Daniel Martin Varisco, Professor of Anthropology at Hofstra University writes at CNN about the uprising in Yemen:

While the world focuses on bombing raids in Libya, a different scenario has been unfolding in Yemen, which would be the first country outside of North Africa in this recent era of uprisings to lose its long-term strongman, Ali Abdullah Saleh…

…Pundits, like me, have trusted conventional wisdom over the sheer willpower of ordinary people to overthrow repression. The Middle East is emerging from the cocoon of dictatorial fatalism, and no current regime can avoid the impact, even those that survive.

Our global war on terror, announced after the tragedy of 9/11, gave dictators in the region an extra life. All of them claimed to be the bulwark against the threat of Islamic rule. And both the Bush and Obama administrations took the bait. We poured out millions of dollars in military aid to help Saleh fight al Qaeda. But no one seemed to realize that doling out weapons to dictators was like adding gasoline to a fire.

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