Mideast news brief: Yemeni troops shoot 12 protesters dead, wound several others

A Yemeni demonstrator (C) is driven away on the back of a moped on the second day of clashes as demonstrators staged a march on the governorate headquarters demanding the ouster of Yemen’s embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen’s southwestern city of Taiz (Taez), some 200kms from the capital Sanaa on April 4, 2011. Yemeni security forces shot dead several anti-regime demonstrators and wounded scores more medics said (AFP/Getty Images).

Arguments & Analysis

“Regimes that were once friendly towards us, whether it be in Iran or perhaps now in Egypt, are going to be less friendly, and certainly Iran is more than less friendly — it’s hostile. And in Egypt we’ll have difficulties. And the masses are now awakened. They’re stirring, and they’re far less likely to be compliant to our political wishes than the old elites, which were, to some extent, not only politically but [also] financially tied to us…[but] I think we have to help them because one of the impulses for these revolutions is this hatred for corruption, resentment, frustration, unemployment, the youth bulge, all of which needs a lot of tender care in order to overcome the social stimuli that made these masses more driven, more revolutionary and more impatient. And, beyond that, there’s also the question of peace because whether we like it or not, the Israeli Palestinian conflict is a major impulse for hatred of the United States, and, therefore, it’s in our interest and in Israel’s long-run interest to move forward before the regimes that are now in the process of emerging begin to adopt an increasingly hostile position towards us and towards Israel. And I have particularly in mind Egypt — potentially also Jordan.”

‘Letter from Yemen: after the uprising’ (Dexter Filkins, The New Yorker) “On Friday, April 1st, anti-government protesters drew their largest crowd to date, with tens of thousands of Yemenis pouring into Change Square to call for an end to Saleh’s rule. Just across town, Saleh staged a rally in his own honor, much like the Stadium of the Revolution event a month earlier. Participants were bused in from around the country and received a typical day’s wages, in the form of a meal, a handful of cash, and a bag of khat. (The Western official said that the government had spent as much as fourteen million dollars to stage a Saleh rally the previous week.) One Yemeni, when asked why he had travelled from the city of Al Mahwit to cheer the President, just shrugged. “Money,” he said.”

‘Will Fukushima force Iran to reconsider nuclear program?’ (Karim Sadjadpour, Ali Vaez, & Fariborz Ghadar, The Atlantic)  “Throughout the course of the last three decades, the rulers of the Islamic Republic have bestowed the title of “martyr” on hundreds of thousands of Iranian citizens whose lives were unnecessarily cut short — in traffic accidents, natural disasters, or the prolonged eight-year war with Iraq — often attributable to governmental mismanagement. In a 21st century Iran, in which dignity, not martyrdom, is aspirational, Japan’s devastation has seemingly enabled a growing number of Iranians to see their own nuclear ambitions in a different light. Nationalism does not have to mean gratuitous defiance, modernity cannot be reconciled with a culture that celebrates deaths that were wholly unavoidable, and an inalienable right to enrich uranium should not come at the expense of an inalienable right to liberty, security, and happiness.”