Obama’s Challenge in Yemen: “Al Qaeda’s failed attack on Christmas Day has made the defeat of the organization’s franchise in Yemen a top priority for the Obama administration. Under the radar screen, the administration had already been focusing more attention and resources on Yemen and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula since Obama’s inauguration, but now that effort has rightly been shifted to the front burner. But the mission will be exceedingly difficult to accomplish, as Yemen has always been one of the world’s least-governed spaces, is deeply divided on complex and confusing sectarian and regional grounds, is armed to the teeth, and has a ruling government that is a weak partner in the fight. To make matters worse, several decades of bad U.S.-Yemeni relations have soured most Yemenis on America and made many sympathetic to al Qaeda” (via  The Daily Beast)