Saleh won’t go

President Saleh of Yemen today again refused to sign the Gulf Cooperation Council agreement that would have him step down in 30 days.  This time he is insisting on a public signing, while flooding the streets with loyalists who have trapped the American and EU ambassadors along with others in the United Arab Emirates embassy in Sanaa.

It is anyone’s guess how today will wind up.  Brian Whitaker, who certainly knows Yemen better than I do, sees little possibility of the president wriggling out, mainly because the Saudis won’t let him.  But I think it is a pretty good bet that we are more than 30 days from Saleh stepping down.

If he is smart–and generally he is at least wily–his security forces are likely to “rescue” the American and other ambassadors, after letting them stew a while.  Even if he ends up having to sign the agreement, implementation is going to be difficult.  He has slipped the leash before and will certainly try to do it again.  Only when he sees the real possibility of needing the immunity provided for in the agreement will he go.

In the meanwhile, there are tensions between the opposition political parties and the protesters who have sustained the effort to oust Saleh.  They have never really been united.  It is the opposition parties, not the protesters, who have signed the agreement.  They will need to retain the capability of putting large numbers of people in the streets if they want the transition to be a real one and not just a reshuffling of the Yemeni elite.

That is certainly what the Saudis have in mind, though that may give them more credit for a coherent view than Ginny Hill of Chatham House did in an appearance last week at the Middle East Institute.  The aging and health problems of the Crown Prince seem to have cut off payments to the Yemeni tribes and reduced Saudi Arabia’s ability to impose a solution in Sanaa.  Maybe Saleh’s latest maneuvers will awaken them to the need for decisive action by the GCC.  Failing that, Saleh could continue to not go for a while yet.