SILVER LININGFighting the wrong battles! [Archives:2009/1228/Opinion]

Dr. Mohammed Al-Qadhi
It seems the ruling regime in Yemen is suffering from what we can call Kharaf Siyasi or political senility. It has been producing one initiative after the other to reform the Arab League, Islamic Conference Organization, to mediating a compromise between Hamas and Fatah parties in Palestine, proposing an Arab and then Islamic summit on Gaza and orchestrating a new initiative to reach an agreement between the two conflicting Hamas and Fatah.

Of course, the recent attack on Gaza has demonstrated a confused Yemen foreign policy.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh was one of the first Arab leaders to call for an emergency Arab summit. His government staged several anti-Israeli assaults on Gaza. However, Yemen suddenly decided not to attend the Doha summit.

And sardonically, the president called for an Islamic. And on his way to attend the Arab economic summit in Kuwait, the man said he would propose to the Arab leaders the establishment of an Arab Union. And when nobody cared about such a proposal, the president came back to Yemen and the outcome was a new plan to bring peace between warring Palestinian groups Hamas and Fatah. The government already in March 2008 tried to bring the two groups together and they signed an agreement but with no concrete results on the ground.

“What the hell are these guys doing?”” a friend of mine asked with anger while he heard the news about this new plan. He is completely right. Why does the president try to impose his nose in every problem here and there? His hands are full of problems that need his and his people attention.

Why does he not spend his time thinking of plans to heal the wounds that cut the deepest? He should busy his mind with thinking of ways out from the social unrest in the south