particular interest in Yemen. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a
Yemen-based affiliate of the wider al-Qaeda terror network, has
attacked the Saudi royal family before and would like to again. The
Saudis have had an understanding with the Saleh regime, even helping
fight in the Yemeni government's war against rebellious northern tribes.
Keeping Saleh is the best of all possible worlds for Saudi Arabia. They
keep their ally and further illustrate what they began in Bahrain: the
consequences of a failing rebellion.
The basic tenets of the settlement concede a great deal to the Saleh
regime. Upon signing, a new legislature will be formed, in which Saleh's
GPC party will retain 50%, the JMP, 40%, with an additional 10% to be
decided later (probably filled by representatives from the military).
Under the agreement, after 30 days the president must tender his
resignation to the new "unity government," which would then swiftly pass
immunity for Saleh, his relatives, and senior members of his
government. Sixty days after Saleh's resignation, elections would be
held.
The process would probably never get that far. According to the Yemen Times, the GPC has already announced
its intention to decline Saleh's resignation; the Yemeni constitution
requires an absolute majority to accept the resignation of the
president, and under the apportionment of the GCC deal, the
parliamentary opposition will not be able to override the GPC. And then
there's the fact that the Republican Guard forces under the command of
Saleh's son are still shooting protesters in the streets -- there's no
reason for Saleh to escalate unless he's planning to stay.
Why would the opposition even sign? They wouldn't, at least not as a
united front, but Saleh has always been skilled at political
manipulation. He has stayed in office for three decades by playing
tribal alliances against one another, and now he is doing the same with
the factions within the opposition movement. The JMP itself is an
illustration of the strange bedfellows of Yemeni politics. They
represent a range of tribal, Islamist, and socialist interests that
would be anathema to one another under other circumstances; they are
united only in their marginalization by the regime. They are also the
only political representation outside of the president's GPC, and as
members of the existing government, are associated with status quo
politics. Within the opposition, the JMP has the most to lose. As a
result, they're the most eager to sign an agreement that maintains their
political significance.