The US has also suggested that this reading of events is warranted. Defence secretary Robert Gates stated: "We've had counter-terrorism co-operation with President Saleh and the Yemeni security services ... So if that government collapses, or is replaced by one that is dramatically more weak, then I think we'd face some additional challenges out of Yemen, there's no question about it."

But Yemeni politics is anything but a zero-sum game. First, President Saleh has not been a particularly reliable ally on counterterrorism matters, and neither is he the only force standing between Yemen as it is now and Yemen as a jihadi state. In fact, many Yemenis believe that the AQAP organisation is little more than a myth or, at least, part of a cynical plot by the regime to maintain power.

While this understates the level of threat that AQAP does pose, the scepticism is based on at least a kernel of truth. For instance, local security sources have confirmed that President Saleh released about 70 al-Qaida suspects from a prison in Sana'a on 8 March – just 10 days before the most violent crackdown against the protesters began.

This release was not an isolated incident; it is part of a pattern of releases, suspicious escapes and pardons that Saleh has presided over.

One of the most prominent of these was in 2007 when Jamal al-Badawi, the convicted architect of the USS Cole bombing, was released to house arrest after he surrendered to Saleh. He had escaped from prison the previous year with 22 other members of al-Qaida, two of whom now lead AQAP.

Also in 2007, Saleh pardoned Fahd al-Quso for his role in the Cole attack. In 2010, al-Quso re-emerged in an AQAP video, apparently unrepentant, and threatening to attack US interests.

One might reasonably argue that releasing members of AQAP is counter-intuitive; after all, the group actively threatens Saleh's leadership, and kills members of his security services. Saleh has even risked his credibility by permitting the US to conduct airstrikes against them on Yemeni territory. Under what circumstances could releasing members of AQAP be to his advantage?

President Saleh has always ruled by creating confusion, crisis and sometimes fear among those who might challenge him. Releasing people who can who can create these feelings suggests that he was right all along: Yemeni politics is confusing, chaotic, frightening and best left to those used to handling it.

But what Saleh's system was not built to withstand is the collective perception that crisis is not necessary, or that crisis is not an unavoidable part of the political process, or that maybe there is another way to conduct the political process. This is precisely what the protesters are saying, and on this basis they pose an extraordinary threat.

While AQAP has a slick propaganda machine, its propaganda does not change basic realities. In the latest edition of AQAP's English language magazine, Anwar al-Awlaki writes: "Any weakness in [Yemen's] central government would undoubtedly bring with it more strength for the mujahidin in this blessed land."

Days before this was released, a radio station in the governorate of Abyan announced the proclamation of an Islamic emirate and said that under the rules of the new emirate women were not to leave their homes without a male relative and a form of identification.

While the announcement was seized on by the Yemeni regime and western commentators alike, a mere declaration does not an Islamic emirate make.

The declaration overlooks the complexities of Abyan's local landscape, particularly the fact that much of its farming economy relies upon the labour of women. If women are really to remain in their homes the local modes of production will have to shift radically. It is one thing to say that Abyan is an Islamic emirate, but another matter entirely to administer it accordingly without attracting local hostility.

Western policymakers should take neither the Yemeni regime nor AQAP at their word. Doing so gives oxygen to sentiments that are abhorred by most Yemenis and constricts the options of those who are committed to genuine change. Real change will be slow, unstable, and non-linear, but it is inevitable.

I see pictures on Facebook of my young Yemeni friends demonstrating peacefully but assertively. Some of them are carrying gruesome pictures of those killed by the regime's snipers to bolster their argument that the president has lost his legitimacy to rule and must leave.

These heady days will remain with them on the difficult road ahead as biographical hooks in their political consciousness. The networks of trust and solidarity that are being consolidated are likely to endure. As such, they are likely to remember how external actors viewed their nascent project.

As leaderless, amorphous and uninstitutionalised as they may seem, some of these people will emerge as leaders in the future, and western policymakers would be wise to take a longer term view of the changes under way. Yemeni politics – any state's politics – is not a zero-sum game, and here is a group of young people that wants reform and wants a seat at the table.

While the old guard may maintain power for a while longer, the current generation of Yemeni leaders has, essentially, had its day, and it is prudent policy to forge good relations with the next generation.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/10/yemen-saleh-al-qaida

Thousands march in Yemen over protesters' deaths