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Iran Rejects U.S. Accusation It Was Behind Attacks on Saudi Oil Facilities Saudi Oil Attack Photos Implicate Iran, U.S. Says; Trump Hints at Military Action
(about 7 hours later)
Iran on Sunday forcefully rejected charges by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that it was responsible for drone attacks that caused serious damage to two crucial Saudi Arabian oil installations, with the foreign minister dismissing the remarks as “max deceit.” The Trump administration intensified its focus on Iran Sunday as the likely culprit behind attacks on important Saudi Arabian oil facilities over the weekend, with officials citing intelligence assessments to support the accusation and President Trump warning that he was prepared to take military action.
The attacks on Saturday, which could disrupt global oil supplies, were claimed by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. Mr. Pompeo said that Iran had launched “an unprecedented attack on the world’s oil supply,” although he did not offer any evidence and stopped short of saying that Iran had carried out the missile strikes. The government released satellite photographs showing what officials said were at least 17 points of impact at several Saudi energy facilities from strikes they said came from the north or northwest. That would be consistent with an attack coming from the direction of the Persian Gulf, Iran or Iraq, rather than from Yemen, where the Iranian-backed Houthi militia that claimed responsibility for the strikes operates.
The Houthis are part of a complex regional dynamic in the Middle East, receiving support from Iran while the Saudis, Tehran’s chief rival in the Middle East and the leader of a coalition that is fighting the Houthis in Yemen, are aligned with the United States. Administration officials, in a background briefing for reporters as well as in separate interviews on Sunday, also said a combination of drones and cruise missiles — “both and a lot of them,” as one senior United States official put it — might have been used. That would indicate a degree of scope, precision and sophistication beyond the ability of the Houthi rebels alone.
Seyed Abbas Mousavi, a spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, castigated the Saudis for their role in the war in Yemen where they have directed airstrikes with heavy civilian casualties and exacerbated a humanitarian crisis. He also ridiculed Mr. Pompeo’s comments. Mr. Trump, however, did not name Iran, saying he needed to consult with Saudi Arabia first.
The semiofficial Fars news agency reported on its English-language website that Mr. Mousavi described Mr. Pompeo’s allegations as “blind and fruitless remarks” that were “meaningless” in a diplomatic context. “Saudi Arabia oil supply was attacked,” he said in a tweet on Sunday evening. “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!”
Saudi Arabia has yet to publicly accuse Iran of involvement in the attack. On Sunday, its Foreign Ministry urged international action to preserve the world oil supply in response to the attack, but it said nothing about assigning blame or striking back. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Saturday that Iran was behind what he called “an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply” and asserted that there was “no evidence the attacks came from Yemen.” He did not, however, say where they came from, and the Saudis refrained from directly blaming Iran.
It is not yet clear whether the drones that hit the Saudi oil facilities came from Yemen or another country, or even within Saudi Arabia. The Houthis have acquired drones that could have a range of up to 930 miles, according to United Nations investigators, which has muddled the question of the point of origin of the attacks. The administration’s determination that Iran played a direct role in the attack marked a significant escalation in months of back-and-forth tensions between the United States and Iran. It raised questions about how Washington might retaliate — and why Iran would have risked such a confrontation.
There has been some speculation that the drones were launched from Iraq, but the office of the Iraqi prime minister, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, rejected that theory on Sunday. The prime minister’s office said Iraq would act firmly if its territory were used to attack other countries. Mr. Trump’s threat echoed one he made in June after Iran shot down an American surveillance drone. He said then that the military had been “cocked and loaded” for a strike against Iran.
The developments come at a moment of rising tensions between Iran and the United States, which have mounted since President Trump pulled out of the 2015 accord in which Iran agreed with the West to restrict its nuclear program. Since the American withdrawal, Iran has gradually pulled away from some of its obligations under the agreement. He said he called off the strike with 10 minutes to spare when a general told him that 150 people would probably die in the attack, which he said would have been disproportionate.
The United States is now trying to impose “maximum pressure” against Iran, a campaign of sanctions that have heaped additional pressure on Iran’s struggling economy along with moves to isolate the country diplomatically in order to force it back to the negotiating table for a new nuclear deal. Administration officials said on Sunday they would seek to declassify more intelligence to buttress their case against Iran in the coming days. The satellite photographs released on Sunday did not appear as clear cut as officials suggested, with some appearing to show damage on the western side of the facilities, not from the direction of Iran or Iraq.
Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, mocked Mr. Pompeo on Twitter, saying the United States had failed in its campaign of “maximum pressure” and were now “turning to ‘max deceit.’” American officials said that more than 17 weapons were directed at the Saudi facilities, but not all reached their targets. Forensic analyses of the recovered weapons could answer questions about what they were, who manufactured them and who launched them.
The Trump administration has said that any attack on American interests from Iran would bring a military response, but it has not made clear whether an attack on the Saudi oil infrastructure would meet that threshold. Iran forcefully rejected Mr. Pompeo’s accusation on Sunday, with the foreign minister dismissing it as “max deceit.” The office of the Iraqi prime minister, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, also rejected any suggestion that Iranian operatives carried out the attack from Iraqi territory, saying Iraq would act firmly if its territory were used to attack other countries.
A senior commander for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps took a more strident tone than the Foreign Ministry, insisting that the country was ready for “full-fledged” war, the semiofficial Tasnim news agency reported, according to Reuters. If Iran, or one of its proxies in Iraq or Yemen, carried out the attacks, it would fit into a strategy Iran has followed for months in its escalating confrontation with the Trump administration.
Squeezed by sweeping American sanctions on its oil sales, Iran has sought to inflict a similar pain on its adversaries — threatening the ability of Saudi Arabia and other American allies in the Persian Gulf to sell oil and holding out the possibility of driving up international oil prices in the months before President Trump seeks re-election.
“Iran wants to show that instead of a win-lose contest, Iran can turn this into a lose-lose dynamic for everyone,” said Ali Vaez, head of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group.
Yet Iran has stopped short of carrying out the kind of direct, open attack on United States allies that might trigger a military response, preferring to let regional allies do the work or at least share the blame.
“Plausible deniability is a trademark of Iran’s pushback strategy,” Mr. Vaez said.
The combination of military pressure and deniability also fits with a strategy of increasing Iran’s bargaining power before possible talks at the United Nations this month.
President Emanuel Macron of France has said he hopes the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, which opens Tuesday, will be an opportunity for de-escalation between the United States and Iran. The recent hostilities began when the Trump administration withdrew last year from an agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear program and then this year imposed sweeping sanctions to try to force Iran into a more restrictive covenant.
Several other world powers, including France, also signed the original agreement and still support it, and Mr. Macron has said he hopes to hold talks at the General Assembly about saving the agreement. Mr. Trump said this month that he was open to a possible meeting there with President Hassan Rouhani of Iran.
Even as Iranian diplomats denied any role in the attack, others close to Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp. were reveling in the damage at the Saudi oil facilities, which process the vast majority of the country’s crude output.
The Trump administration, said Naser Imani, a former member of the guard’s political bureau, should take it as a warning to the United States and its Persian Gulf partners.
“If a few Houthis can cause this extensive damage, imagine what Iran could do if it was forced into a military conflict,” he said in a telephone interview on Sunday. “Iran has proved in the past few months that it has the will to pull the trigger as well as the military power to do so.”
A military strategist with the Revolutionary Guards, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, also questioned whether the Houthis alone could have carried out such a complex and effective attack without Iranian help.
But whoever carried out the attack, the Iranian strategist said, the message to the West and its regional allies was the same. If the United States strikes Iran, “the flames of war in the Persian Gulf will burn you all,” he said.
A senior commander for the Revolutionary Guards insisted that the country was ready for “full-fledged” war, the semiofficial Tasnim news agency reported, according to Reuters.
“Everybody should know that all American bases and their aircraft carriers in a distance of up to 2,000 kilometers around Iran are within the range of our missiles,” said Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the Revolutionary Guards’ air force.“Everybody should know that all American bases and their aircraft carriers in a distance of up to 2,000 kilometers around Iran are within the range of our missiles,” said Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the Revolutionary Guards’ air force.
Mr. Pompeo responded on Twitter late Saturday, specifically taking aim at the president of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, and Mr. Zarif. He accused them of pretending to engage in diplomacy while directing numerous attacks. How the Trump administration responds remains to be seen. Breaking with a pattern under both Democratic and Republican presidents, the Trump administration has said that it intends to hold Iran fully responsible for any attacks carried out by the Houthis or other regional allies that the administration deems Iranian proxies.
“Amid all the calls for de-escalation, Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply,” Mr. Pompeo said. “There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen.” Previous administrations have said that Iran was arming and training allied groups such as the Lebanese militia Hezbollah and Shiite militias in Syria or Iraq to extend its regional influence. Yet in the past, the United States has generally declined to retaliate against Iran militarily even when those groups have attacked the American military, as Iranian-backed Shiite militias did during American occupation of Iraq.
The Saudi facilities struck were some 500 miles from Yemeni territory. Saudi and American officials suspect that Iran has trained the Houthis to use drone and missile technology.
“US & its clients are stuck in Yemen because of illusion that weapon superiority will lead to military victory,” Mr. Zarif wrote on Twitter. “Blaming Iran won’t end disaster. Accepting our April ’15 proposal to end war & begin talks may.”
The attack on Saturday, which the Houthis said involved 10 drones, represented the rebels’ most serious strike since Saudi Arabia inserted itself into the conflict in Yemen four years ago. That the rebels could cause such extensive damage to such a crucial part of the global economy astonished some observers.
“So while everyone is wrestling w/securing the Strait of Hormuz the Houthis (!) w/10 drones (!!) successfully attacked the single most important facility in the global oil economy,” Kristin Smith Diwan, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington wrote on Twitter. “Unbelievable.”
The extent of the damage to the oil facilities remained unclear on Sunday. But Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil giant that runs the sites, said on Saturday that production of well over half of the nation’s daily output had been put on hold.
The Saudi Foreign Ministry, in a statement on Twitter, confirmed that several explosions had forced the temporary suspension of operations at the Abqaiq and Khurais oil installations.
The attacks pose a threat to the global economy, the statement said, citing the energy minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, a son of King Salman who was recently appointed to the position.
The ministry added that part of the decline would be offset by oil deposits, and said that there would be no effect on local supplies and that no workers had been injured.
Any extended closure would most likely bring serious consequences to the world’s oil supply, and the United States Energy Department said that it would use its strategic oil reserves if necessary to offset any disruption.
Energy experts said that the attack on the Abqaiq facility represented their worst nightmare, and that it was perhaps worse than Iran blocking the Strait or Hormuz, a crucial path for the distribution of oil supplies.
“If there is a single crown jewel, this is it,” said Robert McNally, a former White House energy adviser who is now the president of the Rapidan Energy Group, a market research firm.
Abqaiq is a massive oil processing facility — the largest of its kind in the world — in eastern Saudi Arabia; it makes crude suitable for export.
The attacks not only shut down the processing plant, but also disrupted flows from the oil fields that feed into it. Further complicating matters, the plant was built with custom-made equipment that may be difficult to fix quickly if there is serious damage, because run-of-the-mill parts cannot be used to get the plant up and running.
The attacks have raised the question of the potential effect on both oil prices and Aramco’s plans for an initial public offering of stock.
The Eurasia Group, a consulting firm that specializes in political risk analysis, said in an assessment on Saturday that the scale of the attack would “encourage markets to re-examine the need for considering an oil geopolitical risk premium.”
That would most likely play out as an increase of $2 to $3 per barrel if the issues can be resolved quickly, but as much as $10 if the attack causes larger problems. Oil is currently trading around $60 a barrel for Brent crude, the international benchmark.
Aramco’s plans to go public are likely to be unaffected, the group said, though there may be some consequences down the line. The crown prince, who is seeking to raise money to pay for a sweeping economic overhaul, is unlikely to back off on his plan to sell Aramco shares, the group said, but enthusiasm from international investors might be diminished.