Through the official spokesman for the Coalition to Support Legitimacy in Yemen that is leading the fight against the Houthi rebels in Yemen, Saudi Arabia said this week that it was “almost certain” that the weapons used to attack the Saudi Aramco oil facilities in the east of the kingdom last week were Iranian-made.
The spokesman said it was suspected that the attack had originated from Yemen, where the Iran-backed Houthi militia was quick to claim responsibility for the attack and called for “Saudi Arabia to stop its war on Yemen.” It also threatened to carry out more similar attacks.
US Secretary of State Mike Popmeo said just after the attack that it had originated from the north-west of the oil site and not from the south, however. This was an indication that the drones that had carried it out had flown from southern Iraq, he said, a claim denied by the Iraqi authorities.
Later, the Iraqi government said its territory had not been used to attack any country and vowed to guarantee that no such thing could ever happen. Baghdad also said that Pompeo had told the Iraqi authorities that the attack on Saudi Arabia had not come from Iraq.
On Saturday at dawn, a number of armed drones hit two units in the area of Abqaiq and an oil field in Khurais in Saudi Arabia, causing unspecified damage to the main oil treatment plant of the Aramco oil company. The attack led to a halt of more than half its oil production, causing international oil markets to factor in further risks of geopolitical tensions in the Middle East after years of concern about other factors.
US President Donald Trump, who spoke to Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman over the telephone after the attack, was quick to blame Iran, saying that he was “waiting to see” who carried out the attack before proceeding accordingly.
Iran denied the accusations as American “lies” and followed the denial with the out-of-the-blue announcement that “Iran is ready to cooperate with the United Nations and countries seeking peace and stability in Yemen and the region,” according to an Iranian government spokesman.
Many analysts in the region see little difference between the Houthis in Yemen and the Iraqi Hashd militia (Popular Mobilisation Force), as both are considered proxies for Iran along with the Lebanese Shia group Hizbullah. Whatever the investigations into the attacks conclude, the conviction is that Iranian weaponry was used, either armed drones or other items.
The consensus is that Iran was the culprit behind the attacks, whether directly or indirectly.
However, the question remains of what will happen next, since Saudi Arabia and its ally the US may still retaliate by attacking Iranian oil facilities, as one US Republican Party senator has suggested. All concerned want to avoid an all-out war in the Gulf region, but the latest attack might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Last month, Houthi drones attacked a gas unit at a Saudi oil field close to the border with the UAE causing little damage. In May, drones attacked two pumping stations on the east-west pipeline in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi-led Coalition responded by bombing a site in Yemen thought to house Iranian-supplied drones.
However, the most recent attack, “serious and outrageous” according to a UK government minister, may set off an international response. One Gulf commentator noted that “if Iran manages to get away with its sabotaging acts, the escalation will continue and other civilian interests in the region could be targeted.”
For many in the Gulf, it matters little where the attack came from, since what is certain is that it was decided by Iran. A London-based military analyst specialising in the region said that the idea that Iranian missiles or drones could be launched from a vessel in the Gulf was unlikely. The Gulf was full of US and regional naval vessels equipped with the latest radar and reconnaissance technology, he said, meaning that any object flying across the Gulf would be detected.
The coalition might not want to give the credit to the Houthis in Yemen, but Iranian President Hassan Rouhani nevertheless said that the attack was an act of Houthi “self-defence” while emphasising the threat of launching further attacks on all fronts using the Iranian proxy militias in Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon.
The risk now is that the boldness of the Iran-backed militias will not abate and that more attacks could happen, not only impairing the global oil markets and supplies but also threatening the stability of the region and probably the world as a whole.
The immediate measure taken by almost all the Gulf countries was to reinforce the security of sensitive facilities and installations. There is also a growing sense of self-reliance in defending Gulf stability and security.
Though all the options remain open, some observers think that the escalation is a last flaring up of the tension before the negotiating tables are set out. They cite American contacts with the Houthis and the coalition’s scaling down of military activities in Yemen, apparently in order to find a peaceful settlement. There have also been hints and media test-balloons of a direct meeting between the US and Iranian presidents.
However, the potentially huge impact of the attack cannot be played down, and the tensions are coming to a peak. From this point onwards, many say, it will be either war or negotiations.
*A version of this article appears in print in the 19 September, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.
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