On 14 September the Abqaiq and Khurais oil facilities in Saudi Arabia were attacked with drones and missiles, temporarily halving the country’s oil production and halting more than 5% of global oil supplies. The attack was claimed by the Houthi resistance to the Saudi-led war in Yemen, although Saudi Arabia and its supporters quickly blamed Iran. For Saudi Arabia, as well as its allies in the US, Britain and Israel, it was a humiliation. With some of the biggest military budgets in the world and the most extensive ‘intelligence’ networks, they failed to prevent a hugely disruptive attack carried out with equipment which cost just tens of thousands of dollars. TOBY HARBERTSON reports.
Saudi Arabia, with a military budget of $67.6bn in 2018, has failed to defeat the Houthi-led resistance movement in Yemen (military budget – less than $200,000). This is despite waging a devastating war since 2015. Instead, it is trapped in a quagmire and its vulnerable infrastructure is increasingly coming under attack within its own borders. The US, with a military budget of $649bn, has failed to subdue resistance to its dominance of the Middle East. Despite all-encompassing economic sanctions on Iran (military budget – $13bn) the country and its allies are gaining regional influence. Syria ($7.3bn) has now effectively defeated the proxy forces of Saudi Arabia, the US, Britain ($50bn) and other imperialist powers, through a devastating eight-year war, at an incalculable human, social and cultural cost. The facts about the Abqaiq and Khurais attacks continue to be disputed amidst a fog of war and lies. However, the attacks are a clear expression of the changing balance of power in the Middle East. The states which were once dominant are now appearing much more vulnerable.
Saudi Arabia exposed
Saudi Arabia’s humiliation came in the form of drones and cruise missiles which struck the Abqaiq oil facility and the Khurais oil field early in the morning of 14 September. Huge fires broke out and much of the key infrastructure for refining and preparing crude oil was destroyed or damaged. Abqaiq and Khurais are operated by state oil company Saudi Aramco, and are among the most important oil facilities in the world. They are in the east of the country close to the Ghawar oil field – one of the world’s largest. Responsibility for the attacks was immediately claimed by the Houthi leadership as a legitimate response to the devastating war on Yemen. It said that the attacks were carried out in ‘co-operation with the honourable people inside the kingdom’. Saudi Arabia quickly blamed Iran. US government figures initially claimed that the attacks were carried out from Iraq, before later arguing that they came from Iranian soil.
The facts about the attacks are unclear. The Houthi-led resistance has carried out more than 200 similar attacks on Saudi Arabia, including a drone attack on the Shaybah oil field on 16 August, but never on the same scale. Improved drone and missile technology has been exhibited recently by the Houthis, and a UN report from January 2019 concluded that new Houthi drones have a range of 930 miles (New York Times 14 September). Despite this, Saudi Arabia and the US have insisted that the Houthis could not have carried out the attack. British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the Houthi claim of responsibility was ‘entirely implausible’ and threatened action against the perpetrator. Saudi Arabia claimed that the attacks came from the north-west – the opposite direction to Yemen. Testimony from a Kuwaiti bird hunter has been cited as evidence that the attacks came from within Iraq, although the Iraqi Prime Minister has vehemently denied this.
The US, Saudi Arabia and Britain claim that only Iran has the technology to carry out such an attack. Donald Trump and Boris Johnson have both said Iran was responsible. Iran delivered a statement to the US strongly denying any involvement but making clear it was ready to defend itself if necessary. The Japanese government said it had seen no evidence that the attacks came from Iran, and most of the EU remained quiet. A cyberattack on Khurais in 2012 was also attributed to Iran. Saudi Arabia has established an enquiry to determine who was behind the attacks. On 20 September the US military announced that it was sending a new deployment of troops and further military equipment to the region. Britain has said it is willing to support these deployments, but Raab said on 25 September that he would not send troops. Given the political tension in the region, all arguments about blame for the attacks will inevitably be shaped by imperialist lies and propaganda. It is clear that the Saudis, the US and other allies could never admit that drones or missiles from a poor insurgent force could penetrate their high-tech air defence systems. Wherever the attacks came from, ultimate responsibility will be attributed to Iran by the coalition of powers seeking to further isolate, control or destroy the Iranian state.
Asymmetric warfare
The Abqaiq and Khurais attacks will have a major impact beyond their immediate significance. Whilst Saudi oil production returned to close to normal levels much quicker than expected, and global oil prices fell from their initial high, the attacks made clear the instability of the oil-hungry global economy, with the Gulf at its heart. They demonstrated the incredible power of very simple weapons to cause huge disruption in the face of massive and expensive military technology. Saudi Arabia has one of the largest military budgets in the world and buys huge volumes of military equipment from the US, Britain and other imperialist powers. Despite its advanced radar and missile defence systems – including US Patriot missiles – enemy drones and missiles got through without a problem. No longer are drones solely a way for the US, British, and Israeli militaries to visit death upon the poor and oppressed from comfy offices thousands of miles away. Relatively simple equipment can now be used by underdeveloped and poor countries or insurgent forces, to launch effective drone attacks against the major powers (see Patrick Cockburn, The Independent, 20 September).
Houthi fighters
Saudi Arabia has been left like a naked emperor: its enemies have seen how its vulnerable infrastructure can be targeted with minimum risk. The country relies on miles of exposed oil infrastructure – as does the oil-hungry global economy. Saudi also relies on exposed desalination plants for much of its fresh water. One was targeted by a Houthi rocket attack in June. The Saudi King, Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, will also be concerned about the oppressed Shia minority in the east of the country. The social stability of Saudi Arabia’s brutal, sectarian, autocratic state has long been uncertain. Houthi claims that the recent attacks were carried out with internal assistance will exacerbate these fears. In any escalation of conflict in the region Saudi infrastructure could come under attack from any number of forces, from Hezbollah or the Houthis, to the Islamic State.
While the world burns
As millions around the world wake up to the fact that fossil fuels are threatening the very future of humanity, the Saudi royal family presides over a state which provides 10% of the world’s oil supplies – 7.4m barrels a day. Oil and gas make up 50% of the country’s GDP. State-owned Saudi Aramco is the world’s largest oil producer and the world’s most profitable company. It is estimated to be responsible for more than 3% of global carbon emissions each year. Following the 14 September attack oil prices initially rose by 20% – the highest jump since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and set fire to its oil wells in 1990. The major countries which rely most on Saudi oil are mainly in Asia. Japan, China, Singapore, India and Australia are seeking to diversify their oil supplies away from Saudi in order to prevent shocks from anticipated future instability in the Gulf. Russia is likely to gain from the continuing crisis in the Gulf, as it will be seen as a stable energy supplier which is unlikely to be affected.
Shifting balance of power
The current Gulf crisis is an expression of a changing balance of power in the Middle East and beyond. Saudi Arabia, despite being rich in energy resources and having huge reserves of weapons, is becoming more vulnerable and isolated as different forces rise. US imperialism is no longer willing or able to play the same role it could in the past in protecting it. Despite Donald Trump tweeting that the US was ‘locked and loaded’ for war with Iran in the aftermath of the attack, a week of contradiction and indecision followed, showing divisions in the ruling class and fear of the consequences of a war which it could not control. The sacking of John Bolton, Trump’s warmongering National Security Adviser, on 10 September exhibited these long-running tensions. Getting the US involved in a significant war could damage Trump’s prospects for re-election in 2020, push the fragile US economy into recession, as well as lead to attacks on Saudi Arabia, Israel, and US forces in the region. The US response so far, a limited troop deployment to Saudi Arabia, and more sanctions on Iran, shows the relative decline of the US as the dominant imperialist power. Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested on 16 September that in order to prevent further attacks the Saudis should buy Russian missile systems – the S-300, which they have sold to Iran, and the S-400, which they have sold to Turkey.
Saudi Arabia is losing allies as the world changes around it. Turkey has sided with Iran. So has Qatar, as it continues to endure a Saudi land and sea blockade. The United Arab Emirates (UAE), which was instrumental in beginning the onslaught on Yemen, has been drawing down its commitment to the war since June. It has been pursuing a different strategy in Yemen, supporting the Southern Transitional Council (STC) separatists in the south and leaving the north to the Houthis. This approach has led to military clashes between the STC and the Saudi-sponsored forces. Saudi Arabia continues to rely on Sudanese soldiers, including child soldiers, and African and Latin American mercenaries in Yemen. Houthi leader Mahdi Al Mashat announced on 20 September that the movement would halt its attacks on Saudi territory. The Saudi-led coalition however have launched indiscriminate air strikes in retaliation for the Aramco attacks.
The renewed environmentalist movement in the imperialist countries cannot ignore the crisis in the Middle East, where rich nations continue to scheme, bomb, maim and kill in order to protect and control oil and gas supplies. People in Yemen and Syria continue to suffer unimaginable conditions imposed by wars supported by British and US imperialism. The rising threats and propaganda against Iran echo on our TV screens and in the press, paving the way for a war of much bigger proportions, with huge volumes of oil at stake. Iran is well armed and ready for war, meaning the imperialists will need to think twice before launching their next attack. The Houthis in Yemen have fought the Saudis to a standstill, despite the best weaponry money can buy. As Hezbollah humbled Israel, and Vietnamese revolutionaries defeated first French and then US imperialism, popular resistance to imperialists and their stooges cannot be underestimated.
End British arms sales to Saudi Arabia! Imperialist hands off Iran!
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! No 272, October/November 2019
