by Pepe Escobar – posted with permission
The Yemeni Shiite group’s spectacular attack on Abqaiq raises the distinct possibility of a push to drive the House of Saud from power
A Yemeni Shiite man holds his weapon and a flag with an Arabic inscription reading ‘Disgrace is far from us,’ as he takes part in a religious procession held by Houthi rebels to mark the first day of Ashura. Photo: Hani Al-Ansi/dpa
We are the Houthis and we’re coming to town. With the spectacular attack on Abqaiq, Yemen’s Houthis have overturned the geopolitical chessboard in Southwest Asia – going as far as introducing a whole new dimension: the distinct possibility of investing in a push to drive the House of Saud out of power.
Blowback is a bitch. Houthis – Zaidi Shiites from northern Yemen – and Wahhabis have been at each other’s throats for ages. This book is absolutely essential to understand the mind-boggling complexity of Houthi tribes; as a bonus, it places the turmoil in southern Arabian lands way beyond a mere Iran-Saudi proxy war.
Still, it’s always important to consider that Arab Shiites in the Eastern province – working in Saudi oil installations – have got to be natural allies of the Houthis fighting against Riyadh.
Houthi striking capability – from drone swarms to ballistic missile attacks – has been improving remarkably for the past year or so. It’s not by accident that the UAE saw which way the geopolitical and geoeconomic winds were blowing: Abu Dhabi withdrew from Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s vicious war against Yemen and now is engaged in what it describes as a “peace-
Even before Abqaiq, the Houthis had already engineered quite a few attacks against Saudi oil installations as well as Dubai and Abu Dhabi airports. In early July, Yemen’s Operations Command Center staged an exhibition in full regalia in Sana’a featuring their whole range of ballistic and winged missiles and drones.
The situation has now reached a point where there’s plenty of chatter across the Persian Gulf about a spectacular scenario: the Houthis investing in a mad dash across the Arabian desert to capture Mecca and Medina in conjunction with a mass Shiite uprising in the Eastern oil belt. That’s not far-fetched anymore. Stranger things have happened in the Middle East. After all, the Saudis can’t even win a bar brawl – that’s why they rely on mercenaries.
Orientalism strikes again
The US intel refrain that the Houthis are incapable of such a sophisticated attack betrays the worst strands of orientalism and white man’s burden/superiority complex.
The only missile parts shown by the Saudis so far come from a Yemeni Quds 1 cruise missile. According to Brigadier General Yahya Saree, spokesman for the Sana’a-based Yemeni Armed Forces, “the Quds system proved its great ability to hit its targets and to bypass enemy interceptor systems.”
Houthi armed forces duly claimed responsibility for Abqaiq: “This operation is one of the largest operations carried out by our forces in the depth of Saudi Arabia, and came after an accurate intelligence operation and advance monitoring and cooperation of honorable and free men within the Kingdom.”
Notice the key concept: “cooperation” from inside Saudi Arabia – which could include the whole spectrum from Yemenis to that Eastern province Shiites.
Even more relevant is the fact that massive American hardware deployed in Saudi Arabia inside out and outside in – satellites, AWACS, Patriot missiles, drones, battleships, jet fighters – didn’t see a thing, or certainly not in time. The sighting of three “loitering” drones by a Kuwaiti bird hunter arguably heading towards Saudi Arabia is being invoked as “evidence”. Cue to the embarrassing picture of a drone swarm – wherever it came from – flying undisturbed for hours over Saudi territory.
UN officials openly admit that now everything that matters is within the 1,500 km range of the Houthis’ new UAV-X drone: oil fields in Saudi Arabia, a still-under-construction nuclear power plant in the Emirates and Dubai’s mega-airport.
My conversations with sources in Tehran over the past two years have ascertained that the Houthis’ new drones and missiles are essentially copies of Iranian designs assembled in Yemen itself with crucial help from Hezbollah engineers.
US intel insists that 17 drones and cruise missiles were launched in combination from southern Iran. In theory, Patriot radar would have picked that up and knocked the drones/missiles from the sky. So far, absolutely no record of this trajectory has been revealed. Military experts generally agree that the radar on the Patriot missile is good, but its
For now, it appears that the winner of the US/UK-supported House of One Saudi war on the civilian Yemeni population, which started in March 2015 and generated a humanitarian crisis the UN regards as having been of biblical proportions, is certainly not the crown prince, widely known as MBS.
Listen to the general
Crude oil stabilization towers – several of them – at Abqaiq were specifically targeted, along with natural gas storage tanks. Persian Gulf energy sources have been telling me repairs and/or rebuilding could last months. Even Riyadh admitted as much.
Blindly blaming Iran, with no evidence, does not cut it. Tehran can count on swarms of top strategic thinkers. They do not need or want to blow up Southwest Asia, which is something they could do, by the way: Revolutionary Guards generals have already said many times on the record that they are ready for war.
Professor Mohammad Marandi from the University of Tehran, who has very close relations with the Foreign Ministry, is adamant: “It didn’t come from Iran. If it did, it would be very embarrassing for the Americans, showing they are unable to detect a large number of Iranian drones and missiles. That doesn’t make sense.”
Marandi additionally stresses, “Saudi air defenses are not equipped to defend the country from Yemen but from Iran. The Yemenis have been striking against the Saudis, they are getting better and better, developing drone and missile technology for four and a half years, and this was a very soft target.”
A soft – and unprotected – target: the US PAC-2 and PAC-3 systems in place are all oriented towards the east, in the direction of Iran. Neither Washington nor Riyadh knows for sure where the drone swarm/missiles really came from.
Readers should pay close attention to this groundbreaking interview with General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force. The interview, in Farsi (with English subtitles), was conducted by US-sanctioned Iranian intellectual Nader Talebzadeh and includes questions forwarded by my US analyst friends Phil Giraldi and Michael Maloof and myself.
Explaining Iranian self-sufficiency in its defense capabilities, Hajizadeh sounds like a very rational actor. The bottom line: “Our view is that neither American politicians nor our officials want a war. If an incident like the one with the drone [the RQ-4N shot down by Iran in June] happens or a misunderstanding happens, and that develops into a larger war, that’s a different matter. Therefore we are always ready for a big war.”
In response to one of my questions, on what message the Revolutionary Guards want to convey, especially to the US, Hajizadeh does not mince his words: “In addition to the US bases in various regions like Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Emirates and Qatar, we have targeted all naval vessels up to a distance of 2,000 kilometers and we are constantly monitoring them. They think that if they go to a distance of 400 km, they are out of our firing range. Wherever they are, it only takes one spark, we hit their vessels, their airbases, their troops.”
Get your S-400s or else
On the energy front, Tehran has been playing a very precise game under pressure – selling loads of oil by turning off the transponders of their tankers as they leave Iran and transferring the oil at sea, tanker to tanker, at night, and relabeling their cargo as originating at other producers for a price. I have been checking this for weeks with my trusted Persian Gulf traders – and they all confirm it. Iran could go on doing it forever.
Of course, the Trump administration knows it. But the fact is they are looking the other way. To state it as concisely as possible: they are caught in a trap by the absolute folly of ditching the JCPOA, and they are looking for a face-saving way out. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned the administration in so many words: the US should return to the agreement it reneged on before it’s too late.
And now for the really hair-raising part.
The strike at Abqaiq shows that the entire Middle East production of over 18 million barrels of oil a day – including Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia – can be easily knocked out. There is zero adequate defense against these drones and missiles.
Well, there’s always Russia.
Here’s what happened at the press conference after the Ankara summit this week on Syria, uniting Presidents Putin, Rouhani and Erdogan.
Question: Will Russia provide Saudi Arabia with any help or support in restoring its infrastructure?
President Putin: As for assisting Saudi Arabia, it is also written in the Quran that violence of any kind is illegitimate except when protecting one’s people. In order to protect them and the country, we are ready to provide the necessary assistance to Saudi Arabia. All the political leaders of Saudi Arabia have to do is take a wise decision, as Iran did by buying the S-300 missile system, and as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan did when he bought Russia’s latest S-400 Triumph anti-aircraft system. They would offer reliable protection for any Saudi infrastructure facilities.
President Hassan Rouhani: So do they need to buy the S-300 or the S-400?
President Vladimir Putin: It is up to them to decide [laughs].
In The Transformation of War, Martin van Creveld actually predicted that the whole industrial-military-security complex would come crumbling down when it was exposed that most of its weapons are useless against fourth-generation asymmetrical opponents. There’s no question the whole Global South is watching – and will have gotten the message.
Hybrid war, reloaded
Now we are entering a whole new dimension in asymmetric hybrid war.
In the – horrendous – event that Washington would decide to attack Iran, egged on by the usual neocon suspects, the Pentagon could never hope to hit and disable all the Iranian and/or Yemeni drones. The US could expect, for sure, all-out war. And then no ships would sail through the Strait of Hormuz. We all know the consequences of that.
Which brings us to The Big Surprise. The real reason there would be no ships traversing the Strait of Hormuz is that there would be no oil in the Gulf left to pump. The oil fields, having been bombed, would be burning.
So we’re back to the realistic bottom line, which has been stressed by not only Moscow and Beijing but also Paris and Berlin: US President Donald Trump gambled big time, and he lost. Now he must find a face-saving way out. If the War Party allows it.
It appears as if the nuclear armed state of Israel got left out of this analysis. Obviously an accidental oversight, but perhaps some sort of consideration of their involvement – past or future – could be slipped in as a footnote or addendum…….
True, any analysis of conflict with Iran is incomplete without mention of Israel.
Iran’s deterrence doctrine must obviously include Hezbollah launching full scale attack on Israel should any western nation attack Iran. This would trigger nuclear response from Israel.
Mutual Assured Destruction – The doctrine which kept the cold war, cold between USA and Russia for so long.
The flaw in this doctrine – One day cooler heads will not prevail.
One day the Samson Option and the Masada Complex will co-join in the fevered mind of a deranged psychopath-enter Bibi the Zealot.
What is the Samson option and the Masada complex?
Mulga
You are smater than that to support the Jewish mafia members. Wake up.
Please stop trolling this post with your unsubstantiated remarks. Any further will go to trash. Mod.
Yeah! See what you did, VK?! Cursed the place! look at this silly person!
Off your meds are you, sham?
Karl Brantz
You made a good point, bearing in mind Israel control the neocons in the US. Israel won’t easily give up on Iran and it’s intended subjugation, which is next to impossible.
As for that Houthi attack against Saudi oil facilities, this was a gigantic humiliation for the US Military Industrial Complex. Saudi Arabia spends 62 billion dollars a year on defense, procuring most of it’s needs from the US. This includes the Patriot Missile System, which failed to detect the incoming drones fired from Yemen. The efficiency of the Patriot System is highly questionable, bearing in mind that some years back Israel fired three Patriot missiles against one drone, and all three missed (one Israeli general even stated that the efficiency of the Patriot is a mere 2 %). On the other hand ISIS has fired drones against the Russian Air Force base in Syria, and every drone was shot down. In Syria the Russians have the S-400. However, not one S-400 missile was fired against the drones. The Russians use, as backup, the Pantzir Missile System, specially designed to fight cruise missiles. This type of missile system the Saudis don’t possess, with the result that their oil facilities were struck. As far as I know, the US military neither possess such a missile system. Yesterday an analyst stated that the failure of the Patriot in Saudi Arabia will make Russian missile systems even more popular on the market. No wonder Putin was laughing during that conference.
As for Saudi Arabia, it is an artificial creation, a union of feudal fiefs run by sheiks. The Saudi Royal Family buys their loyalty with an annual tribute (ie. bribery money). As one analyst has stated, when Saudi Arabia runs out of oil due to depleted oil fields, it will also run out of money, after which it will not be in a position to buy off the sheiks. After that the country will break up into feudal fiefs, which will make the situation in the Middle East interesting.
The British backed the House of Saud and boosted them to power in the Arabian peninsula in the thirties.
I think they basically double-crossed the House of the Hashemites, who ended up ruling Jordan.
The idea of a whole country being named for a single family is kind of ludicrous.
The country should go back to plain Arabia. Or, if it breaks up and becomes a clutch of fiefdoms, and if they eventually form into some kind of federation, it might be another USA! United Shiekdoms of Arabia!
Cheers, Katherine
This may be of interest to you: “One map that explains the dangerous Saudi~Iranian conflict” from The Intercept 1/6/16 by Jon Schwarz. When the break up happens the Saudis will be left holding the short end of the rope!
People forgot (if they ever knew) or willfully hide the role played in the creation of Saudi Arabia by Muhammad Asad, aka Leopold Weiss, the converted to Islam Zionist and Bolshevik agent. Incidentally (or rather not) the same personage was instrumental in the creation of Pakistan and a theoretician of ‘Political Islam’.
Now’s the chance to give Jordan back to the Palestinians by sending the Hashemites back to Mecca and Medina, sweetened with some of the Arabian oil fields.
Katherine
Alas you don’t know the mentality of the Middle East. There is now way that Saudi Arabia can turn into a United Sheikdoms of Arabia. Over there it’s every man for himself with lot’s of false repspect for your neighbors.
There are probably enough educated Saudis now that the country will not revert to feudalism once the Wahhabist cancer is extirpated. Meanwhile, the West, under the baleful influence of neo-liberal Free Market capitalism, is careering towards neo-feudalism-indeed the USA is arguably there already.
Wonder if Saudis are having an epiphany and realizing that US will not go to war with Iran for them?
Doing so would put Israel in big jeopardy of getting wiped out so it is ultimately Israel’s call if US goes to war. Israel does not appear to have a solution to Hezbollah yet so US will not risk full scale war with Iran on behalf of Saudi Arabia.
What US WILL do is sell the Saudis more overpriced and over-rated hardware though. Saudis so ignorant and helpless that they will buy it and hire contractors to man it. Oh, and US will increase sanctions with even less effect. More sanctions = more countries who will start ignoring those sanctions.
Russia – Think Russia will stand by and do nothing while Iran is attacked. I’m thinking no. Not sure what they will do but they are extremely capable strategists. Pretty sure they will ensure there will be no quick victory for the west.
China – Trade war with US pushes China towards other trading partners. China investing more and more in Iran for its future. China also historically very reluctant and slow to war. Chinese military has not been in combat in a long time. Really don’t think they will perform that well if they do. Traditionally, their thinking is not bold or aggressive in war and they are slow on decision making. Sun Tzu reflects this, all these factors, strategy, layers of though before action. Many times sheer aggression and determination wins over all of it. China is “winning” Iraq from the US not because they ever were involved in the fight bit because slowly and surely they are winning construction contracts after US contractors have failed so much due to corruption and incompetence. I foresee same type of thing happening in Iran scenario.
https://southfront.org/houthis-reveal-new-details-about-2019-abqaiq-khurais-attack/
I can now see U.S. commands in Nevada watching the whole thing on their radar, “its just a bug” says one new recruit, after the hit another one screams “its not a bug, its not a bug”.
The lowly ewoks are demonstrating how the weak can conquer the powerful Empire.
I bet the coming implosion of the Western debt-based economic Ponzi scheme keeps the Houthis awake at night-laughing themselves silly.
Ewoks? Yemenis are human, all resistance fighters are human, please show some respect. And lowly, feeling excecptional?
I believe that what Mr. Hajizadeh says is exactly what will happen if the empire attacks. The full round of retaliation will probably be completed within from 24 to 72 hours. Then, all forward deployed imperial ground forces will immediately find themselves uncovered, unsupported, and surrounded. If the forces aligned against them elect to be civilized (not a certainty), they will be given exactly one chance to surrender and/or withdraw completely from the region.
If American casualties exceed 100 per hour or 1000 per day it will go nuclear.
What and contaminate the whole middle east?
They’ll probably use neutron bombs. They kill living creatures, but leave valuable property intact. They’re Israel’s preference, too, unsurprisingly.
Sure that is why the missile would be fired from Irak, Syria, Yemen and Iran all at once.
That way the USA would need to wipe out the whole ME.
Brilliant!
“US President Donald Trump gambled big time, and he lost. Now he must find a face-saving way out. If the War Party allows it.”
Very dangerous situation.
The War Party can only hope to win if they use nuclear weapons.
Quite true.
We may add nuclear armed Israel to that, now they see slowly their deep wish of ‘Eretz Israel’ evaporate. I have more confidence in reluctancy of India and Pakistan herein, than in that of Israel.
We may also see the collapse of Saudi Arabia the coming years. They are running out of oil, money and potable water, and are vulnarable to attacks.
That will have quite some consequences.
Cheers, Rob
To trigger the final sequence in moslem eschatology the Shiites it is believed must capture Mecca and Medina.
Ah, more manifest destiny? Hear that crap from christian zionists…….far too often. The only eschatology worth a pound of butter will be the triumphant return of Palestine to the long suffering Palestinians delivered from the yoke of Apartheid Occupation. Then there may well be a ‘final sequence.’
Probably is slightly germaine that the eschatologically driven folks have their hands on the nuclear button but what the hay.?…one’s unbelief does in no way mitigate the belief of such other’s.
You are an ant. So am I. Our opinions vis a vis the realness of so called prophesies are not worth a pound a dog@$it because we have no say in the matter…so climb down from your unbelief and finally get it in your head that some folks want Armageddon…crave it…and you will likely burn.
We can only pray (I’m not religious, but I pray sometimes and I don’t care what some resolute atheist feels about it) about the conquest of Mecca and Medina in conjunction with the overthrow of the house of “saud” as a correlation to the return of the Palestinian nation. I detest zionists whether jew or christian, but I have no disregard for Jews in general. However unlikely, if I were Gantz, I would recognize the futility in the long run of israel’s occupation and withdrawn to pre-’67 borders, remove all Jews from illegal settlements, return the Golan and then perhaps, just maybe, when the Palestinians reacquire their nation, they may write off the zionist crimes of the past and choose to live in peace with their Jewish neighbors. My limited experience with a Palestinian family who were clients of mine was very positive, they are a loyal and kind people from what I have gathered. Wishful thinking? Maybe, but as Aragorn tells a frightened young boy just prior to the Battle for Helms Deep after confirming the legitimacy of the child’s sword and in answer to the boy’s inquiry about hope in the matter, “There is always hope.”
Until there isn’t.
After poring through bushels of comments and analyses, there are a few question.
Why are there neat “little” holes in tanks which leave very little residue and certainly do not explode in any meaningful way? Despite not being an expert, I can surmise that heavy plate steel is not punctured without either high energy kinetics and/or explosives. At first glance the black spots in the image look like digital paint.
Houthis take credit and Plumpeo instantly rattles the sabre at Iran?! Really?!! Who might benefit…? Oh wait several posters above already addressed that question.
Are we meant to believe that the radar arrays KSA possess are all trained at Iran and unable to detect anything from any other direction? What about the USA and all their gear….nothing? Add to that the notion of Iran deciding to just go ahead and blow sh*t up over yonder in the KSA in order to do what? In the hopes they will get attacked with low yield nukes? Is it that they want more sanctions? Maybe an embargo or a blockade…..
The stuff we are expected to believe….
Pressure relief valves. All piped in and located at same location on tanks. Tanks didn’t burn. Anything flammable in those tanks would have burned for long time or vaporized the tank structure on impact (esp if partially empty), that didn’t happen. Those tanks in sequence with other tanks may have suffered an over pressure situation causing the PRVs to blow. Or tanks were filled with a liquid that is not flammable at atmosphere. There were other tanks pictured that were gone as in vaporized from the pics I saw, or seemed that way. Every one is focusing on the neat holes all in the same spot. I say PRVs.
Yemen is being tortured to trigger the Sunni loss of Mecca and Medina so that a war of annihilation can break out between these two strains of the Moslem faith. It was George Bush who told Chirac that Armageddon is coming…”Gog and Magog are fighting”…
As a Sunni, I don’t consider the wahhabis as Sunni. Sunni means following the traditions of the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), and the wahhabis definitely don’t do that. Any differences we have with Shia are political, and out of over 1.5 Sunni Muslims none of us are signing up for any war against the Shia, they are our brothers and sisters.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/07/12/photo-surfaces-of-evangelical-pastors-laying-hands-on-trump-in-the-oval-office/
Take a look at this article and tell me again it makes a difference what you think.? Go on…Tell us all again that you think realness counts
[True, any analysis of conflict with Iran is incomplete without mention of Israel.]
Whoever leaves out the criminal mafia tribe and then is a zionist like Trump cannot be trusted.
Down with the mafia and its propagandists and supporters
Your self-criticism is almost admirable, but only almost.
Russia-Saudi Relations: Putin’s S-400 Sales Pitch to Saudi Arabia
Those surprised by President Putin’s S-400 sales pitch to Saudi Arabia earlier this week while speaking in Ankara alongside his Turkish and Iranian counterparts clearly haven’t been following the rapid development of Russian-Saudi relations and are likely influenced by the discredited dogma spread by the Alt-Media Community which pretends that Russia is somehow just as strongly “against” Saudi Arabia as it supposedly is against “Israel” too, which isn’t true whatsoever and therefore deserves to be thoroughly debunked.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/putin-s-400-sales-pitch-saudi-arabia/5689472
I have seen the video with Putin and Iran foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif smiling at the offer.
Humor,trolling,diplomacy…
About S 400 protecting the Saudi oil refineries and other important objectives: They need Russian specialists at least for a while,(they can take a bath in the Persian Golf,can visit some American warships and military bases around,have some fun in Riyadh… ),maybe the software should be updated time to time ( i don’t know if true ),their radars have a very good range,can see a lot,for sure they obtain some good information which can be analyzed,don’t know if the export variant can be triggered as a special type of Horse,etc.
Using a new title for every one of your hasbara emeses is a dead give away old boy.
I always enjoy your genuine picking of words, and your narrative is a true delight to the recipient, but this
“After all, the Saudis can’t even win a bar brawl – that’s why they rely on mercenaries.”
surely wins this post’s contest!
Mr Escobar, keep on giving!
PE’s analyses are a delight to read – even if the subject matter is gruesome. This one makes a lot of sense (with or without the zionist state), the only problem is that the logical sequence – we must assume that the empire is not ready to give up – involves the use of nuclear weapons. No doubt, Iranians can hit back where it hurts – but I don’t see the empire being deterred. From everything we’ve seen recently, I fear the blob will just double down. With most options exhausted, nuclear will be the only one still open. (Remember, they were ready to use nuclear weapons in Vietnam!) (This reminds me of the time VVP stated that the world without Russia was not worth having; well, the blob probably thinks the same – the world, in which we are not the hegemon, is not worth having.)
I do hop we do not get to that dead end.
Doesn’t it seem to anyone that the impact points are remarkably regular considering that these were supposedly caused by drones operating from a considerable distance and hence having to deal with changes in wind speed and direction and relative performance of the individual drones?
The tanks are supposedly 100 ft in diameter. The apparent radial distance from the top center point of the tanks relative to the impact points I measure as approximately:
34.1 ft
37.4 ft
29.6 ft
30.9 ft
This seems remarkably consistent.
Next, draw a straight line through the center of the impact points. The topmost tank is ambiguous but it looks like the dark enlarged region to the left is the actual impact point, not the center of the rectangle. The line makes an angle of 65.2 degrees from the horizontal. The piping to the left of the tanks is approximately 66.5 degrees from horizontal. So the impact points are almost perfectly aligned with the piping.
Is drone technology really that accurate? Was GPS used in the targeting?
GNSS (GPS, GLONASS, etc.) is definitely used and provides meter-level accuracy. IMUs (inertial measuring units) are used when communication is temporary lost to keep track of position until the UAV is reconnected.
The challenge is not in satellite positioning, but in the live communication with the drone if you plan on piloting it. If you do not plan on piloting it, you can let it guide itself autonomously based on positioning without communication. But to actually pilot it, have video link, etc. you need to communicate with it.
Two ways to do that:
1. Line-of-sight (LOS) communication, requires a direct line of sight to the drone from the ground control station (stationary or mobile). Often using high frequency radio links, max range is around 200 to 400 km.
2. Beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) communications, for example actually piloting the UAV through your own satellites or satellites your friends let you borrow. This way you can increase range by thousands of kilometers. Another BLOS method is to link multiple drones, from station via drone 1 to drone 2, etc.
I am not sure about Iranian communication satellite (low earth orbit, geostationary, etc.) capabilities. But I’m guessing they do not have a network of 12+ satellites.
If the drones were actually launched from Yemen, and (1) were not piloted, and from what I understood they were a swarm of drones, then you just program each drone to hit a certain target using a suicide flight path based on positioning and possibly IMUs. This was most likely scenario.
If Yemenis wanted to actually pilot UAVs (2) they could guide them autonomously near a target then reconnect them within 150 to 200 km from the target to a mobile ground station using assets within the country, then manually piloting them to targets. (3) Or they can smuggle and launch UAVs from within Saudi Arabia and pilot them, using intelligence assets. Not sure if these last two are even realistic scenarios :-).
Mr. Escobar is exactly correct when he said we need a face saving way out. As to the big gamble, as illogical as it sounds, Trump though too much of himself, took bad advice from the hawks, figured he could use his personal prestige to paper thing over later and erred. He does it all the time. It worked in north Korea. I don’t think his ditching the Iran deal was a calculated gamble on his part. I do sincerely hope he now realizes that it was a profound mistake.
As an aside, as one of the countries with the most to lose on this I am surprised at how quiet the Chinese are. If they were to lose a material portion of their oil supply because of some prestige fight in the gulf I imagine they would be inconsolably angry.
That is a good comment.I think that Trump did what he commonly does,he bowed to Israel and withdrew from the agreement.With Iran now ,he may be realizing that pushing for actual war against Iran,he may cause a disaster.And more important for him,a disastrous war would sink his re-election in 2020. As for China,they may realize that if they need to they can get the oil and especially gas from Russia and Venezuela (for oil).
The chinese want to have it both ways. If Iran survives, they’ll build their BRI node there. If’s all gone, they have their options.
Debute the brave new world of hypersonic missiles, drone swarms, and radars that can see through stealth. Against hypersonic missiles fighter jets are but still standing targets. What does that say about aircraft carriers? How does one shoot down a swarm of drones with just a few rockets from a Patriot battery? It is as if the U.S. military industrial complex and dependent nations just got left behind in the last century. But that should come as no surprise. Though the U.S. defense budget is by far the largest in the world, not too much of that money is actually spent on weapons development. The U.S. defense industry afterall is more like a welfare system for corporations than anything else. It is essentially a bilking operation much to the U.S. taxpayer’s demise. Much of the money earmarked for defense goes to fancy stock buyback schemes that profit only Wall Street, inflated compensations to executive staffs, bloated engineering departments that essentially do nothing, and nuclear machinary and arsenals having no practical use which are bought primarily for proping up an antiquated industry. Maybe there are some advanced weapons technologies out there, but obviously they are not deployed, or at least not given to foreign nations. Well, the veil just came off the entire charade. The Houthis certainly did overturn the old chessboard, and much more.
The question is what is the U.S. Defense industry going to do about it? Most probably nothing other than try to put the veil back on.
The vast wastage and corruption in the US MICC will be one of the prime precipitating factors in the Real Evil Empire’s long overdue demise.
Perfect article wrap up if the war party allows it.
The other perfect fitting sentence is that ” no question the whole global south is watching”
If the American MIC were a king – as it ‘ been a case for so long – the horrific moment when everyone sees the king is just plain naked is drawing near.
According to almasdarnews, the Saudis have just lost their commander in Yemen:
The Saudi-led Arab Coalition suffered a major loss on Friday when their commander was assassinated in southern Yemen this morning.
According to reports, the commander of the Arab Coalition, Brigadier General Bandar bin Mazid Maqboul, was killed by a roadside bomb while traveling through the Shibam District of the Hadhramaut Governorate.
@ Zed reference to the “Sampson Option” of the zionist is that facing destruction of their occupied lands, they will launch their nuclear arsenal at the heart of Europe and their capitals as well as any other targets they can reach and as with Sampson, bring down the world with them. Even scarier is what if there is a nuclear weapon in all of the isrehelli embassies or a holocaust museums around the world?
The Masada complex is when jews, rather than surrender to the Romans during an uprising (that the jews started) jumped off a cliff and killed themselves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masada
Unfortunately it is one of their most popular tourist attractions and only fortifies the mentally ill thinking of the mentally people.
Reference to the Sampson Option is the world sits as hostages to this mad plan when the UN should go to Dimona and force an inspection of of their illegal nuclear stockpile. The weapons should be confiscated as well. Those weapons are used to bully the mid eastern countries and a nuclear free middle east should be a reality. Don’t even talk about the bio weapons that they possess.
There is a saying: You can choose to ignore reality, but you can’t choose to ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.
In Masada the zealots, also known as sicarii for their use of knives which they held in their cloaks, to murder Romans and pro-Roman Hebrews, murdered their women and children, then one another until the last zealot killed himself. When they occupied Masada they butchered all 700 Roman soldiers there, and also butchered hundreds of women and children in nearby Jewish villages, for some reason or other. These were probably one of the earliest known terrorist gangs, so it’s a very old Judaic tradition. From Ein Gedi to Deir Yassin to Sabra, Shatilla, Gaza and 9/11.
The word/term Sicari is not unrelated to Iscariot.
I am not enamored of Josephus. Though I do believe he was Paul’s grandson. That Paul was something wasn’t he. He was a Ptolemy. His jail no less than Herod’s palace. An escort of knights and his choice of ship to Rome.
As for naming Josephus’s Sicari the first terror group I think that is one useless long bow pull.
When this started I predicted my Shiite brethren would end it, in Mecca and Medina. The freaks in Riyadh attacked the branch they were resting on. MBS and all those inbred weirdos have next to zero grasp of reality. They’ve lived in the most grotesque form of privilege their whole lives, they know no boundaries of excess. Their cluelessness and backwardness are the nearest match to their privilege in excess. Untenable a creation that they were, made by Rothschilds they have reached the natural end of their reign I believe. Hopefully, it is too early for their masters who won’t then have the next phase of their plans in place. Saudi Arabia and “Israel” too are important pieces, equal to the bishop or maybe the rooks in chess but they’re meant to be sacrificed for the end game I reckon.
Trump will have to accept there’s no true face-saving way out. If he’s hoping for one, he’s only wasting time and making it worse. As you said he gambled and lost. It is time not to walk but to run away from the table now.
“You gotta know when to hold out, know when to fold up, know when to walk away, know when to run” — The Gambler by Kenny Rogers.
Well, this is interesting actually bad and only getting worse:
In this footage, Saudis are reporting from lack of gas and long lines to get gas. According to our sources, lack of gas in Saudi Arabia is more critical than Saudi officials thought.
They reached for their strategic reservoirs until fuel (gas and diesel) arrives from other countries.
http://www.english.iswnews.com/7313/lack-of-gas-in-gas-stations-of-saudi-arabia/
Can someone explain to me why, just a day after the totally successful strikes on the Saudi oil processing facilities, the Houthis released a statement saying that they will make no further strikes of that type? Here they have MBS and Co. by the balls, but instead of following up on the attack with at least the implicit threat of another one soon that would almost completely destroy Saudi production, they instead turn around and tell their sworn enemy, a nation that is still committing genocide in Yemen, — with full US support by the way! — that they need not worry about follow up attacks. I just don’t get it.
Just excellent & wellcome news —- if the M.I.C & the Pentagon know that Iran can reply to an attack as suggested by Pepe we can only hope that sane minds will prevail & there will not be a WWIII & the “Rapture” longed for by Pompeo & the other religious maniacs .
The unbelievable chutzpah of the neocons with their PNAC plan “For The New American Century” & with the aid of that “New Pearl Harbor” event , who is to say that W.W.III will present a problem even to Netanyahu who has been the cheer leader for war on Iran for YEARS.
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