Saturday’s attacks on two major Saudi oil facilities appear to represent a sharp escalation in the struggle for regional primacy between Saudi Arabia and Iran. A drone strike was said to have knocked out half of the Saudis’ daily oil production. The Houthi rebel group in Yemen assumed responsibility, but Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pinned the blame on Iran.
This is a claim that Iran denies and that few may take on faith given how often the administration has lied about even minor matters. President Trump and his aides just tried to falsify information about a hurricane. Why believe them about an attack in the Middle East? Nevertheless, it appears, based on the sophistication of this attack, that Iran is indeed the real culprit. The Houthis have their own grudge against the Saudis, who have been waging a brutal war against them, but they lack the sophistication to carry out such a surgical strike without a lot of help from their allies in Tehran.