"US looks to regime figure for transition in Yemen"

This blatant piece of White House propaganda appears to be a direct counterattack against Jeremy Scahill’s report, inadvertently confessing the failures of U.S. policy in Yemen:

The Obama administration is putting its hopes for Yemen in a vice president long seen as the loyal deputy to strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh, confident that at the very least he can shore up a counterterrorism alliance with Washington against al-Qaida's resurgent Arabian Peninsula offshoot.

Ushering in democracy may be significantly harder. But the American support for Yemen's transition appears to be as much a matter of U.S. security interests as the lofty ideals of the Arab Spring.

The transition starts next week when Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi is rubber-stamped as Yemen's new leader, ending 34 years of one-man rule under Saleh, a polarizing figure who craftily kept his opponents divided for decades before the protests across North Africa and the Middle East caught up with him.

The United States is keen to see stability prevail in the Arab world's most impoverished nation. Over a year of turmoil, al-Qaida-linked militants have seized control of large swaths of southern Yemen and its provincial capital. Government operations have failed to oust the group, which is blamed for trying to blow up a U.S.-bound airliner in 2009 and cargo planes bound for the U.S. a year later.

Al-Qaida has exploited the political infighting to greatly increase their presence in the country. Militants long moved undeterred in Yemen's east, but now hold authority over territory and civilian centers, giving them a bigger toehold to win recruits and cash and plot attacks.

Saleh was seen in Washington as a committed if sometimes erratic anti-terrorism partner, and the U.S. scored some major successes under his watch. American drones have continued targeting al-Qaida leaders in recent months, notably killing American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki there in September. And two officials said the political fighting actually led the Yemeni government to authorize more American missions, describing the recent period as the first "open season" in years on al-Qaida leaders in the country.

But the improved coordination came as Yemen could no longer even attempt to contain al-Qaida itself, with security collapsed across much of the country, especially in remote provinces. In Hadi, Washington sees benefits in a continuum of the status quo, provided it brings some tranquility to the capital so the government can refocus on battling terrorism on the ground.

A senior State Department official said there is every indication to believe that Vice President Hadi, when he's in place as the president, will continue cooperation with the U.S. The official called U.S.-Yemeni counterterrorism work essential for the stability of the region...