Director of Strategic Intelligence Reva Bhalla examines Yemen's GCC power transfer deal and how the country's political crisis will play out in the coming year. VIDEO TRANSCRIPT Whereas six months ago Yemen seemed to be facing the threat of civil war, the country is now returning to its usual state of contained chaos with Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s faction ready to reassert its authority after a relatively brief and bloody political struggle. When Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh traveled to Riyadh to sign a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) deal that would transfer his powers to his vice president and allow for early presidential elections, he did so from a position of strength. Something STRATFOR emphasized throughout Yemen’s political crisis was that even though it looked like the regime was on the ropes, regime collapse was still very unlikely given the fact that Saleh’s family members and allies retained control over the key security, political and economic organs of the state. Even though Saleh will be formally stepping down as president and elections will likely be held Feb. 21 as planned, the political transition in Yemen in no way constitutes true regime change. Saudi Arabia — which drove the negotiation over the GCC deal and likely lined a lot of pockets with money to make that deal happen — in the end, granted Saleh a dignified exit. But Saleh would not have agreed to the deal without assurances that the regime would largely remain under his family’s control. And as we expected, Saleh did succeed in coercing the main armed opposition led by First Armored Brigade commander Gen. Ali Mohsen to the negotiating table. Mohsen selected half of the members of a newly formed military council led by the vice president, and on Sunday he formally gave his blessing to the GCC deal. Ali Mohsen will likely be given a senior defense post in the new government and will retain influence among the heavily Islamist-concentrated Old Guard in the Yemeni security and intelligence apparatus. But Saleh’s son, Ahmed Ali Saleh, will remain in control over the armed forces overall. The political opposition, embodied by the Joint Meeting Parties coalition, has also signed on to the deal and is readying itself to compete in the upcoming election. The youth opposition were completely sidelined from the GCC deal. They are the ones that are out on the streets protesting out of desperation, but there really isn’t much this faction can do alone to stop it. They’re a minor player and they don't have much power. So Yemen has essentially four leaders at the moment: President Saleh, who will remain the president of the ruling General People's Congress party; Ahmed Ali Saleh, the president's son and head of the Republican Guard and Special Forces; Vice President Hadi and lastly, Ali Mohsen. Vice President Hadi is pretty much guaranteed to be elected president in February. This will be important for the maintenance of the peace agreement between Saleh and the political opposition, as all generally regard Hadi as a pretty honest broker and mediator. All indicators so far point to Yemen’s political crisis settling out in the new year, but Yemen’s internal problems are still far from over. The country is still staggering economically and is extremely dependent on Saudi Arabia for its economic survival. Saudi Arabia has already pledged to finance whatever Yemen needs to hold itself together so as to avoid a bigger crisis on the Arabian Peninsula. At the same time, a number of militant factions have benefited from Yemen’s political distractions and will continue to challenge Sanaa’s authority. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has been strengthening its foothold in the south and elsewhere, while in the north al-Houthi rebels are being locked in a battle with Salafists in trying to consolidate their recent territorial gains. Saudi maneuvering and financing through tribes can be seen on multiple sides of these conflicts — creating a complicated situation overall — but the overall aim of Riyadh in the coming year will be to ensure that instability in Yemen doesn’t spill over its borders in the Arabian Peninsula when Saudi Arabia has much bigger issues like Iran to worry about.