Uncle
Sam Scapegoats Iran
By Finian
Cunningham
September 18, 2019 "Information
Clearing House"
- Following
the devastating airstrikes on Saudi Arabia’s oil
industry, US Vice President Mike Pence flexed
his tough-talking muscles, vowing that his
country is “ready to defend our interests and
allies… make no mistake about it.”
Don’t you think the assurance is a bit late?
Saudi Arabia –
a historic and key ally of Washington
– had its entire oil production knocked out by
50 per cent last weekend when it came under
aerial attack. Global markets were rattled over
possible critical fuel shortages as the world’s
biggest exporter of crude oil might not recover
full production for weeks.
So, Pence’s stern words of being “ready to
defend” certainly ring a bit hollow, if not
rather farcical. If Washington
was indeed on sentry duty
for the Middle East, as it has appointed itself
to do decades ago, why weren’t the airstrikes on
Saudi Arabia’s vital oil industry intercepted to
prevent the havoc wreaked?
We are not talking here about some remote oil
field or installation. The infrastructure
targeted for massive damage was at the very
heart of Saudi’s oil industry. The Abqaiq
refinery and processing plant is where up to 70
per cent of
all Saudi crude is prepared for export.
It is said to be the biggest crude oil
processing plant in the world. And it is near to
other vital refining and shipping facilities in
Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province adjacent to the
Persian Gulf.
The Yemeni Houthi rebels
claimed responsibility for the air raids
last weekend, which also targeted a major oil
field at Khurais, located in Eastern Province,
not far from the Abqaiq processing plant. The
Houthis said the blitz was conducted with 10
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The distance
covered from Yemen is nearly 1,000 kms. It is
thought that the Yemeni rebels have developed
drones capable of reaching up to 1,500 kms.
What’s more, they have threatened that all key
Saudi oil infrastructure is vulnerable to future
attacks.
Potentially, a new wave of airstrikes from Yemen
using more sophisticated drone models could
bring the Saudi rulers to their knees from their
oil economy being decimated.
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What must be deeply troubling for the
Saudis is that their lifeline oil
economy seems to be defenceless –
despite having spent hundreds of
billions of dollars on US anti-missile
systems. Months after Donald Trump took
office in early 2017, recall how he
boasted about the Saudis buying over
$100 billion in Pentagon weaponry.
That’s
why VP Mike Pence’s stirring words of “defending
allies” sound ridiculous.
It also suggests that’s why US intelligence and
military officials are hurriedly
trying to blame Iran
for carrying out the latest attacks. If the
rag-tag Houthi rebels from war-torn Yemen can
penetrate US-backed air defences to demolish
Saudi oil infrastructure, then American
anti-missile technology is more over-rated and
much worse in practice than many had already
suspected.
President Trump
has been a little more circumspect
about blaming Iran for the air assaults, but
senior administration officials like Pence and
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense
Secretary Mark Esper have come out forcefully
claiming that Iran is responsible. Iran denies
any involvement and says that the US is “in
denial” about the fact that the Yemenis are
capable and entitled to defend themselves in a
more-than-four-year military operation launched
on their country by the US-backed Saudi military
coalition in March 2015.
US intelligence and military sources are
briefing American media outlets that the
airstrikes were carried out with drones and
cruise missiles fired from southwest Iran.
No evidence has been presented,
as usual from these anonymous and faceless US
spooks; the only “evidence” so far are satellite
images of the damaged oil installations. Those
images are far from conclusive. The attacks
could have come from the southerly direction of
Yemen.
But
here’s the thing. If drones and cruises missiles
were launched from Iran, as the US is claiming,
then their flight path would have come within
close range of the American Navy’s Fifth Fleet
headquarters base in Bahrain which is near to
Saudi’s Eastern Province and its oil
infrastructure.
The US Fifth Fleet
is responsible for “securing” the entire Middle
East and in
particular the strategically important Persian
Gulf waterway where a third of all globally
shipped oil is daily transported. It is the
world’s premier chokepoint for oil trade.
Is it
really plausible that a swarm of drones and
cruise missiles allegedly transiting from Iran
across the Gulf within a few hundred kilometres
of the US Fifth Fleet – with all its warships,
radar, satellite and detection technology
bristling – were not detected in flight heading
for Saudi Arabia?
If
Iranian drones and missiles were detected then
we can be sure US officials would be blaring the
information, categorically pinpointing the
incriminating evidence. As it is, American
officials and their intelligence sources are so
far peddling vague accusations against Iran
based on dubious satellite images.
That
suggests that Iran’s denials are credible and
that the Houthis’ version of events is closer to
the truth. They hit Saudi Arabia’s “crown
jewels” and the Saudis’ supposed protector, the
US, could do nothing about it.