US President Donald Trump said the United States is ready for a decisive response to attacks against oil facilities in Saudi Arabia. The American leader wrote about this on his Twitter.
“The oil sector of Saudi Arabia has been attacked. There is reason to believe that we know who is to blame. We are fully prepared to take measures depending on the results of the audit, but we expect information from the kingdom about who, in their opinion, was behind the attack and on what conditions we will act! ”- wrote the American leader.
Saudi Arabia oil supply was attacked. There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 15. September 2019In addition, Donald Trump said that the United States can use its oil reserves to stabilize energy prices.
Recall, on September 14, drones attacked two enterprises owned by Saudi Aramco, near the settlements of Abkaik and Khurais.
- Satellite image of the alleged drone attack site near Abkaik in Saudi Arabia
- © Planet Labs Inc / Handout via REUTERS
The next day, the company said that as a result of the attack, the level of oil production in the country was halved - by 5.7 million barrels per day. Global markets reacted with a sharp increase in prices for black gold.
Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia condemns the drone attack on Saudi oil facilities. He also said that this incident could be one of the topics that the leaders of Russia, Iran and Turkey will discuss at a meeting in Ankara on September 16.
American charges
Responsibility for the sabotage of Saudi oil facilities has been claimed by Hussite Yemeni rebels. Previously, they repeatedly launched rockets and drones at targets on the territory of Saudi Arabia.
On September 16, representatives of the movement said they could strike at targets at the Saudi kingdom again at any time, calling on the country's authorities to cease hostilities in Yemen.
Representatives of the Ansar Allah movement, who are called Hussites by the name of the founder of this organization, Hussein al-Khusi, who control the north of Yemen, and the Saudis are military opponents. Since 2015, Saudi Arabia has been actively participating in the anti-Hussite military operation of the coalition of Arab countries in Yemen.
However, in the United States, Iran was blamed for the attacks. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tehran “launched an unprecedented attack on global energy supplies.” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham even stated that the Americans could retaliate against Iran’s oil facilities.
The American information and analytical portal Politico, citing representatives of the Trump administration, notes that they allegedly have evidence that the attack was not from Yemen, but from Iran or Iraq. Iraqi authorities have denied reports that their country's territories were used to strike at Saudi Arabia. Tehran also stated that it was not involved in the incident.
Meanwhile, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted that Moscow has a negative attitude to increasing tensions in the region and calls on "all regional and non-regional countries not to make any hasty steps or conclusions that can only aggravate destabilization."
“With regard to hasty conclusions, we have never been supporters of such a line,” said Peskov, commenting on the words of Pompeo.
The story of sabotage
Since the deterioration of US-Iranian relations in late April - early May 2019, Washington is not the first time Washington has accused Tehran of sabotaging oil supplies from the Persian Gulf region. So, according to the assumptions of American officials, it was allegedly Iran that was behind the attacks on oil tankers off the coast of the UAE in the Gulf of Oman and is responsible for the drones strike on the Saudi oil pipeline in mid-May.
As now, responsibility for the attack on the oil facility in Saudi Arabia was claimed by the Yemenite Hussites.
A month later, the United States again accused Iran of attacking oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman. A few days later, a new reason arose for escalating tensions - an American drone shot down by the Iranians. On June 21, President Donald Trump announced that he was ready to strike at targets in Iran in response to the destruction of the drone by the Iranian military.
However, according to the American president, at the last moment he canceled the operation, learning that 150 people could die. Trump called this outcome a “disproportionate response” to a downed drone. Earlier, Trump and Pompeo did not exclude the possibility of conducting a military operation against the Islamic republic.
As a correspondent of the Academy of Military Sciences Sergey Sudakov noted in an interview with RT, the United States has already exhausted all the possibilities of sanctions pressure on Iran. However, they are afraid of starting a war right now in Washington - such a development of events could put an end to Trump's prospects for re-election for a second presidential term in 2020.
“Assuming that the military invasion comes true, it will be a disaster for everyone,” Sudakov said. - The catastrophe is not only oil corporations. The Iraqi campaign has already shown this. Hundreds of thousands of people died, more than one and a half million became refugees. This is an approximate figure. But if we talk about the 80 millionth Iran, then these numbers will be much higher. This will affect the countries of the former USSR, there will be a huge number of refugees. "
For the United States, a possible Iranian company, according to the expert, will result in high human losses and rising costs, which will fall on the shoulders of ordinary taxpayers.
- USS Iwo Jima landing ship in the Persian Gulf
- © US Navy
Iranian position
Iran denies involvement in the attack against the Saudi oil company. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi on Sunday, September 15, accused the US side of "maximum lies."
In turn, the commander of the military-space forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Amir Ali Hajizadeh warned the Americans that the El-Udeid base in Qatar and the Al-Zafra base in the United Arab Emirates, as well as ships, are within reach of the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missiles US Navy in the Gulf of Oman.
“Everyone should be aware that US military bases and ships located within two thousand kilometers (from Iran’s borders) are within the reach of our missiles,” Iran’s Tasnim news agency quoted the military as saying.
In turn, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, going to the summit in Astana, accused the US and Israel of escalating tensions in the region. At the same time, the Iranian leader called on the Middle Eastern powers to dialogue.
- Ballistic missile launch in Iran
- © Reuters / Mahmood Hosseini / TIMA
On Monday, Abbas Mousavi said US statements about possible attacks on Iran are "inappropriate and absurd." In addition, a representative of the Iranian side denied information circulating earlier in the media about a possible meeting between Rouhani and Donald Trump on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. This event kicks off in New York on September 17th.
Meanwhile, the US president has already hinted that he does not believe Tehran’s allegations of non-involvement in the attack on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia.
“Remember, when Iran was shot down by a drone, they intentionally stated that it was in their“ airspace although it was not even close to it. They firmly adhered to this version, although they knew that it was a lie. Now they say they have nothing to do with the attack on Saudi Arabia. See? ”Trump wrote on Twitter.
According to Sergei Sudakov, “now the United States is not ready to conduct normal open negotiations with Iran” and “are trying to create a fairly favorable position for themselves by blackmailing and intimidating the Iranian authorities.”
However, the expert is alarmed by Washington’s attempts to “put together an anti-Iranian coalition”, which in the long run could lead to war.
“Now the preparatory stage is underway to strike at Iran sooner or later,” he said.
Senior researcher at the Center for Military-Political Studies of the Institute of the USA and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences Nikolai Bobkin in his interview with RT, in turn, believes that it is not worth raising the alarm ahead of time.
“The escalation has been going on somewhere since April, and threats from the US too. But I believe that no American strikes will follow, ”Bobkin said in a conversation with RT. - There will be no blow. All this has become a chore, every week we have such news. ”