Daily Times

Geopolitical and geostrategic circumstances in the broader middle east region are under tremendous stress since May 2018 – when United States’ President Donald Trump announced to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or commonly referred to ‘Iran nuclear deal.’ President Trump pursued “maximum-pressure” strategy to bend down Iranian regime to its knees by putting sever economic, oil and banking sanctions against Tehran, but still this “maximalist policy” have not yielded any tangible outcome or concessions for the Americans and their strategic allies in the region.

President Trump’s resolve to bring down Iran’s oil output to ‘zero’ has escalated the simmering tensions in the Gulf region in particular and the middle east in general. Furthermore, US designation of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization and sanctioning of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, along with the Foreign minister Javad Zarif exacerbated the already tensed situation. In a quid pro quo, Iran designated US Central Command as a terrorist organization. The mounting standoff between the US and Iran is creating new political, economic, security challenges for Gulf countries importantly for Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The more recent wave of attacks on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf and Saudi oil facilities have reached to its new heights. September 14, 2019 drones and cruise missile struck Kingdom’s Aramco’s biggest oil facilities i.e. Abqaiq the world’s largest oil processing facility and the Khurais oil field in the east of Saudi Arabia.

According to different estimates, both sites Abqaiq and Khurais produce 5.7 million barrels per day, which is half of the total output of Kingdom’s oil production and accounts over 5 percent of the world’s supply. Furthermore, it also limited Saudi’s capacity to utilize 2 million bpd of spare oil production capacity it held for emergencies. Furthermore, the drone and missile strike sent Brent crude, prices rising 15 percent to $69.02 a barrel on Monday, the largest gain recorded since the first gulf war 1990-1991. President Donald Trump without naming any country stated that “there is a reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom” narrative regarding the attacks. Mike Pompeo, US Secretary of State blamed Iranian regime for these attacks and stated that “Tehran is behind nearly 100 attacks on Saudi Arabia while Rouhani and Zarif pretend to engage in diplomacy. Amid all the calls for de-escalation, Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply.” Furthermore, Pompeo said that according to US intelligence assessment, there is no proof that the attack came from Yemen. It is pertinent to mention that Houthis rebels claimed the responsibility of the attack. And according to U.N. investigators, Houthis’ new UAV-X drone likely has a range of up to 1,500 kilometers and there is the possibility that they hit the target. But most of the regional and international experts refuted their claims due to the sophistication, the lethality of the assault.

While President Trump is seemingly not interested in “sound and fury” rather expecting Saudis to take the lead in response to swarming in warfare directed against Riyad’s economic heartland

The United States and other regional intelligence sources have unanimity of view on one thing that these attacks were not launched from Yemeni soil. However, different theories are circulating regarding the source of the attacks in international media, according to US intelligence, these attacks included 20 drones and dozens of cruise missile launched from the South West of Iran. However, the Iraqi intelligence claimed that the attacks were launched from Iraqi soil. Because the distance between southern Iraq and the Saudi oilfields was about half the distance the drones would have had to fly had they been launched from Houthi bases in northern Yemen. According to an Iraqi intelligence source, the drones had to travel between 500km and 600km, whereas if they had been fired from Houthi bases they would have had to cover a distance of between 1,100km and 1,300km. According to this view, potentially the drones and missile travelled from Iraq to Kingdom’s oil fields oversea or through Kuwait airspace. Though there are unconfirmed reports from Kuwaiti media that some flying objects were seen in the Centre of Kuwait city. Kuwait’s government started an investigation regarding the event and vowed to “to protect Kuwait’s security”. On the other hand, Iraq’s Prime minister office stated that Iraq’s government “asserts its constitutional commitment to preventing the use of its territories for aggression against its neighbours, brothers, and friends.”

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s response to this brazen attack was cautious even though US intelligence assessment informed the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman that the origin of the spectacular attacks was Iranian soil. According to Saudi view, the Americans didn’t provide “enough proof to conclude that the attack was launched from Iran” therefore Riyadh decided to invite United Nations experts to investigate and carry out forensic analysis of the wreckage to determine the responsibility of the airstrikes. it seems Saudis are in no hurry and wants to take maximum time to establish the responsibility of these attacks. And other reason could be that Riyadh does want to embroil itself into another regional war that would have a strategic implication for both i.e. Saudi regime and regional stability.

While President Trump is seemingly not interested in “sound and fury” rather expecting Saudis to take the lead in response to swarming in warfare directed against Riyad’s economic heartland. The Iranian government on its part denied any involvement into this attack and President Rouhani termed it as the act of self-defense by Yemeni Houthis. Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister said that due to failure at “maximum pressure” the United States turned into “maximum deceit” policy and “blaming Iran” won’t solve the problem.

With the growing attacks on oil tankers and oil facilities in Gulf region, there is new pattern of warfare emerging .i.e. non attributable drone and missile attacks- having the complexity to shift the blame on any party yet the weapons clearly point fingers on certain country but that does not make any party guilty of the crime. Amidst fluid security environment around the Gulf region, there is mounting domestic pressure on Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman for failing to protect the homeland despite having both American-made Patriot and Hawk missile systems into his kitty. Therefore any action or non-action would certainly affect the domestic stability of the Kingdom and determine the future security and stability of the region.

The writer is a Senior Research Fellow at the South Asian Strategic Stability (SASSI) University Institute