The collapse of negotiations toward a peaceful departure from power by Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has resulted in a week of such chaotic violence it may well appear the nation is devolving back into civil war.
But close observers say that what's occurring in Yemen now is simply a continuation of the tactics that have kept Saleh in power since the 1970s.
"He wants to provoke a military confrontation with any of the opposition groups, because he feels more comfortable with armed conflict than he does confronting a nonviolent, headless movement," says Bernard Haykel, a professor of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University.