ABSTRACT
The domestic politics of the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR), which had undergone such dramatic change during the first eighteen months of the al-Hamdi era, settled into the political equivalent of stationary trench warfare by 1976. President al-Hamdi's popularity as a nationalist leader grew dramatically in 1976 and 1977. He became no less than North Yemen's first great populist. Some young Yemenis in 1976 was crediting him with saving the YAR from the sectarianism of what they called the "Lebanese model". External politics were overshadowed and largely determined by domestic politics during the months after the al-Hamdi regime assumed power. At the outset, the regime continued and elaborated further the policy shift begun during the al-Iryani era: rapprochement with Saudi Arabia and opening to the industrial West. Even if secondary to domestic politics during the first eighteen months of the al-Hamdi regime, external politics could not be ignored because of the extensive interpenetration of the two political domains.
