Nicholas Kristof has become my new favorite subject for live dissection. Today, let’s take a look at his spleen.

SANA, Yemen — It was reassuring to find myself almost arrested as I arrived in this magical country.

Suspicious immigration officials at the airport noted that I had only a carry-on bag, stuffed with electronic gear, and that my passport had Pakistani and Afghan visas. Worried that I might be an agent of Osama bin Laden, they seized my passport and took me aside — over the protests of the Information Ministry official who had come to the airport to welcome me and show me Yemeni hospitality.

That’s a start almost worthy of Robert Fisk, only Fisk would have gone into a lot of detail about his prison shower fantasy.

After 45 minutes and a dozen phone calls, I was freed. But without the Information Ministry to vouch for me, several officials said, I might have been interrogated all night as a suspected terrorist.

Kristof is still sounding way too upbeat about all this. Is he praising Yemeni authorities for their thoroughness, or is he venting some truly twisted submission fantasies in a family paper?

The experience was a reminder that Yemen is, belatedly, trying to crack down on terrorism. Indeed, Yemen is becoming a model for the way the Bush administration's war on terror can force governments to take sterner actions on their own.

Please, Whomever, don’t let those sterner actions involve nuns and a cat o’ nine tails. Idiot that I am, I’m going to keep reading.

Unfortunately, the Bush administration's plans to send American troops here may undermine the good work. The troops will be a token, fewer than 100, and are meant simply to train Yemeni soldiers, but it's hard to see that they can accomplish much — other than to turn public opinion against America.

What, suddenly Our Boys aren’t butch enough for Nick? I don’t care which porch he swings on, but let’s not insult our armed forces ability to toughen up the locals.

"If the American troops come here, then at some point I will end up bearing arms against them," warned an American-educated, pro-Western Yemeni man. This prickliness, this deep suspicion of the motives of foreign troops, is very widespread and will complicate the mission of the American forces in Yemen.

Yeah, Kristof has some serious wood for Yemen soldiers. First, he liked the idea of spending all night being (ahem) interrogated by them, now he’s saying their men are tougher than our men. Or maybe he just likes those foreign, swarthy types – he also claimed we couldn’t handle the Taliban.

Hell, I like those dark-skinned ones, so I know where Nick is coming from here. I’m marrying an American girl, but she’s brunette and has a great tan.

Sheikh Othman Mujali al-Fayid, a member of Parliament and traditional tribal leader in the northern city of Sada, invited me into his home for a sumptuous lunch. We squatted on the floor around 20-odd dishes of (forgive the technical terms) brown gobs and green gook, which we all ate with our fingers, followed by dessert of yellow goop with honeycomb on top. It was delicious. But his warning was as sharp as the honey was sweet: "People do not accept foreign powers in Yemen. We don't want anyone involved in our business."

Nope, they don’t like foreigners in Yemen. But they sure like to sit on the floor with honey and spend some time with fresh meat from New York. Hell, I’m getting turned on here.

Fortunately, aside from antagonisms arising from plans for the American troops, the new crackdown is enjoying an impressive start.

Radical Muslim students from foreign countries (including America) have been booted out of Yemen. Bin Laden tapes are now no longer displayed in stalls (though they're still sold under the table). Radical Muslims are keeping their heads down.

I don’t know where to start here. Should I go with the impressive crackdown, or the radical Muslims with their heads down and under the table? Forget it. No joke is necessary – I think you got the visual. Damn, Nick!

When I tried to visit al-Iman University, the militant Muslim institution where John Walker Lindh studied, armed soldiers turned me away. It seems virtually defunct.

Rejection is awful, Nick. But that’s no reason to put down a perfectly fine radical university breeding ground of terrorism.

All this underscores that President Bush has made a difference here simply by putting terrorism on top of the international agenda. So the question is this: Why do we feel the need to add a military element by sending troops into places like Yemen?

First rejection, now he’s afraid, I guess, of the competition. If the old rumors have any truth to them, he shouldn’t get really worried until we send in the Navy.

Sure, American troops are essential in some countries, like Afghanistan, where even more are needed to provide security. But sending American soldiers to places like Yemen, where the great majority of people seem to oppose their arrival, raises precisely the problems of over-deployment that President Bush complained about during his campaign.

Nick, don’t let your desire blind you. Afghans welcomed our arrival when we were kicking Taliban ass. But if we overstay our welcome there, they’ll turn on us like they do all foreign occupiers. We’re never welcome anywhere that doesn’t have Soviet tanks right on the other side of the border, and sometimes not even then.

It's a complex land that we're sending our troops to. I've had a very nice driver here, and after two days of chatting I found out the names of his two young sons. The elder is Ayman, for Ayman al-Zawahiri, the No. 2 leader in Al Qaeda. And the baby is called Osama.

Yeah, as opposed to the simplicity of Afghan politics.

When I described Yemen as magical a moment ago, I didn't just mean the allure of a beautiful mountainous landscape. It is also a murky, shadowy place with a long tradition of genies, monsters like the tahish (which eats all humans except for female virgins), islands that make themselves invisible to prevent invasion, and cannibal witches who eat their victims as a gravy, become pregnant, give birth to a cat-like creature with oversized sexual organs and — alas, then the narrative becomes too much for a family newspaper.

Oh, we crossed that line ages ago.

In short, Yemen is about as far as one can go, culturally, from America.

Which, really, just makes it that much hotter.

So while the antiterror campaign has enjoyed an excellent start in Yemen, I worry about the next phase, involving American troops. How will the American soldiers negotiate this complex political landscape, how will they overcome the prickly Yemeni nationalism, and what will happen if they meet a tahish?

What will happen? Something steamy, I’d bet. Look for Nick’s second installment either in Penthouse Forum or the Advocate; I’m not sure which.