
As the international community searches for ways to prevent further destabilization in Yemen, the Obama administration is being forced to rethink its plans for the numerous Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

While the rise of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has focused international attention on Yemen, the country’s economic and demographic challenges pose a greater threat to its stability than al-Qaeda does.

Yemen’s stability is threatened by multiple security and economic challenges, ranging from a rapidly growing population to imminent economic collapse, and immediate and sustained international attention is needed to prevent Yemen from becoming a failed state.

Yemen’s mounting security and economic issues require an international approach. Ultimately, aid to Yemen must address the long term stability issues the country is facing, not just American or regional security concerns.

Assertions that "Yemen is tomorrow's war" are unhelpful; while Yemen will not replace South Asia as the central front in the war on terror, it is nevertheless a critical state of concern that will require long-term attention to target the sources of its instability.

Civil war, terrorism, a deepening secessionist movement, and economic and demographic trends threaten to overpower the Yemeni government, destabilize the region, and provide a breeding ground for terrorists who will mount operations across the Arabian Peninsula and internationally.

The rise of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula inside of Yemen comes at a time when the central government is threatened by a failing economy, a water shortage, a growing population, high unemployment, and civil war.

The Saudi Arabian program to rehabilitate former Guantanamo Bay detainees and al-Qaeda militants has seen high success rates, but it has also allowed a considerable number to slip through the cracks and return to militancy.

As the security situation in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan has improved, al-Qaeda has been forced to seek out new safe havens in places like the ungoverned parts of the Yemeni countryside.

The Saudi and Yemeni affiliates of al-Qaeda have merged into a single regional group and undertaken a series of attacks on U.S. interests from Yemen, taking advantage of the increasing instability of the Yemeni government and making the situation in Yemen a much higher priority for U.S. policy makers than it was a few months ago.