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Winners and losers from Saudi Aramco’s travails

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | September 16, 2019

The US President Donald Trump’s tweet Sunday regarding the attack on two Saudi Aramco plants says as follows:

“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!”

It’s a cleverly-worded tweet with multiple audiences in view. Trump took time to react. And he’s stopped short of blaming Iran. The US lacks hard evidence. Therefore, “verification” is needed and it is Riyadh’s call to estimate “the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed.”

Trump boasted that the US is “locked and loaded” to go to Saudi Arabia’s aid. Yet, only the previous day, when Trump telephoned Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the latter had “underscored the Kingdom’s willingness and strength to thwart such a terrorist aggression and deal with its consequences.”

In fact, this has become the Saudi refrain — that it is within Saudi capability to handle the crisis. During a phone call from UAE Crown Prince condemning the drone attacks, MbS stressed that “the Kingdom has the ability to confront and deal with this terrorist aggression.” King Salman also told the Emir of Kuwait that “the Kingdom has the ability to confront such terrorist attack and deal with its fallout.”

None of the regional states — Egypt, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, Turkey, etc. — or any foreign power has blamed Iran for staging the drone attacks on the Saudi Aramco plants. That leaves US states secretary Mike Pompeo as the solitary exception.

Interestingly, MbS received the Russian ambassador Sergei Kozlov for a one-on-one Sunday. No details have been divulged; the Saudi readout merely said, but highlighted that “a number of issues of mutual concern to the two friendly countries were discussed.”

Of course, the Russian interest lies in de-escalating regional tensions and Moscow and Tehran are in close touch. President Vladimir Putin is scheduled to meet Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani later today on the sidelines of the trilateral summit in Turkey of the Astana troika. Putin is also due to visit Saudi Arabia in October.

However, it is improbable that Saudis would want US to get involved. The trust deficit is palpable. (The Trump administration has decided to reveal the identity of the Saudi official who allegedly helped the 9/11 terrorists.)

The Saudi confidence in the US’ grit and commitment to stand by Saudi Arabia’s defence when the crunch time comes is shaky. Riyadh’s clout in the Washington Beltway has significantly diminished, especially after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. The mood in the US Congress is hostile.

Again, there are highly sensitive aspects, which Riyadh would want to handle by itself. The Houthis claim to have had “intelligence and cooperation” from within Saudi Arabia for staging the drone attacks. If so, Houthis have contacts inside Saudi Arabia’s eastern province where the Shi’ite majority is agitating for empowerment and autonomy.

Riyadh will want to dig deep, but by itself without the CIA holding searchlights — since this ultimately concerns the Kingdom’s internal security and unity and the destiny of the royal family.

Saturday’s attacks have shown that Saudi defence is highly vulnerable. Any escalation by the US may lead to military confrontation with Iran and is fraught with the grave danger of the destruction of the Kingdom.

The UAE (and other GCC states) would also be averse to any further escalation. In the recent weeks, both Saudi Arabia and the UAE have made overtures toward Iran aimed tamping down tensions.

Yet another wrinkle is that differences have appeared between the Saudis and Emiratis over Yemen, with the latter projecting power in southern Yemen through proxy militia groups, undercutting the government headed by Mansur Hadi (whom Riyadh mentors.)

Over and above, Aramco’s IPO now hangs by a thread — and the Saudi Crown Prince’s Vision 300 programme to restructure the country’s economy and initiate much-needed reforms loses traction.

Saturday’s events have shown that the roof will come down on the world economy if any regional conflagration erupts leading to destruction of the petrodollar states. Brent Crude jumped 20% higher Sunday night.

If the Saudi outage could last for months, as seems likely, expect the Brent onslaught to continue until the price hits $80, and keeps moving higher. Suffice to say, Iran’s threat that it won’t be the only loser in a military confrontation with the US must be taken very seriously. The IRGC has reiterated this on Sunday.

In sum, the US has run out of options on Iran. If the intention behind Trump’s tweet is to unnerve Tehran and compel it to agree to a meeting between him and Rouhani in New York, that is sheer naivety. Nonetheless, the chances are there that a Trump-Rouhani meeting is likely.

Tehran never misses an opportunity to highlight that: a) it can be a factor of stability in the Persian Gulf; and, b) regional security is best handled by the regional states exclusively, through dialogue.

Rouhani’s first detailed remarks Sunday on these lines are significant. Some sort of contacts between and amongst Saudi Arabia and the UAE and Iran cannot be ruled out.

The bottom line is that the Saudis and Emiratis egged on Trump to take to the path of ‘maximum pressure’ against Iran, but as they look down the abyss today, they don’t like what they’re seeing.    

The Houthis have been behind a number of assaults on Saudi pipelines, vessels and other energy infrastructure. A Houthi spokesperson explained, “We promise the Saudi regime that our future operations will expand and be more painful as long as its aggression and siege continue.” The focus should be on winding down the war in Yemen, where it becomes crucial for Riyadh and Abu Dhabi to engage with Tehran.

September 16, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

World sleepwalking into total nuclear war as callous elites fear no bloodshed – Russian scholar

RT | September 16, 2019

Limiting nuclear arsenals doesn’t make the world safer – not while the elites, who have never seen a big war, complacently believe they never will. This dangerous illusion invites apocalyptic conflict, a renowned scholar believes.

Humankind’s history might be a history of wars, but for several decades there was a sort of lull, with no really big armed conflict affecting leading world powers. That is, in part, thanks to nuclear weapons. Fear of their power kept the Cold War from becoming a hot one and restricted the actual fighting to proxy conflicts.

And that, in turn, has led to a situation where many of those currently in power don’t take the threat of war with the gravity it deserves, says Sergey Karaganov, a researcher of international relations and a dean at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics.

Complacency breeds danger

“The previous generations had a gut fear of war because their fathers or they themselves experienced World War II. But modern generations think of war very lightly,” he told RT.

This attitude is a major reason why the world now is in fact a more dangerous place than it was at the height of the US-Soviet confrontation, he believes. Some powers believe they are entitled to live in peace and cannot imagine that a smaller conflict elsewhere may escalate into a nuclear Armageddon. Meanwhile old mechanisms meant to prevent such a disaster are rapidly deteriorating, he said.

This year Washington scrapped one of the key Cold War agreements restricting nuclear weapons – the INF Treaty – and indicated that another one – New START – would not be extended beyond 2021. The US changed its nuclear posture and now doesn’t rule out responding with nukes to a cyberattack. The Pentagon’s generals want a larger toolbox of smaller nuclear weapons and are weighing up options on how to use them in regular conflicts.

These days, it’s more complicated than just nukes

That said, those old mechanisms are also failing for purely technological reasons. In the 1970s there was a reasonably clear distinction between strategic weapons and everything else, so ensuring parity was relatively simple. Basically the US and the USSR settled on numbers of missiles, long-range bombers, submarines and warheads they were comfortable with and agreed ways to verify that each party sticks to the limits.

“There are people in our country, as well as in other countries, who are stressing that we should go as we have been going in the 1960s and the ‘70s and the ‘80s. I must say I am very skeptical, because even in the ‘70s and the ‘80s we were basing our analysis on the very, very strange presumption of what was called parity,” Karaganov says.

But the distinction between “nuclear and non-nuclear, conventional and non-conventional” is blurred today. How does one take into the equation, for example, a conventional precision missile that can be fired across the border and take out the other nation’s military headquarters? Or a satellite that can blind an ICBM early warning spacecraft? Or a hypersonic glider? Or a computer virus that can shut down the power grid?

“Now strategic parity is almost impossible to count.”

Stop trying to limit nukes – change the thinking

Karaganov recently co-authored a report on this persistent danger. He admits it doesn’t have all the right answers, but offers some ideas where to begin – and philosophy is at least as important as politics or technicalities.

For example, nations should acknowledge that geopolitical rivalry was not an aberration of the ideologically-divided past but rather a natural order of things. Strong players have great appetites and will use any means to impose their will on weaker ones. Unfair, but such is life.

The next step would be to embrace a new multilateral deterrence arrangement that would include additional players, first and foremost China, and somehow incorporate non-nuclear things like cyber weapons into the calculation.

“The aim of the strategic policy of all responsible nuclear powers should not be doing away or even reducing their nuclear weapons, but strengthening mutual deterrence, and that is a completely different philosophy,” Karaganov suggests.

Essentially, he and his colleagues suggest ditching the old idea of nuclear stability – achieved through the reduction and capping of the two largest superpowers’ arsenals. Instead, any new treaties should focus on transparency – as well as developing protocols to wind down a nuclear conflict once it does start, which is much more likely to happen by accident than by intention.

The result may be somewhat of a Mexican standoff, but the alternative is far more dangerous, the scholars argue. An armed conflict involving nuclear-capable powers has the potential to spiral out of control, with sides trading increasingly serious blows and hoping the other one will chicken out.

A few decades ago the fear of nuclear weapons put a reasonably low cap on such games of nerves, but it is no longer the case and the risks are rising by the year. The solution would be for the great powers to put de-escalation as the paramount goal whenever a clash brews and treat any potential war between them as a doomsday in the making.

September 16, 2019 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , | 1 Comment

Prematurely assigning blame for attack on Saudi oil facilities is irresponsible, says China

RT | September 16, 2019

Beijing has warned that it would be irresponsible to guess who is the culprit behind the attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities without conducting a proper investigation. The US had immediately blamed Iran for the operation.

“Pondering who is to blame in the absence of a conclusive investigation, I think, is in itself not very responsible. China’s position is that we oppose any moves that expand or intensify conflict,” Hua said on Monday during a press briefing.

She implored all parties concerned to “restrain themselves” in order to “safeguard peace and stability” in the Middle East.

Washington wasted little time in pointing the finger at Iran. In an ominous tweet, President Donald Trump said on Sunday that his country’s military was “locked and loaded” for a potential response to the attack. Tehran has denied any involvement in the incident, accusing the Trump administration of trying to tarnish the Islamic Republic’s image in order to justify “future actions” against the country.

Contradicting the US narrative, Houthi rebels in Yemen have already admitted responsibility for the attack. The group said they used 10 armed drones to hit two Aramco oil refineries on Saturday. The attacks caused massive fires and other damage to the sites, halving Saudi Arabia’s oil output.

In a statement, the Houthis said that Aramco facilities remained a target and could be attacked again at “any moment.”

September 16, 2019 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | 2 Comments

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