The following article is by Stephen Zunes who is Middle East editor for Foreign Policy in Focus and a professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco. Yemen has almost as large a population as Saudi Arabia, but differently lacks much in the way of natural resources. What little oil the country has is rapidly being depleted. Indeed, Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the world, with a per-capita income of less than 600 dollars per year. More than 40 percent of the population is unemployed and the economic situation is increasingly deteriorating for most Yemenis as a result of a U.S.-backed structural adjustment program imposed by the International Monetary Fund. The country is desperate for assistance in sustainable economic development. The vast majority of U.S. aid delivered to the country, however, has been in the form of military assets. The limited economic assistance made available has been of dubious effectiveness and has largely gone through corrupt government channels. The United States has long been concerned about the presence of al-Qaeda operatives within Yemen's porous borders, particularly since the recent unification of the Yemeni and Saudi branches of the terrorist network. Thousands of Yemenis participated in the U.S.-supported anti-Soviet resistance in Afghanistan during the 1980s, becoming radicalized by the experience and developing links with Osama bin Laden, a Saudi whose father comes from a Yemeni family. Various tribal loyalties to bin Laden's family have led to some support within Yemen for the exiled al-Qaeda leader. Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis have served as migrant laborers in neighboring Saudi Arabia. There, exposure to the hardline Wahhabi interpretation of Islam dominant in that country combined with widespread repression and discrimination has led to further radicalization. Opponents of the 2003 U.S. invasions and occupation of Iraq correctly predicted that the inevitable insurgency would create a new generation of radical combatants, comparable to the one that emerged following the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the Bush administration and its congressional supporters - including then-senators Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton - believed that a U.S. takeover of Iraq was important for limiting Al-Qaeda terrorist activities. Ironically, President Obama is relying on Biden and Clinton - as well as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, another supporter of the U.S. invasion and occupation - to help Americans get out of the mess they helped create. Yemen is one of the most complex societies in the world, and any kind of overreaction by the United States - particularly one that includes a strong military component - could be disastrous. Bringing in U.S. forces or increasing the number of U.S. missile strikes would likely strengthen the size and radicalization of combatants. Instead of recognizing the strong and longstanding Yemeni tradition of respecting tribal autonomy, U.S. officials appear to be misinterpreting this lack of central government control as evidence of a "failed state." The U.S. approach has been to impose central control by force, through a large-scale counterinsurgency strategy. Such a military response could result in an ever-wider insurgency, however. Indeed, such overreach by the government is what largely prompted the Houthi combatant in the northern part of the country, led by adherents of the Zaydi branch of Shia Islam. The United States has backed a brutal crackdown by Yemeni and Saudi forces in the Houthi region. There is also a renewal of secessionist activity in the formerly independent south. These twin threats are largely responsible for the delay in the Yemeni government's response to the growing al-Qaeda presence in their country. With the United States threatening more direct military intervention in Yemen to root out al-Qaeda, the Yemeni government's crackdown may be less a matter of hoping for something in return for its cooperation than a fear of what may happen if it does not. The Yemeni government is in a difficult bind, however. If it doesn't break up the terrorist cells, the likely U.S. military intervention would probably result in a greatly expanded armed resistance. If the government casts too wide a net, however, it risks tribal rebellion and other civil unrest for what will be seen as unjustifiable repression at the behest of a Western power. Either way, it would likely increase support for combatants, which both the U.S. and Yemeni governments want destroyed. For this reason, most Western experts on Yemen agree that increased U.S. intervention carries serious risks. As with previous U.S. military interventions, most Americans have little understanding of the targeted country or its history. Yemen was divided for most of the 20th century. South Yemen, which received its independence from Great Britain in 1967 after years of armed anti-colonial resistance, resulted from a merger between the British colony of Aden and the British protectorate of South Arabia. Declaring itself the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, it became the Arab world which developed close ties with the Soviet Union. As many as 300,000 South Yemenis fled to the north in the years following independence. North Yemen, independent since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, became embroiled in a bloody civil war during the 1960s between Saudi-backed royalist forces and Egyptian-backed republican forces. The republican forces eventually triumphed, though political instability, military coups, assassinations, and periodic armed uprisings continued. In both countries, ancient tribal and modern ideological divisions have made control of these disparate armed forces virtually impossible. Major segments of the national armies would periodically disintegrate, with soldiers bringing their weapons home with them. Lawlessness and chaos have been common for decades, with tribes regularly shifting loyalties in both their internal feuds and their alliances with their governments. Many tribes have been in a permanent state of war for years, and almost every male adolescent and adult routinely carries a rifle. In 1994, ideological and regional clan-based rivalries led to a brief civil war in Yemen, with the south temporarily seceding and the government mobilizing some of the jihadist veterans of the Afghan war to fight the leftist rebellion. After crushing the southern secessionists, the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh became increasingly authoritarian. U.S. support resumed and aid increased. Unlike most U.S. allies in the region, direct elections for the president and parliament have continued, but they have hardly been free or fair. Saleh officially received an unlikely 94 percent of the vote in the 1999 election. And in the most recently election, in 2006, government and police were openly pushing for Saleh's re-election amid widespread allegations of voter intimidation, ballot-rigging, vote-buying, and registration fraud. Just two days before the vote, Saleh announced the arrest on "terrorism" charges a campaign official of his leading opponent. Since that time, human rights abuses and political repression - including unprecedented attacks on independent media - have increased dramatically. Obama was elected president as the candidate who promised change, including a shift away from the foreign policy that had led to such disastrous policies in Iraq and elsewhere. In Yemen, his administration appears to be pursuing the same short-sighted tactics as its predecessors: support of a repressive and autocratic regime, pursuit of military solutions to complex social and political conflicts, and reliance on failed counterinsurgency doctrines. However, any military action should be Yemeni-led and targeted only at the most dangerous terrorist cells. The U.S. must also press the Yemeni government to become more democratic and less corrupt. In the long term, the United States should significantly increase desperately needed development aid for the poorest rural communities. Such a strategy would be far more effective than drone attacks, arms transfers, and counterinsurgency.