Iran Warns Of ‘Full-Fledged War’ If Attacked Over Aramco Disaster. Analysts Fret Over Possible $100 Oil

Iran on Sunday warned the US against retaliatory strikes following Saturday's drone attacks on Saudi Arabia's oil infrastructure. "Everybody should know that all American bases and their aircraft carriers in a distance of up to 2,000 kilometers around Iran are within the range of our missiles", IRGC commander Amirali Hajizadeh said, according to Tasnim. He also suggested Tehran is prepared for "full-fledged war". On Saturday, Lindsey Graham called for US strikes on Iran's oil refineries. Read

Try one month of our best daily market and macroeconomic commentary for FREE

Try for free

Or see other subscription options to save 20% on an annual plan

Already have an account? log in

Leave a Reply to jylCancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

23 thoughts on “Iran Warns Of ‘Full-Fledged War’ If Attacked Over Aramco Disaster. Analysts Fret Over Possible $100 Oil

  1. Anyone know the state of Saudi oilfield/refining air defense? For drones, a ballistic missile interceptor like THAAD (LMT) likely won’t work; don’t know if a Patriot type system (UTX) is ideal. Seems like you’d want something like a Phalanx (UTX). Anyway, Saudis will presumably be beefing up defenses.

  2. Well we oughta have something to offer in the works rather than 3 million dollar patriots. The Army publicly predicted these types of attacks in 2017 and highlighted the economic undermining of our defenses. Then again if we may have coordinated this whole shebang so the economics of using million dollar missiles to shoot down 10 thousand dollar drones is just another false premise. Typical republican in power, big oil, big defense, big war premise for re-election; tyranny. Beautiful set up much less clumsy that the previous group of republican shit for brains chickenhawks who successfully executed their evil.

    1. Drones are slow and fragile, and it should be fairly easy and cheap to defend a refinery against drone attack. You’d use multiple trailer mounted Phalanx systems. They will destroy a drone at 4000 yards with just $1000 of 20 mm cannon shells. Phalanx will also destroy incoming mortars, missiles, aircraft, etc.

      Saudis should have bought dozens of these systems years ago. Someone’s head should be rolling now.

      No way the Saudis staged this attack on themselves.

    1. So you’re suggesting that Saudi Arabia deliberately knocked out 5.7 million b/d of their own production capacity just to give themselves an excuse to buy some weapons and the US an excuse to attack Iran? If so, that is wildly silly

      1. Of all the actors involved, Houthi rebels, Iranian propaganda outlets, the Iraqi Government, whoever, the absolutely least credible is Mike Pompeo. He is a mouthpiece of the Trump Administration and a political hack. Go back and watch any public speech or interview at random from the last two and a half years, on any subject, and see how well his statements hold up with the wisdom of hindsight.

        Saudi Arabia has made itself a lot of enemies in the Gulf. The war in Yemen has devolved into a civil war within a civil war with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates backing different sides. Saudi Arabia is also trying to isolate Qatar. The Saudi regime benefits from both higher oil prices and tensions with Iran. Did they bomb themselves? Prolly not, but the drones are cheap and easy to replicate and Saudi Arabia has the incentive to be less than diligent in stopping them, and in any event blaming Iran backed by the neo-cons and warhawks in both the American and Israeli Administrations. The Middle East is fiendishly complex at the best of times, and I would be extremely skeptical about any official statements from Bonesaw, MAGA, or Netanyahu.

        1. Harvey, as usual this comes with all due respect because you’re a loyal reader and your comments are among the best on this platform, but you’re preaching to the choir here. As you’re aware, i spent decades in political science academia. that said, the saudis didn’t blow up 5.7 million b/d of their own oil capacity and they didn’t knowingly collude with anyone in that effort. that’s like me saying “well, I love sticking it to the insurance company for high premiums, which is why I shot myself in the dick today”.

          now if you wanted to say that maybe they sabotaged themselves knowing they could fix it quickly or something along those lines, maybe that’s plausible, but here’s this from BofA:

          Saudi Arabia maintained strategic stocks of c190mn bbl as of June, according to JODI data. Should the production loss be fully translated to exports, then the strategic stocks would last c1 month. This suggests that Saudi Arabia would be forced to deplete its stocks within a few weeks to keep its level of exports stable, and would be unable on its own to prevent a disruption to markets beyond that point.

          They then have to rebuild those stocks, which will be complicated by the OPEC+ deal.

          The point is, it’s always possible there’s a grand plan/scheme/conspiracy, but it isn’t: “Let’s blow up Abqaiq and see what happens!”

          1. Also, there is nothing “credible” about Iran’s semi-official news agencies. that’s silly. nobody trusts Trump and nobody trusts Pompeo and obviously nobody trusts Netanyahu. but this isn’t like “Oh, well maybe there’s some truth to the trade banter from China’s Commerce Ministry” or “well, the Global Times and the People’s Daily are clearly silly but when it comes to trade they’ve got a few points”. There is nothing credible about Tasnim or Fars. They’re just KCNA without the lady in the pink robe.

          2. I would think it was possible that some local Houthi leader(s) did it without approval from Tehran–especially if they thought that Iran might use them as a disposable bargaining chip. Spoilers are pretty common in messy transnational conflicts like this.

          3. Hey, maybe the country with the third highest defense budget globally couldn’t defend the “most valuable real estate in the world” from cheap drones flown hundreds of miles undetected from battered militias from maybe the south or, no, maybe the north. I sincerely concede the possibility, but I will take the other side of that bet. Someone in Saudi Arabia helped.

          4. Asymmetric warfare works. If it didn’t, the war in Yemen would have been over about 3 months after the Saudis invaded in 2015. Plus, it seems unlikely that ol’ Qasem would be praising the Houthis on Twitter if the Quds didn’t sanction this. I’ll take the cryptic Twitter brag from Soleimani over what comes out of Zarif and the foreign ministry any day.

      2. I suggest following the money, follow who ultimately benefits, it damn sure is not Iran. I am saying we have gone to war in the middle east based on contrived information before and we did not hold our evil doers to account!

    2. What does Iran have to gain? An oil price shock could make Trump further soften his stance toward Iran to keep oil pumping, prices down, and the U.S. economy afloat. Alternatively, Iran may just be escalating its conflict with Saudi Arabia; the departure of Bolton was a pretty clear signal that Trump’s stance wasn’t really all that hard to begin with anyway, so perhaps Iran is just taking advantage of what they perceive as weakness.

  3. when they don’t know what to say

    and have completely given up on the play

    just like a finger they lift the machine

    and the spectators are satisfied.

    – Antiphanes

  4. Gee , sorry about that launchpad accident hope you figure out what went wrong says Trump Qassem says we did….!!! Watch for more of the same says me…….

  5. My main question is; why would the US believe it has the right to bomb Iran in response to an attack on Saudi Arabia? I’m aware that Trump and company would come up with arguments about destabilization of the ME and/or international oil supplies, but SA has been doing it for years, but does the USA have the right to intervene when it hasn’t been attacked itself?

  6. No one ever figured out the JFK thing or the 9-11 affair to any degree of satisfaction either…This of this matter will come from someone whom you trust not those whom you can’t trust which turns out to be a bulk of the players in the ME (including USA )….You can never rule out any of the self interested or rogue elements either who may well be the sleeper Candidates for starting WW3….Seeing the realities more along the lines that Harvey expressed in this blog…

NEWSROOM crewneck & prints