America not assuaged by "We’ll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours" ... anymore!

"... The Obama administration had maintained its support of President Ali Abdullah Saleh in private and refrained from directly criticizing him in public, even as his supporters fired on peaceful demonstrators, because he was considered a critical ally in fighting the Yemeni branch of Al Qaeda. This position has fueled criticism of the United States in some quarters for hypocrisy for rushing to oust a repressive autocrat in Libya but not in strategic allies like Yemen and Bahrain.

That position began to shift in the past week, administration officials said. While American officials have not publicly pressed Mr. Saleh to go, they have told allies that they now view his hold on office as untenable, and they believe he should leave.... but have not said so publicly because “they still were involved in the negotiations.” ... It does remain in dispute among the student-led protesters, however, who have rejected any proposal that would give power to a leading official of the Saleh government.

Washington has long had a wary relationship of mutual dependence with Mr. Saleh. The United States has provided weapons, and the Yemeni leader has allowed the United States military and the C.I.A. to strike at Qaeda strongholds. The State Department cables released by WikiLeaks gave a close-up view of that uneasy interdependence: Mr. Saleh told Gen. David H. Petraeus, then the American commander in the Middle East, that the United States could continue missile strikes against Al Qaeda as long as the fiction was maintained that Yemen was conducting them. “We’ll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours,” Mr. Saleh said, according to a cable sent by the American ambassador...

It is not clear whether the United States is discussing a safe passage for Mr. Saleh and his family to another country, but that appears to be the direction of the talks in Sana, the capital....

In addition to the huge street demonstrations that have convulsed the country in the last two months, the deteriorating security situation in Yemen includes a Houthi rebellion in the north, a secessionist movement in the south and an active Qaeda operation in the southeast. Houthi rebels seized control of Saada Province a week ago, and armed militants have taken over a city in the southern province of Abyan where Al Qaeda is known to have set up a base....

“We are really very, very angry because America until now didn’t help us similar to what Mr. Obama said that Mubarak has to leave now,” said Tawakul Karman, a leader of the antigovernment youth movement. “Obama says he appreciated the courage and dignity of Tunisian people. He didn’t say that for Yemeni people... We feel that we have been betrayed,” she said....

Late Sunday, the Gulf Cooperation Council, an association of oil-rich countries in the Persian Gulf, added its backing to the talks, issuing a statement saying it would press the Yemeni government and opposition to work toward an agreement to “overcome the status quo.” The group called for a return to negotiations to “achieve the aspirations of the Yemeni people by means of reforms.”

So far the council, including Yemen’s largest international donor, Saudi Arabia, has not taken part in the negotiations, Yemeni officials said.

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