Trump and The Challenge of Fighting Terrorism in Yemen

Although fighting terrorism in recent decades has been embraced by the US National Security Strategy and has been pursued in several United States governments as a strategic priority, examining the performance of US presidents has always indicated a constant dissatisfaction with the efficiency of counter-terrorism strategies. This is also the same for the Obama presidency, as his successor, Trump, during the electoral campaigns, called ineffective what Obama had done in eight years of government in the field of terrorism, especially in the West Asian region. He spoke about a tremendous change in the way of fighting terrorism during his presidency. The introduction of such discussion by Trump has led the authors of this article, while considering the significance of the West Asian region in terms of shared security concerns with the Islamic Republic of Iran, to elaborately review the new US president’s counterterrorism strategy, with an emphasis on Yemen. Focusing on the main issue, the initial hypothesis stated that Trump called the strategy of committing Yemen (as a victim of terrorism) used by the Obama administration ineffective and thus resorted to a direct military intervention strategy in that country. As the present research is descriptive-explanatory, the hypothesis was measured and validated based on library data.