When workers and engineers at Saudi Aramco's Abqaiq oil processing plant heard the sound of a huge explosion that struck the night quiet at 4: 10 a.m. on September 14, they all thought at first glance that the explosion was caused by one of the rare faults at the plant. But as the second, third, and fourth strikes sounded, suspicion quickly dissipated and everyone realized the obvious fact that the vital facility was being deliberately hit by military strikes, as British telegraph correspondent Josie Ensor tells the Middle East in its critical piece (1) of its sources after the operation.
Just 150 miles away, at the exact same moment, as Josie completes, similar attacks apparently struck another processing site in Khurais. Immediately, the technicians at both sites wore their gas masks and ran to the installation poles - one of the most The facility is important - in a desperate attempt to extinguish the fires early before they get out of hand, but the frequency and accuracy of the attacks were greater than their ability to pursue them.For a group of civil servants, what they face then carries the typical features of all their minds and perceptions of the atmosphere of war know.
By the time of the sunrise, the damage to the two buildings became evident. In Abqaiq, 17 of the 19 buildings in the massive treatment plant were clearly damaged, while two other buildings in Khurais were attacked, while Houthi rebels in Yemen immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, claiming they were carried out. With ten sophisticated drones fired from Yemen, the United States quickly questioned the Houthis' likely account, based on aerial imagery analysis, that the attack was launched from Iranian territory using 12 cruise missiles and more than 20 drones.
In fact, there were many loopholes that led experts to question the Houthis' account of their responsibility for the attacks from the very first moment, chiefly the relatively long-term strikes and precision of striking targets compared to previous Houthi attacks on Saudi facilities. Khurais is 770 kilometers from the Saudi-Yemen border and more than 800 kilometers from the nearest Houthi-controlled rocket launching point in Yemen.If we look at Abqaiq, things become more difficult and dramatic as the facility is located at least 1,000 kilometers from the nearest convenient launch site. The date of Yemen, and more than 1,200 kilometers from the Houthi stronghold of the president in Saada, north of the country.
Unlike the geographic location of the installations and the accuracy of the strikes, which clearly outweigh the precedents of proven capabilities of Houthi attacks, other evidence, such as reports of aircraft and missiles flying over Kuwait, and the pattern of damage to buildings targeted at Abqaiq, which have been damaged on its northern and northwestern sides and not on its southern facades, are consistent with The fact that the attacks were coming from Yemen if they took place there, and the absence of any reaction from Saudi defenses directed mainly to defend against attacks coming from the south, all these clues provided additional indications that the recent attacks are unlikely to come from Yemen. What about the fact that the missiles and planes were launched from the north, ie from Iraq or from Iran itself?
Iran, for its part, has denied responsibility for the attack, describing it as a link in a series of successive US administration lies about the Persian state. Saudi Arabia itself has apparently tried to grab the stick from the middle, as the kingdom avoided blaming Iran at least directly at first. Certainly, Iranian weapons were used in the attack, before later reaffirming its certainty that the attacks “did not come from Yemen” and that they came from a certain point of the north being identified, and while the Kingdom offered evidence of Tehran's alleged involvement in the attacks, it avoided asserting that the attack was launched. Of land In a maneuver that showed that Saudi Arabia is unwilling to escalate a stand-off with Iran, Iran has carefully chosen its remarks to create room for a reversal of escalation if Washington chooses to turn a blind eye to the attacks and content itself with rhetorical responses as it has recently used.
Regardless of where the attacks were carried out, whether coming from Yemen or from Iran itself, the undeniable fact remains that the recent Aramco attacks represent an unprecedented escalation of the conflict between Iran and the United States and its Middle East allies since Washington withdrew from the nuclear deal. In 2018, the most serious attack (4) on oil installations in the Gulf since the second Gulf War in 1991, both in terms of the size of the damage or economic impact, where the attack resulted in a temporary reduction of 5.7 million barrels per day in Saudi oil production, or about 50% of Saudi production capacity is about 6% of the total production The world's oil, and caused the initial rise in world oil prices by 20% down to $ 74 per barrel, before prices stabilize again at a level of up to $ 62 a week after the attacks, thanks to the recovery of Saudi production and absorption of market shock caused by the attacks.
What is certain about the attacks, however, is that their motives and repercussions clearly go beyond the limits of the war in Yemen - regardless of the extent of Houthi involvement - and are more closely linked to the wider confrontation between Iran and the United States, and between them and Saudi Arabia, and if the US intelligence assessment on the The attack was launched from the Iranian Ahwazi base and authorized by the Supreme Leader on condition that Tehran's fingerprints be concealed. This would be the first direct attack by Iran directly against its Saudi adversary, an irreplaceable sign that Tehran has decided to bypass some Previous red lines in strategy Its deterrence by starting to target its opponents directly, defying the vital and direct economic interests of Saudi Arabia, and testing the strength of its anti-coalition alliance by questioning Washington's commitment to the security of its Gulf Arab allies.
Breaking the deadlock strategy
The latest wave of US-Iranian tensions has already erupted from the moment the Trump administration formally withdrew from the nuclear deal with Iran in May last year, but these tensions have reached an unprecedented level of heat over the past four months since Washington proved It is serious about implementing the "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran, which was essentially aimed at undermining the Islamic Republic through a diverse and multilayered sanctions regime.
Tehran's resilience and resilience proved a big mistake for the White House that massive sanctions would eventually force the mullahs' regime to bow to its demands.
On the face of it, US sanctions have borne fruit and caused enormous economic pain to the Iranian regime with inflation levels at 50%, a total freeze on foreign investment, and Iranian oil exports falling below 200,000 bpd compared to 2.5 million before the sanctions. The Iranian government has not been broken under economic coercion, succeeding in preventing widespread public unrest, while the Central Bank of Iran has managed to stabilize the currency rate. In parallel, Tehran has activated the policy of back doors it has mastered for decades and revived the networks of recklessness. B is illegal to export as many as oil and compensate for the shortage of vital products due to sanctions.
Tehran's resilience and resilience have proved a mistake for the White House's big bet that massive sanctions will eventually force the mullahs' regime to bow to its demands for a new, more comprehensive deal that limits Iran's regional ambitions and nuclear and missile activities, but Iran has realized that it cannot afford sanctions as a new reality. Enduring indefinitely, especially with the failure of other partners in the nuclear deal to fulfill their obligations under the agreement and provide alternative channels for Iran to export oil and save the country's faltering economy.
As a result, after a year of strategic patience since Washington withdrew from the nuclear deal, Tehran suddenly decided to throw a stone in stagnant waters and change the equation of conflict based on US escalation in the face of Iranian adaptation. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz to the movement of tankers, in an attempt to arouse the interest of vital oil importers in Europe and Asia, especially as these threats coincided with the discovery of Iran various types of anti-ship missiles and the launch of a number of military exercises that focused on the Navy Revolutionary.
By May, Tehran decided for the first time to move into action, with a mysterious sabotage operation targeting four oil tankers near the UAE's Fujairah port, before the Houthis in Yemen in the same month targeted the vital East-West oil pipeline in Saudi Arabia. Iran has been keen to implement these interventions in a way that obscures its fingerprints aimed at sending a serious message about its intentions and exploring the limits of the global reaction to its new policy, but without risking a wider conflict with Washington and the West.
Later, Iran moved to the second phase of its escalation plan, gradually abandoning some of its obligations under the nuclear deal, and began to seize foreign oil tankers under the pretext of crossing the sea border and penetrating Iranian waters, before Tehran chose to escalate the conflict to a new level by dropping a plane. A US drone in June, a move that almost pushed Washington to launch a punitive military strike against the Islamic Republic, had it not been for Trump's intervention and his cancellation of the US military response just a few hours ahead of schedule.
This American reluctance to confront Iran's new policies has been met with great satisfaction by Tehran's decision-makers, in part proving their bet that Washington will be reluctant to engage in a military confrontation with Iran at the moment, but at the same time that Tehran's current measures have not It was enough to serve its goal of creating panic in the industrialized world about the dangers of cutting oil supplies to the point where Europe and Asia could press Washington to ease sanctions. In other words, Iran realized that it did not live in the 1980s, when tanker war caused oil prices to push up the world. I realized that moving water into the atmosphere of the late 2000s requires a bigger stone.
Although Riyadh has managed to overcome the immediate effects of the attack faster than expected, the memory of the attack will remain present, and the possibility of another similar attack by Tehran cannot be ruled out.
This meant that Tehran should take another step in its strategy that could have a real impact on the flow of oil and its prices. Given Saudi Arabia's central position in the global oil supply chain, reducing the kingdom's production and exports was the best way to show how vulnerable global oil supplies are to Iranian retaliation. And send a message to the United States and its allies that although they can inflict pain on Tehran economically, they will not be able to remain safe while Iran alone suffers.
The Iranian strike on Saudi refineries was vital and carefully studied at several levels. As George Friedman, a prominent strategist, emphasizes, Tehran has not only proved, as it has proved before, that the Saudi oil industry is vulnerable to blows by itself and its allies, but has succeeded in inflicting Real damages have significantly reduced, albeit temporarily, Saudi oil production and triggered some panic in the pipeline markets and succeeded in influencing prices.Although Riyadh has managed to overcome the immediate effects of the attack faster than expected, the memory of the attack will remain present, and the possibility cannot be ruled out. Tehran would launch another attack Similar or more serious t imposes greater costs on Saudi Arabia.
At the same time, the Iranian offensive was a clear reminder to the Gulf states about the changing and volatile nature of their alliance with America, and while Washington had previously had a real and direct interest in protecting oil flows from the Middle East, it continues to shrink day by day thanks to This is also an implicit message to Washington's other allies in Europe and Asia about the fragility of America's commitment to the Middle East at a time when Washington is able to take risks that its allies today cannot afford, in other words, Saying that Iran was designed (7) strategy for the division of US alliances around the issue of oil.
As for Saudi Arabia in particular, the Iranian attacks were designed to send a message (8) reminding them of the fact that they are the most vulnerable and fragile link in the system of US alliances in the Middle East, and that the United States, the real guarantor of the kingdom's security, has long been committed to policies of non-intervention. In the region, it is Riyadh that will pay the bulk of the US anti-Iranian policy tax, and even if America chooses to respond to Tehran militarily, it is still hard to imagine how it could target Iran without risking further Iranian attacks on Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia targeting than in essence targeting just to try to hit the alliance between Washington and Riyadh in particular through the recent reminder of the large and growing gap in the interests of the vast variation in the side effects of the conflict between them and the US ally bill.
Saudi weaker link
On the other hand, the problem from Riyadh's point of view is not the direct effects of the attack that can be absorbed (9) anyway, but the dilemma is that there is no guarantee that this will be the last attack of its kind and that the Kingdom will not soon be exposed to similar attacks and perhaps The attacks on Abqaiq and Khurais have caused a radical change in Saudi Arabia's calculations on Iran, while the Kingdom has adapted to Houthis in Yemen launching low- to medium-level attacks across the kingdom's southern border years ago. , Iran's willingness to strike Saudi oil production A direct form of forced Riyadh to pay attention to the possibility of exposure to attacks on other fronts, particularly in the case of sanctions against Iran continued.
In this regard, the great challenge facing the Kingdom remains to try to protect a large number of crucial targets scattered randomly throughout the vast territory of the country, and apparently unfortunately Saudi Arabia, it realized late that the quality of weapons that spent billions of dollars of defense budgets annually to buy 2019, including the $ 51 billion allocated for military spending in 2019, will simply not be able to protect Saudi infrastructure from potential Iranian strikes.
Recognizing its weakness in conventional military capabilities compared to the United States and its allies, Tehran has focused on strengthening its asymmetric warfare capabilities that give it an edge in conflicts with its armed adversaries, including armed drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles, weapons that enable Tehran is taking advantage of its vital location near the Strait of Hormuz and its proximity to the vital infrastructure of its regional rivals in order to impose high costs on conflicts on its adversaries, for example Iranian missiles have access to all major oil facilities in the region. Kingdom and other vital installations located on the Arabian Gulf or near it.
In the face of this potential threat, Saudi Arabia has built a theoretically strong air defense force of 50,000 people, equipped with sophisticated US air defense systems, led by the Patriot system, which is the mainstay of the Saudi air defense system, where Saudi Arabia has six Patriot systems capable of launching 200 bombers Riyadh almost constantly modernized the system and acquired the Patriot "PAC-3" in July 2015, a few weeks after it began its intervention in Yemen, while the US manufacturer Raytheon confirmed that the system had successfully intercepted more than 100 ballistic missiles. Coming from Yemen from Daye war in 2015, the Patriot missiles failed in many cases to intercept targets either because of poor Saudis operators experience or because of system crashes or saturation due to the large number of shells fired at the same time beyond the capabilities of defense batteries.
Complicating the seriousness of the problem is that other defense systems, notably the Thad missile defense system produced by Lockheed Martin, also contracted by the Kingdom, are largely designed to intercept high-altitude ballistic missiles. Low-flying targets such as drones loaded with explosives and cruise missiles used in this month's attacks are all the more complicated for Riyadh with the vast geographical area that Saudi air defenses have to protect. Saudi air defense systems intended to repel attacks coming from Yemen, recent developments have shown that there are other fronts are equally important and critical targets multiple should Riad protection.
This critical target bank covers all oil installations in the Kingdom, including pipelines, oil storage depots, refineries, export facilities and central processing facilities, such as Abqaiq and Khurais, which stabilize oil by removing volatile hydrogen sulfide gas for preparation and export. Abqaiq and Khurais facilities are considered one of the most important oil processing facilities in the Kingdom. Abqaiq alone processes about 4.9 million barrels per day of crude oil coming from two of the most important Saudi oil fields, Ghawar and Shiba. Khurais facility handles about 800 thousand barrels per day coming from Khurais oil field Smaller fields, before the capacity of the two facilities was temporarily reduced by Iranian attacks.
| (Reuters) |
But Abqaiq and Khurais are not the only facilities exposed to Iranian attacks.According to Stratfor, the famous US intelligence center, most Saudi central processing facilities near the Persian Gulf are within range of Iran's missiles, processing oil from the country's offshore fields, primarily the Safaniya facility. It handles oil extracted from the Safaniyah offshore field, the largest field in the world with a production capacity of 1.3 million barrels per day, while Manifa plant handles 900 thousand barrels per day of oil extracted from the Manifa field, and Qatif plant processed crude oil produced The Qatif and Abu Sa'fa fields, while Tanajeb facility processes oil from the Marjan Maritime field, all vital facilities that could cause severe damage to the Saudi economy.
Apart from processing facilities, Iran could also harm Saudi Arabia by targeting the most important oil export terminals in the kingdom. The list of the most attractive stations for Iranian targeting include the ports of Ras Tanura and Ras al-Jaimeh in the coastal city of Ras Tanura, which have a total export capacity of 6.5 million barrels. يوميا، بخلاف محطة التصدير الرئيسة في المملكة في ينبع على شاطئ البحر الأحمر والقادرة على استقبال قرابة 5 ملايين برميل يوميا من النفط الخام القادم من شرق المملكة إلى موانئ البحر الأحمر، أما عن قائمة المصافي الأكثر عُرضة للاستهداف فتشمل مصفاة "أرامكو" و It has a capacity of 550,000 barrels per day, and the joint refinery "Aramco", a refinery with a total capacity of 400 thousand barrels per day located in "Jubail", in addition to another refinery in Jubail also has a capacity of 310 thousand barrels per day.
Even outside the oil sector, Iran could damage Saudi Arabia by striking several vitally insecure infrastructure targets, led by 31 desalination plants responsible for providing more than half of the nation's potable water, as well as major ports such as Dammam's King Abdul Aziz Port. And King Fahd Industrial Port in Jubail to airports where the Houthis have previously targeted airports in the south of the kingdom, although Iran is likely to avoid such attacks because of the possibility of significant loss of life.
This broad list of targets puts extensive pressure on Saudi policymakers to calibrate their responses to the Iranian attacks, and could also explain Saudi Arabia's reluctance to assert that attacks on oil facilities were launched from Iranian territory because such a declaration would force Saudi Arabia to respond directly within At least Iranian face-saving territory, a move that the kingdom does not seem willing to take on its own, with the certainty that its ability to inflict real damage on Iran is diminished by Tehran's ability to damage its vital interests, so Riyadh seems to have chosen, at least temporarily, the safest route And Q. Saudi Arabia has absorbed the effects of the strike on its economy and on the international oil markets by compensating for lost exports from Saudi processed oil stocks, where the Kingdom maintains about 188 million barrels of stocks to enable it to maintain the same level of exports for at least 71 full days assuming the entire production capacity lost Because of the attacks, which amounted to 5.7 million barrels per day as we have already mentioned, will remain out of service throughout this period.
But the problem with this Saudi strategy is that it fails to address the long-term damage caused by the attack, and the damage to the reputation of the Kingdom to investors as a country unable to protect its vital infrastructure, and at the top of these damages, which hit the Kingdom's plans to launch the IPO "Saudi Arabia, which was supposed to start in November, is likely in the light of the attack that the Kingdom will postpone the offer until the repair of its entire damaged infrastructure, but even after repairing the physical damage, the negative repercussions of the attacks on the reputation of the company will Over, as investors remain nervous about (12) the likelihood of additional attacks could disrupt oil supplies from the company, which will make investment in Aramco's a big risk in a volatile environment and may reduce the value of the company's shares during the IPO significantly.
Otherwise, current Saudi policy fails to take into account the reasons for the crisis in the first place. As long as sanctions continue to prevent Iran from exporting its oil, as long as Saudi Arabia is unable to protect its vital facilities, and as long as the United States refuses to intervene, it will remain a specter. In light of this, the only available bet for Saudi Arabia is to wait until the Iranian escalation policy reaches a level that Washington cannot ignore and makes it obliged to respond, especially since the recent attacks proved that the imports of crude from the Middle East still affect (13). Markets Despite the rise in US domestic production as we mentioned, the WTI, US oil, Brent crude continued to rise after the attacks, and this fact highlights that the US economy is still vulnerable to the effects of instability in the Middle East regardless of whether Washington is consuming energy from the region or not.
The American Dilemma
To the extent that Iranian attacks pose a dilemma for Saudi Arabia, they pose an equally complex dilemma for the United States, as it poses increasing challenges to its commitment to reduce its involvement in Middle East conflicts and to concentrate its political, military, and economic resources to strengthen its competitive position in major power struggles in Europe, Asia, and around the oceans and vital waterways. With every new attack by Tehran in the Gulf, there is renewed debate at home between the camp calling for a reduction of US presence in the region and the hawks of the Middle East on Capitol Hill who believe that America cannot. Abandoning its historic commitment to the security of the region, and of Saudi Arabia in particular.
This commitment dates back to World War II when US President Franklin Roosevelt acknowledged that defending Saudi Arabia and its oil supplies was a defense of his own country, a commitment that President Harry Truman reaffirmed several years later, but Washington has not effectively undertaken the task of protecting Gulf energy supplies. Until the early 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war, President Jimmy Carter endorsed his doctrine 14 that the United States would protect the Persian Gulf region and its oil reserves and intervene militarily to do so if necessary.
From the point of view of American policymakers, this commitment was more than logical at the time when their country alone imported about 2 million barrels of Gulf oil in 1980. Washington's allies in Europe and Japan were heavily dependent on the flow of oil from Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Logically, even a decade later, in the early 1990s, when half a million troops were sent to protect Saudi Arabia and liberate Kuwait after the Iraqi invasion.
The main problem for the US administration lies in the perceived vibration of its image due to the successive Iranian attacks and the increasing erosion of the reputation of American deterrence in the region.
But things are changing (15) from the point of view of many in Washington after the domestic boom in oil production, and America today imports less than one million barrels of oil from the Middle East, less than half the amount it imported when Carter announced his commitment to the Gulf, and even Europe It is becoming more and more dependent on Russian and US oil, with three out of every four barrels of Gulf oil going to Asia, where it is consumed in China, India, Japan and South Korea, raising broad questions about the viability of sustaining a four-decade commitment to protecting oil in the region. Gulf.
In fact, some may argue that America may be directly benefiting from the tensions in the Gulf, as high oil prices, while marginally hurting American consumers, are reviving the US oil industry and helping its development, giving Washington an added temptation to turn a blind eye to moves. But the main problem for the US administration is the perceived shake-up of its image by successive Iranian attacks and the growing erosion of the US deterrent's reputation in the region, a trend that could shake confidence in Washington's ability to protect its allies and possibly cause the regional alliance to collapse. Which it leads to confront Iran.
The US seems to have very limited options for confronting Iran at the present time, including the imposition of more sanctions, but the main problem with this option is that it has already exhausted most of the sanctions that could cause real pain to the Iranian economy. The additional impact of any new sanctions would be very limited compared to previous ones, and the sanctions would not have the psychological impact of military strikes and would not solve the problem of a decline in US deterrence.
An alternative American response would be to launch a military strike against some Iranian military targets, especially drones, cruise missiles and storage facilities for these weapons. But this option has its share of problems as well. On the one hand, a successful strike requires accurate intelligence about the Iranian interior. On the other hand, the likely remote strike by aerial bombardment and tomahawk missiles is unlikely to be strong enough to cripple Iran's response, and it would not be unlikely that Iran and its agents would launch more violent attacks against Saudi Arabia or target ships. Disrupting the passage in the Strait of Hormuz and possibly targeting US forces and facilities in the region will force Washington to consider a stronger and more effective response that could have far-reaching consequences.
This response is unlikely to be anything but a long-term air campaign targeting Iranian military facilities and capabilities, but this campaign will not prevent Tehran from flooding Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states and the rest of the region with devastating rain of missiles for weeks or even months, and Washington will only have to negotiate. A tacit acknowledgment of defeat, or a push for a ground invasion of regime change and occupation of Iran, could turn the invasion of Iraq itself into a military outing when compared to the expected costs and consequences of an Iranian-American ground war.
The Trump administration is aware of the dimensions of this seemingly self-destructive circle of options, so it is reluctant to prejudice what is wrong with it, especially on the threshold of the crucial election year in 2020. As a result, the administration was keen to throw the ball in the Saudi court to decide for itself how to respond, as it was Unlike the impossible option of a US-led war of eradication against the Iranian regime, Saudi Arabia could not have imagined a scenario in which Saudi Arabia would not be the biggest loser, especially if the United States chose to take a punitive military strike against Iran. to For Iranian retaliation.
Iran clearly understood these facts and calibrated them well before taking its steps, and realized that the key to its superiority lies primarily in the fact that while Tehran has all the possible motives to move forward and change the current stalemate of the conflict, even by escalating it to a hotter point, its opponents have all Possible motives for reluctance to maintain the status quo, a bet that will remain successful as long as Iran is negotiating with missiles while its opponents are negotiating with declarations, but it is a risky bet as no one can predict how events in the region will proceed at the moment the first US ship launches or Shells Tomahawk towards Iranian territory.