Donald Trump is “locked and loaded” again, and Iran is in the crosshairs.
Shortly after Brent crude surged nearly 20% as markets reacted to Saturday’s dramatic attacks on the heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure, the US president told the world he’s pretty sure he knows who’s responsible.
“There is reason to believe that we know the culprit”, Trump said, in a tweet, adding that the US is “locked and loaded depending on verification”. On Saturday, Mike Pompeo said there was no evidence the attacks originated in Yemen despite Houthi claims. Pompeo’s tweets appeared to suggest the State Department might assert, as it did earlier this summer, that the attacks were launched from Iraq, a contention Baghdad denies.
Trump went on to say the White House is “waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!”
The president sounded excited. But not as excited as he apparently was less than a minute later, when he tweeted this: “PLENTY OF OIL!”
The tweets came as unnamed US officials claimed the Houthis do not possess the munitions used in the attacks on Abqaiq and Khurais.
Reuters cites an unidentified US source as saying there were “19 points of impact in the attack on Saudi facilities and that evidence showed the launch area was west-northwest of the targets – not south from Yemen”.
The Saudis, meanwhile, have floated the idea that cruise missiles may have been used in the strikes. “There’s no doubt that Iran is responsible for this. No matter how you slice it, there’s no escaping it. There’s no other candidate”, the official said.
For what it’s worth, Abqaiq and Khurais are in range, along with everything else. Consider this from the Center for Strategic and International Studies:
All of Saudi Arabia is threatened by Iranian missiles, and the number of Iranian missiles capable of reaching the country would overwhelm virtually any missile defense system. Iran maintains the largest ballistic and cruise missile force in the Middle East, capable of striking targets as far as 2,500 km from its borders. Iranian missiles continue to improve in terms of range, speed, flight profile, and destructiveness. In the event of military escalation, Iran could use its largely road-mobile missile force to target critical infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. Several of the sites highlighted in this brief–such as the port of Ras Tanura, Ras Al-Khair power and desalination plant, and the Abqaiq processing and stabilization plant–exist within range of Iran’s land-based ballistic missile force. These sites are also vulnerable to ship-launched missiles. Targets further from Iran’s border, such as the refinery at Yanbu, located along the Red Sea, are also within range of Iran’s medium-range ballistic missiles.
Note the explicit reference to Abqaiq.
Officials who spoke to reporters on Sunday said the Houthis have never conducted attacks from Yemen with the kind of range necessary for Saturday’s strikes, although it is possible.
“A third administration official, who also asked not to be identified discussing non-public findings, said precision-guided munitions had been used”, Bloomberg reports, noting that “the evidence put forward by several administration officials on Sunday suggested the administration was sensitive to skepticism about its assertions as well as concern that it may be trying to provoke a conflict with the regime in Tehran”.
Clearly, this leaves Trump in a bind. If he responds militarily, he risks plunging the US into an intractable conflict and virtually guaranteeing more strikes on the Saudis (not to mention the Israelis). If Trump does nothing, it will be seen as a sign of weakness, especially now that Pompeo has publicly stated Iran is directly responsible, as opposed to the kind of secondary responsibility normally associated with Houthi attacks.
“Some Iraqi media outlets said the attack came from there”, Reuters goes on to say, adding that “Kuwait said it was investigating the sighting of a drone over its territory and coordinating with Saudi Arabia and other countries”.
“The Trump administration appears to have evidence of Iranian responsibility, but will face skepticism from others, both because of policy disagreements between the US and its allies, and because declining to attribute an attack provides an excuse not to respond”, Michael Singh, managing director for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Sunday. He went on to tweet that “the attack fits with Iran’s apparent strategy at the moment – faced with a de facto oil embargo, it aims to deter the US by escalating its regional aggression and nuclear activities, likely because it perceives these are two areas of comparative advantage”.
The last time Trump was “locked and loaded” (or, “cocked” and loaded, as he put it), was in June, when the president called off US strikes on Iranian missile batteries at the last minute.
“We were cocked and loaded to retaliate when I asked, how many will die”, Trump dramatically recounted, on June 21, after the IRGC downed a US surveillance drone.
According to the president, “a general” told him the body count would be “150 people, sir”.
That was a bridge too far for Trump, who apparently hadn’t considered the possibility that when you hit another country with a barrage of missiles, some folks will be killed.
At the time, the world wondered if Trump would show similar restraint when things invariably escalated anew. Judging by his Sunday evening tweets, we’re about to find out.
If you believe the Saudis, you’re a chump.
That is the absolute truth!
@ mfn: But the president asked twice and MrBoneSaw said very strongly “I didn’t do it”.
As I said before ….this gets to be all about the Big ego and the small brain……………
Time for 5G drone radar, everywhere.
Huawei can build it! lol
Tactically, why would Iran launch an attack — what is it they gain in this? It’s difficult to believe this was an act of war backed by a sovereign entity, it seems to be more of a derivative act of terrorism, which conveniently does some damage without involving casualties … thus, the aggressive act of war doesn’t seem entirely premeditated, it seems more contrived like a puzzle or chess move. This seems more like an ISIS-like event than Iran launching into a war.
So with global N.S.A. satellite coverage, several fleets in the region, Saudi air defenses, and countless potential eyewitness, nobody can determine a flight path or point of origin or heat signature or even determine the weapon used? Aren’t there forensic clues at the attack site, or are we relying on what some Kuwaitis may have seen?
Maybe Venezuela attacked from the West with stealth aircraft provided by Col. Mustard of Khorasan.
Re: “launch area was west-northwest”
Those holes look to be in the West side if the oil domes and obviously all the “drones” had the same flight path and exact point of entry, but then again, I’m not an expert but Iran is sorta North East as the magic carpet flies. I guess drones could take leisurely flight paths, but that extra time in the air might make them more detectable. Then again, those holes might be Photoshopped, which also brings up the absurd notion that those holes look so clean and unfragmented, as-if those domes didn’t implode or explode, but then again, I’m not an expert in these things,
just confused.
Houti rebels have been hitting targets in Saudi with missiles and drones for at least two years. Targets have included airports, oil field facilities, and at least one military parade. Some reports (unconfirmed AFAIK) of drone attacks at Saudi anti-missile radars. Some online groups count 58 drone attacks by Houtis on Saudi so far. The Saudis have intercepted many attacks but others have hit their targets. The missiles and drones are supplied by Iran (there may be other suppliers but Iran is the main one). Iran and Israel are two MidEast countries that are very advanced in attack drones.
One article with a timeline:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/09/timeline-houthis-drone-missile-attacks-saudi-targets-190914102845479.html
So these attacks could have been done by Houtis in Yemen, but could also have been done by Houtis in Iraq, or by Iranian forces from either Iraq or Iran.
The current situation reminds me of the Saddam/WMD claims that led to Iraq War 2. Back then the US government, equipped with a capable defense/intelligence establishment and led by a President who was at least sort of “normal” started a big and so far never-ending war based on claims later proven false.
Today a US government that has reached new lows for competence, staffing, and professionalism, led by an erratic, impulsive, and possibly senile President, is potentially about to launch strikes on Iran that could escalate into a major shooting war in the Middle East.
And oil is up only +11%?
Bibi has an election tomorrow. Just saying.
Thanks to all comments so far. This is the kind of sensible analysis we need now; what with all the lies, deception, journalist dismemberment, big brains and small penises that are floating around nowadays.
There is a large, and highly repressed, Shia minority in this part of SA. So if someone needs local targeting assistance it is available. What was it, 37 beheadings in one day last spring? It is hard believe that with all our assets in the Gulf no one pick this up on radar.