How do you say serendipity in Arabic?

Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh has gone to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment, due to injuries suffered Friday in an attack by rebellious tribal forces on the presidential palace. This is an extraordinary bit of good luck for Yemen, but the country will need a lot more serendipity if this story is to end well.

Vice President Abd Al-Rab Mansur Hadi, in office since 1994, is the constitutional successor. Who knows what he will do, but the right thing is to implement the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)  agreement that Saleh never signed. It calls for an opposition-led government of national unity to prepare free and fair elections. If the attack on the palace leads in this direction, without further violence, we can all thank our lucky stars (and the Saudi princes who fund Yemeni bigwigs).

What could go wrong? Just about everything: tribes or the protesters could refuse to go along, someone in the military could try to seize power, Saleh’s family and cronies could balk, the Vice President could decide to crack down hard on the protesters, the Saudis could decide to back someone else, Saleh could try to return to Yemen…my imagination runs amuck. Yemen is one of the most fragile states on earth, more like neighboring Somalia than like the GCC rich guys who live on the other side of the Arabian peninsula. Its oil and water are running low, the population is very poor and very young, it faces an insurgency in the north and a secessionist movement in the south, and its institutions are weak enough to attract Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to take up residence.

That abused word, stability, is what Yemen needs now. A constitutional succession that follows the path outlined by the GCC is likely to be the best deal on offer.  Anything else bodes ill not only for Yemenis but also for the United States. Can we get lucky again?

PS: I took down the video originally posted with this, because it was starting up automatically.