Chuck Todd: Yemen, ‘Once Touted as Success’ by Obama, in ‘Chaos’

TODD: “Good morning. We start with Yemen. A country once touted as success in America’s counter-terror strategy by President Obama is now spinning out of control. Yesterday U.S. Special Forces were withdrawn as Iranian-backed Shia rebels pushed south ceasing the country’s third-biggest city Taiz. Yemen’s president who was already been kicked out of the capitol hold up in the south after Shia Houties seized the capital San’a in January is now appealing for intervention from the United Nations and an emergency meeting of the Security Council will be held this afternoon. Our chief foreign first correspondent Andrea Mitchell’s been tracking all of this. Andrea, Yemen in chaos — is this now a failed state?”
MITCHELL: “It’s not only a failed state, this is now a proxy war. It’s civil war and it is a proxy war between Iran-backed Shiite rebels and the Saudis. The Saudis on their border are worried about their oil fields. They’ve had low-leveled insurgencies for years and years there. But this is a serious threat to Saudi Arabia. So you’ve got Shiite-Sunni civil war going on with big players behind them.”
TODD: “Look, Yemen has been — have been al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula shorthand, AQAP. This is essentially the failed state; that we’ve seen the underwear bomber launched from a lot of terrorism pre-eminence trying to fight with ISIS over here. Without a U.S. presence there AQ AP can only grow?”
MITCHELL: “Indeed. And in fact we have the bombings in Sana’a which were at least claimed by ISIS as their bombings against — the horrific bombings when 130 were dead in these mosques. The White House is not saying whether or not it is ISIS and if that is the case then this is the first time we see ISIS there. It is a spreading of ISIS. But also with the special forces withdrawn, there is no way that we can continue to fight against AQAP, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula because they are calling in the air strikes.”
TODD: “And very quickly. The Arab Sprig. We had terrorists attack in Tunisia this week; we have what’s going on in Yemen. The only two semi-success stories of the Arab Spring were Tunisia and Yemen. Arab Spring, no longer a success anywhere?”
MITCHELL: "No, and in fact,  these forces were trained we believe in Libya which is the other failed state, so you see the spread of failure and Islamic extremism."