In Yemen, President Ali Abdullah Saleh's announcement May 25 and today that he has no intention of stepping down and transferring power sparked instantaneous violent clashes that were clear portents of a new civil war.

For now, the clashes are limited to Sanaa, where the Hashid tribe headed by President Saleh's arch enemy Sheik Sadiq al Ahmar is battling with the Yemeni army and tribes loyal to the president. But it is only a matter of time before they spread outside the capital.

Prospects of widespread civil strife in Yemen confront the Obama administration's policies with two problems:

As well as opening the door for al Qaeda to pick sides and procure large quantities of arms and control of Yemeni terrain, the more immediate question is: What are the Saudis playing at?

When Obama called on Saleh to move immediately on his commitment to transfer power, he was referring to the compromise mediated by the Saudi-GCC group in the third week of May which included Saleh's commitment to step down within 30 days and hand power to the opposition.

However, Saleh got out of signing the final text at the last minute. He was saved from doing so by Riyadh, which had hared off in pursuit of a double game which took the Americans by surprise.

As US Ambassador Gerald M. Feierstein shuttled by helicopter between the president and his opponents to obtain their consent to a deal, certain he was firmly backed by Saudi Arabia, Riyadh pulled the rug on him.Apparently the Saudis had decided at that point to dump the Yemeni president and with him the US effort to prevent a civil war. Henceforth, they would choose ad hoc which of the warring sides in the conflict best served Saudi interests.

When this week Saleh posted an SOS to Riyadh explaining that the Yemeni army propping up his regime was running out of gas, the Saudis immediately sent him a convoy of fuel tankers.

But the Saudis also sent out a second fuel convoy to the Yemeni president's enemies, the tribe led by Sheik al-Ahmar – another instance of Riyadh's double game.

In fact, Saudi Arabia's ruling royal, military and intelligence policy-makers have decided to stop taking sides in the Yemeni conflict and start playing a single-handed game of their own. They aim now to divide Yemen into two parts and build up the southern region with Saudi military and financial aid as an independent state under the oil kingdom's absolute influence.

If reaching this goal entails tearing Yemen apart by civil war, so be it. Riyadh has abandoned the Yemeni president to his fate and turned its back on US policy objectives.

Whereas Washington fears widespread hostilities will strengthen al Qaeda's grip on the country, the Saudis have set their sights on fencing off the embattled areas and enclosing them in the northern region so as to leave the south free with a chance of stable development.

It will be put in the hands of the Southern Separatist Movement whose leaders, Hassan Ba'aum, Nasser al-Nuba, Salah al-Shanfara and Saleh Yahya Said, are gaining in popularity in that region by their secessionist fight against the regime in Sanaa.

If Saudi plan works out, this new entity, already dubbed by Riyadh "The Arab Republic of Hadhramauth," will hold more land, control 80 percent of the national oil reserves and be ruled from the important Red Sea port of Aden.

The northern half, where the Saudis are resolved to let the warring parties fight it out for dominance, will have the larger population.

Obama refuses to step up military input in Libyan war

The sunny picnic atmosphere at the barbecue yesterday Wednesday, May 25 on the lawn of 10 Downing Street - to which US and British servicemen had also been invited – turned edgy when reporters began grilling visiting US President Barack Obama and his host, British Prime Minister David Cameron, with some hard questions.

Most touched on the super-sensitive fault lines between the two leaders on Libya.

"Ultimately the Libyan leader would go," Obama said. "I do think we have made enormous progress in Libya. We have saved lives. Qaddafi and his regime need to understand there will not be a letup in the pressure we are applying. We may have to be more patient than people would like."

This was a sly dig at the British and French leaders who are demanding more American military backing for the war against Libya to expedite its end and Muammar Qaddafi's exit.

Cameron refused to answer a question about whether the UK would send attack helicopters to bolster NATO's mission in Libya. Only the day before, his Secretary of Defense Nick Harvey contradicted the claim by French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet that Britain would be sending to Libya a dozen Apaches along with French attack helicopters.

Cameron would only say: "We should be turning up the heat in Libya," and promised to look at "all the options" for doing so.

Obama glided around a question one reporter aimed at him about whether the United States would also be sending helicopters to Libya.

Yet in reality Britain, France and other European countries have backed away from the precondition that Col. Qaddafi must leave power before there was a halt to NATO action. Yet this was the opposite position to the one presented on the lawn of the British prime minister's residence Wednesday afternoon. It also gave some leeway to the mediation efforts in Tripoli undertaken by the UN Special Envoy for Libya Abdel Elah al-Khatib and, next week, by South African President Jacob Zuma.

So long as those mediators were tied down to the precondition of the Libyan ruler's departure, their mission had little hope of succeeding.

Obama still views it as a European war which London, Paris and Rome should solve with marginal US military assistance, whereas the British insist on full American military participation, without which Qaddafi cannot be forced to step down and leave Libya, as Obama himself has said he must.

Obama turns down UK Libya-Afghanistan trade

In Afghanistan the British see their military mission as accomplished and are preparing to draw down their troops with all possible speed, bringing the first 400 home this summer.

Cameron's timeline ran into stiff opposition from Obama.

The US president, forced to find a new term for the fraying "special relationship" historically governing American-British friendship – he came up with "essential relations" - pushed Cameron and his government hard to keep British troops in Afghanistan.

London offered a qui quo pro: The US would expand its military input in the Libyan war in return for London delaying its troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.It was turned down by Obama.

The US President's state visit to the UK with full royal honors left British officials disappointed and sharply critical of his policies on Libya and Afghanistan alike.

In their view, Obama's latest assertion, "We have broken the Taliban's momentum," misrepresents the Afghan reality which is that the Americans are already engaged in secret negotiations with the Taliban for the transfer of power and an end to the war. Britain, which is not part of the negotiating process, argues that talking sends Taliban a wrong signal and will only prolong the war in Afghanistan.

London criticizes Obama on Afghanistan too

Their disparaging comment refers to the talks taking place for the last ten days at a secret location outside Berlin, Germany between a high-ranking delegation representing Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omer and senior German diplomats and intelligence officials with an open line to Washington.

The Taliban delegation is headed by Tayyab Agha, a long-time aide of Mullah Omar who often acts as his personal spokesman.

His opposite number is Michael Steiner, Germany's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan and one of its most experienced diplomatic negotiators.

Pakistan too has been left out of this track. The progress made is not to the liking of Islamabad, to put it mildly. Our sources report that the Pakistanis may have tried to sabotage the negotiations by putting out rumors this week that Mullah Omar had been assassinated by the Americans.

Had this been true – or even judged credible by the Taliban negotiators - the peace effort in Germany would have run aground.

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