When Saleh and family, including nephew Tareq Mohammad, appeared to recover control of #Yemen capital last Friday, his admirers, apologists immediately revived old praise for Saleh as a “smart” political survivor. This was most common view of Saleh in 1990s and 2000s. /1 But only in a country with dismally low standards of national politics would a leader like Saleh be praised as “smart.” In reality, Saleh practiced divide and rule politics that ruined any chance of unity in 1990s, while keeping Yemen mired in poverty. /2