In November 2011, conflicting Yemeni parties signed an international initiative to lead the country out of its crisis. It later came to be known as the Gulf Initiative, as it was adopted by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) — with the exception of Qatar, which pulled out of the project because former President Ali Abdullah Saleh refused for Doha to be involved.

Everyone was optimistic that the initiative would spare the country a civil war, rather than resolving other national problems. It was not long before concerned parties started to implement the terms of the initiative. Parliament convened to pass a law granting immunity to the former president and his regime from any accountability and prosecution, against the backdrop of the decisions taken during the period of his rule. The government of national consensus was then formed, between the General People’s Congress (the current ruling party) and the opposition parties in December of the same year.

The election of the current president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, was just for show. He did not have any rivals running against him. After Hadi formally received the reins of power, a pivotal stage in the political transition began. A number of senior leaders in the army were sacked and new ones were appointed instead.

But the Gulf Initiative is trying to delay the conflagration of the Yemeni situation rather than resolving national problems, as was expected. Hadi, whom almost all political forces supported, does not hold the ultimate decision-making power, or at least is not able impose it on the ground except by two means. One of those two means is international intervention. The other is to trigger a war, which the Gulf Initiative was created to end. But this impression faded when Hadi sacked the main army heads and the most prominent symbols of military horror: the leader of the Republican Guard and the leader of the 1st Armored Division. Those two men have divided the army into two parts, each loyal to one of them. They were removed from their posts and the Yemeni army’s units were redistributed on a different basis. But the division is not completely over.