Propelled to the presidency on the wake of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh's resignation in 2012, President Abdo Rabbo Mansour Hadi made his debut as Yemen's first democratically elected president following three decades of a semi-authoritarian regime without any real home political backing.
Although a leading member of the General People's Congress, a faction which former President Saleh founded in 1982, President Hadi has been so far unable to command or master the sine qua nun support of his faction, somewhat hovering a free nucleon within in his own faction by lack of a core base.
President Saleh's departure, Hadi' subsequent ascension and 2011 popular uprising left the GPC weakened, fragmented and lagging in political momentum.
As a result, Hadi found himself at odds with his fellow partisans as the GPC core leadership remained loyal to its founder and Hadi's new direct political opposition, former President Saleh.
Rather a free agent than a party man, President Hadi' support system came from beyond Yemen. Analysts all agree that if it wasn't for the GCC and through it Saudi Arabia's extraordinary political will power and ultimately financial patronage, President Hadi's time at the presidential palace might have been short lived.
Having inherited a country racked by poverty, political in-fighting and deep social dissensions; Yemen's political transition remains to this day a political miracle which against all odds managed to stand its course without disintegrating into war, President Hadi was forced to seek out a patron strong enough to repel his adversaries while he worked at asserting his own political will and shaped new institutions to his image. The answer came through al-Qaeda.
Just as his predecessor before him, President Hadi saw in al-Qaeda a political opportunity, a way into the good graces of Washington. Like former President Saleh before him, President Hadi played the terror card to a T.
With the Pentagon bent on eradicating terror in the Arabian Peninsula to whatever cost, President Hadi positioned himself as a natural partner of the US administration. But unlike President Saleh who was determined to limit Washington's access in Yemen to retain his power position, President Hadi was keen to hand out the keys to the kingdom in exchange for political longevity.
As Ron Paul wrote in a recent analysis on America's war on terror in Yemen, "It is in his [President Hadi]interest to have the US behind him, as his popularity is very low in Yemen and he faces the constant threat of another coup."
But if President Hadi gained a powerful ally in Washington by waging an all-out war against al-Qaeda militants in Yemen, the US relentless pounding of Yemen villages and the long trail of civilian casualties might in the long run work to his demise as his political nemeses will bank on his political disfavor.
More importantly for Yemen, what has been qualified as a "reckless counter-terror strategy" by many experts and security analysts could very well be working in favor of the very extremists President Hadi is aiming to run out of Yemen.
According to professor Gregory Johnson of Princeton University, an expert on Yemen, the civilian “collateral damage from US drone strikes on al-Qaeda members actually attracts more al-Qaeda recruits. There are strikes that kill civilians. There are strikes that kill women and children. And when you kill people in Yemen, these are people who have families. They have clans. And they have tribes. And what we’re seeing is that the United States might target a particular individual because they see him as a member of al-Qaeda. But what’s happening on the ground is that he’s being defended as a tribesman."
Such a seemingly blind alliance to the US also plays into al-Qaeda's rhetoric whereby the Americans are being pictured as the enemy of Islam and the Yemeni government its proxy.
A reported 12 drone strikes in the first two weeks of August and over 40 casualties, all of whom could not be yet identified do not bode well in terms of popular support and a rationalization of Yemen counter-terror strategy.
As noted by Rajeh Babi, an adviser to Yemen's Prime Minister Mohammed Salem Basindwa “It does not simply come down to how many deaths have been caused by the drones… A successful strategy cannot rely on sheer military force alone, because it is much more than a security threat.'
He added, "The underlying causes of terrorism are in the political, social, educational, and mostly economic problems of our country. We believe that bloodshed can only lead to more bloodshed, therefore drone strikes cannot be a viable solution to this problem."
This pyramidal policy whereby President Hadi uses al-Qaeda as a tool to assert his own political support system through Washington actually generates more instability, adding insult to injury to a country which craves respite and order.