Saudi gets SLAPPED !

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Saudi gets SLAPPED ! (Oil going to $100?)

Agreed and no one here suggested that the Houthi did. And equally as risible is the notion that attack came from "Iranian soil."

Anyone who believes that would do well to review the facts of the Tonkin Gulf Incident.

"There was nothing."

Or, the trustworthiness of those persons and organizations peddling the Saddam's weapons of mass destruction canard.

"None of it was true."

Credibility from telling the “truth” is so hard to build and far easier to lose.

While some are claiming the attack originated from Iran or Iranian controlled Iraq, I’d prefer to discuss the particular challenges of a Yemeni Houthi based drone attack narrative:

Disrupting Saudi oil production from over 1000km away represents a number of quite considerable challenges:

1)There are no COTS drones available to Yemen with the range/payload to achieve the outcome seen
2)There are no COTS terminal guidance systems available to Yemen to achieve precision seen in post attack assessment
3)Indigenous Houthi R&D for Yemen point of origin attack would require several levels magnitude > sophistication over previously seen. Not iterative & incremental improvement, but revolutionary
4)Indigenous Houthi R&D would require considerable safe space for design, fabrication, testing, integration, & validation of revolutionary capability improvement while under constant Saudi coalition air attack
5)A Yemen point of origin for the attack would have the drones travelling across mostly flat/open terrain and easy to discover via Saudi E3 AWACS(based directly between Yemen and attack site) and surveillance aerostats.
6)Target intelligence, mission planning & especially mission rehearsal would require specific training, experience, and appropriate terrain that is not available in Houthi controlled portions of Yemen.

It simply doesn’t pass the sniff test from any direction.

Could this attack have originated from Houthi controlled Yemen?

Absolutely.

But not without very considerable(up thru and including turnkey systems) external state support(Iran).

If I was planning this to launch from Yemen, I would:

Discretely move a small number of well vetted Houthi personnel to Iran for training as this is well beyond organic Houthi capability.

Test/rehearse mission using off the shelf non-attributable(ish) Iranian drones in Iranian great salt desert as this is well beyond the organic Houthi capability.

Unconventional logistics to return Houthi, drones components, support equipment back to Houthi controlled territory.

”Tab A into slot B” drone assembly to call them “Houthi made”

Utilise full suite of Iranian SIGINT, MASINT, HUMINT resources for mission planning to mitigate for Saudi AWACS and surveillance aerostats, comprehensive air defence systems, and maximise disruption to critical components as this is well beyond the organic capability of the Houthi.

I am most decidedly NOT for an open conventional war with Iran, but:

1)there are Iranian fingerprints all over this
2)this is yet another, but escalated, chapter in the now 40 year long unending unconventional war with Iran.

[jk]

Re: Saudi gets SLAPPED ! (Oil going to $100?)

The thing I wonder about related to this attack is the original oil for dollar deal the United States made with SA after the United States left the gold standard. Wasn't the Kissinger arrangement that SA sells its oil in dollars and, in return, the United States provides SA with weapons and military protection? Does this attack mean that the United States failed in its attempt to protect SA, or, alternatively, does this mean that the United States has already walked away from being SA's protector? In either case, doesn't that mean the de-facto end of the petro-dollar era?

Put more simply, after this attack, what reason does SA have to continue selling its oil in dollars? Relatedly, how soon will China become its new protector?

recently the ksa and china signed an agreement which was to have made ksa china's largest oil supplier once again. got to wonder whether payment was to be in usd. [i doubt it]

otoh, china just signed an agreement with iran for up to $400b value in which they could buy iranian oil at a significant discount to market price, and payable in local currencies including rmb. [the chinese are really benefitting from the sanctions the us is imposing on iran] seems to me that iranian contract just got a lot more important. also, prior to ksa resuming its role as biggest supplier, the biggest supplier lately has been russia. and russian-chinese commerce is payable in rub or rmb, not usd. i think iran and russia just locked in their biggest customer, at least for a while.

[Woodsman]

Re: Saudi gets SLAPPED ! (Oil going to $100?)

...But the idea that the Houthi did this unilaterally without external state support(Iran) is absolutely and completely laughable.

Agreed and no one here suggested that the Houthi did. And equally as risible is the notion that attack came from "Iranian soil."

Anyone who believes that would do well to review the facts of the Tonkin Gulf Incident.

"There was nothing."

Or, the trustworthiness of those persons and organizations peddling the Saddam's weapons of mass destruction canard.

"None of it was true."

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Saudi gets SLAPPED ! (Oil going to $100?)

The thing I wonder about related to this attack is the original oil for dollar deal the United States made with SA after the United States left the gold standard. Wasn't the Kissinger arrangement that SA sells its oil in dollars and, in return, the United States provides SA with weapons and military protection? Does this attack mean that the United States failed in its attempt to protect SA, or, alternatively, does this mean that the United States has already walked away from being SA's protector? In either case, doesn't that mean the de-facto end of the petro-dollar era?

Put more simply, after this attack, what reason does SA have to continue selling its oil in dollars? Relatedly, how soon will China become its new protector?

The US military presence in Saudi Arabia has been extremely limited since the 1996 Khobar Towers attack in Saudi Arabia.

Since that time, most US military personnel in the region have been operational deployed or based(permanently or repeatedly/temporarily) on the periphery of Saudi Arabia in places like Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE, Oman, Djibouti, and Yemen.

It has only been in recent months that US military personnel have returned to Saudi Arabia, limited to just 1 or more remote air bases and consisting of combat aircraft squadrons, air defence units, and their direct support. Numbers are approx 500.

However, there are very large numbers of ex-military personnel who live in Saudi expat compounds responsible for managing the many insanely overpriced contracts between US defence contractors and Saudi royal family.

The Royal family get their 20% cut and the US gets tens of thousands of very well paying manufacturing jobs in the US and service/support jobs in Saudi.

Petro dollar recycling via overpriced defence contracts has been going at full throttle since the late 70’s early 80’s.

The UK plays 2nd fiddle to the US in this, but it’s still quite substantial, so much so that an official investigation into corruption around the multi-decade 40+ billion pound Al-Yamamah UK/Saudi Weapons deal was discontinued out of public interest in 2006.

Too many petro-recycling jobs at risk...so it got spiked to protect not just them, but especially everyone else feeding at, or benefitting from, the money trough.

——-

But the idea that the Houthi did this unilaterally without external state support(Iran) is absolutely and completely laughable.

[kbird]

Re: Saudi gets SLAPPED ! (Oil going to $100?)

Saudi Arabia finally lost its war on Yemen. It has no defenses against these weapons and it's undeniable that they threaten the Saudis' economic lifelines. This was the decisive attack.

The target's distance from rebel-held territory in Yemen demonstrates the range of the Houthis’ drones and it puts other Saudi oil fields, an under-construction Emirati nuclear power plant, and even Dubai’s international airport within range. These Houthi drones have proved difficult to track and even harder to shoot down. And not only are the Saudi's PAC 3 Patriot batteries useless against them, they're actually under threat themselves.

The Houthi have clown prince MBS by the balls and can squeeze any time it suits them. The economic threat of Houthi drone attacks comes on top of an IMF predicted 7% budget deficit, meaning further Saudi bombing against the Houthi will now have very significant additional cost that might even endanger the viability of the Saudi state, not to mention the royal neckline. They also show that the Houthi are no longer an unrecognized, isolated movement and this is punctuated by a recent meeting at the Iranian Foreign Ministry where delegates from Iran, Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, as well as Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement, exchanged views about a political resolution of the war.

The war on Yemen the Saudis started in March 2015 was unwinnable then and now is definitely lost. Neither the U.S. nor the Europeans will come to the Saudis help, despite Pompeo and Trump's recent bluster and the "let's you and them fight" efforts by the Saudis (and Israelis) to have us make war against Iran on their behalf. Trump knows the ice beneath him is thinning and his firing of Bolton proves he has no intent of giving up a second term for the neocons and their Israeli/Saudi paymasters. Considering there are no technological means to protect against more such attacks, it's clear that poor Yemen defeated rich Saudi Arabia.

MbS will have to agree to peace negotiations and the Yemeni demand for reparations will be massive. But what alternatives will the Saudis have but to cough up whatever the Houthi demand? As for the bigger picture, it is undeniable that all the neocon wars the U.S. and its allies waged in the Middle East - Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003), Lebanon (2006), Syria (2011), Iraq (2014) and Yemen (2015) - were unmitigated disasters, costing us upwards of $3 trillion dollars, turning our republic into a de-facto police state, and making Iran and its allies stronger. Their incompetence is criminal.

If ka-POOM ever realizes and the US at last gives up its exorbitant privilege, my greatest hope is that we'll see the entire neocon cabal breaking rocks at Leavenworth.

The thing I wonder about related to this attack is the original oil for dollar deal the United States made with SA after the United States left the gold standard. Wasn't the Kissinger arrangement that SA sells its oil in dollars and, in return, the United States provides SA with weapons and military protection? Does this attack mean that the United States failed in its attempt to protect SA, or, alternatively, does this mean that the United States has already walked away from being SA's protector? In either case, doesn't that mean the de-facto end of the petro-dollar era?

Put more simply, after this attack, what reason does SA have to continue selling its oil in dollars? Relatedly, how soon will China become its new protector?

[Mega]

Re: Saudi gets SLAPPED ! (Oil going to $100?)

WOW Woodsman !

In the meantime China shows her colours
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitic...-aramco-attack
BACK OFF IRAN!

Pultin must be pissing himself at everyone

[FrankL]

Re: Saudi gets SLAPPED ! (Oil going to $100?)

Saudi Arabia finally lost its war on Yemen. It has no defenses against these weapons and it's undeniable that they threaten the Saudis' economic lifelines. This was the decisive attack.

The target's distance from rebel-held territory in Yemen demonstrates the range of the Houthis’ drones and it puts other Saudi oil fields, an under-construction Emirati nuclear power plant, and even Dubai’s international airport within range. These Houthi drones have proved difficult to track and even harder to shoot down. And not only are the Saudi's PAC 3 Patriot batteries useless against them, they're actually under threat themselves.

The Houthi have clown prince MBS by the balls and can squeeze any time it suits them. The economic threat of Houthi drone attacks comes on top of an IMF predicted 7% budget deficit, meaning further Saudi bombing against the Houthi will now have very significant additional cost that might even endanger the viability of the Saudi state, not to mention the royal neckline. They also show that the Houthi are no longer an unrecognized, isolated movement and this is punctuated by a recent meeting at the Iranian Foreign Ministry where delegates from Iran, Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, as well as Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement, exchanged views about a political resolution of the war.

The war on Yemen the Saudis started in March 2015 was unwinnable then and now is definitely lost. Neither the U.S. nor the Europeans will come to the Saudis help, despite Pompeo and Trump's recent bluster and the "let's you and them fight" efforts by the Saudis (and Israelis) to have us make war against Iran on their behalf. Trump knows the ice beneath him is thinning and his firing of Bolton proves he has no intent of giving up a second term for the neocons and their Israeli/Saudi paymasters. Considering there are no technological means to protect against more such attacks, it's clear that poor Yemen defeated rich Saudi Arabia.

MbS will have to agree to peace negotiations and the Yemeni demand for reparations will be massive. But what alternatives will the Saudis have but to cough up whatever the Houthi demand? As for the bigger picture, it is undeniable that all the neocon wars the U.S. and its allies waged in the Middle East - Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003), Lebanon (2006), Syria (2011), Iraq (2014) and Yemen (2015) - were unmitigated disasters, costing us upwards of $3 trillion dollars, turning our republic into a de-facto police state, and making Iran and its allies stronger. Their incompetence is criminal.

If ka-POOM ever realizes and the US at last gives up its exorbitant privilege, my greatest hope is that we'll see the entire neocon cabal breaking rocks at Leavenworth.

not necessarily disagreeing with what you said, but maybe we can also see these attacks as a way of Iran saying "don't even try to attack us, we can cause so much asymmetric damage that it's not worth the cost", in light of the tension around US' de facto termination of the JCPA.

[Woodsman]

Re: Saudi gets SLAPPED ! (Oil going to $100?)

Holy Sh1t !

Saudi Arabia finally lost its war on Yemen. It has no defenses against these weapons and it's undeniable that they threaten the Saudis' economic lifelines. This was the decisive attack.

The target's distance from rebel-held territory in Yemen demonstrates the range of the Houthis’ drones and it puts other Saudi oil fields, an under-construction Emirati nuclear power plant, and even Dubai’s international airport within range. These Houthi drones have proved difficult to track and even harder to shoot down. And not only are the Saudi's PAC 3 Patriot batteries useless against them, they're actually under threat themselves.

The Houthi have clown prince MBS by the balls and can squeeze any time it suits them. The economic threat of Houthi drone attacks comes on top of an IMF predicted 7% budget deficit, meaning further Saudi bombing against the Houthi will now have very significant additional cost that might even endanger the viability of the Saudi state, not to mention the royal neckline. They also show that the Houthi are no longer an unrecognized, isolated movement and this is punctuated by a recent meeting at the Iranian Foreign Ministry where delegates from Iran, Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, as well as Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement, exchanged views about a political resolution of the war.

The war on Yemen the Saudis started in March 2015 was unwinnable then and now is definitely lost. Neither the U.S. nor the Europeans will come to the Saudis help, despite Pompeo and Trump's recent bluster and the "let's you and them fight" efforts by the Saudis (and Israelis) to have us make war against Iran on their behalf. Trump knows the ice beneath him is thinning and his firing of Bolton proves he has no intent of giving up a second term for the neocons and their Israeli/Saudi paymasters. Considering there are no technological means to protect against more such attacks, it's clear that poor Yemen defeated rich Saudi Arabia.

MbS will have to agree to peace negotiations and the Yemeni demand for reparations will be massive. But what alternatives will the Saudis have but to cough up whatever the Houthi demand? As for the bigger picture, it is undeniable that all the neocon wars the U.S. and its allies waged in the Middle East - Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003), Lebanon (2006), Syria (2011), Iraq (2014) and Yemen (2015) - were unmitigated disasters, costing us upwards of $3 trillion dollars, turning our republic into a de-facto police state, and making Iran and its allies stronger. Their incompetence is criminal.

If ka-POOM ever realizes and the US at last gives up its exorbitant privilege, my greatest hope is that we'll see the entire neocon cabal breaking rocks at Leavenworth.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Saudi gets SLAPPED ! (Oil going to $100?)

Interesting
I assume they us GPS to guide them?............so why would Jamming not be effective?
A local radar set to point a high power microwave beam that would "fry" the chips?

With all their wealth they could not defend agasint this?
Mike

There are both multiple methods for guidance of drones(GPS, terrain comparison, optical , other) as well as defeat of drones(GPS jamming/spoofing, RF spectrum jamming/spoofing, kinetic options.

The last 3 years has seen a wide range of counter-drone solutions developed. Some are absolute rubbish, others are quite solid.

For exceptionally high value targets a layered defence would be a recommended and likely option.

18 months ago Syrian rebels attacked a Russian base with a drone swarm with mixed results.

This seems more like a drone version of Mumbai 2008, exhibiting early signs of professional planning, command, control, and execution.

[Mega]

Re: Saudi gets SLAPPED ! (Oil going to $100?)

I know that it is now know that Israel used a "swarm" of drones to over run a SAM site, hence sudden interest in high power LAZER tec........

[Mega]

Re: Saudi gets SLAPPED ! (Oil going to $100?)

Interesting
I assume they us GPS to guide them?............so why would Jamming not be effective?
A local radar set to point a high power microwave beam that would "fry" the chips?

With all their wealth they could not defend agasint this?
Mike

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Saudi gets SLAPPED ! (Oil going to $100?)

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...efineries.html

Holy Sh1t !

3 years ago, I was teaching a course working on defence problems at an unclassified level. One of those problems was counter-drone. During the course, and the first time in open source, an adversary drone killed 2 Peshmerga Kurds and injured 2 French soldiers.

2 years ago, a single adversary network managed to put 70 drones in the air within 24 hours, including 12 concurrent commercial off the shelf weaponised drones. Disrupting allied Iraqi operations despite the allied coalition having complete conventional air superiority.

1 day ago, approx 10 weaponised drones temporarily disrupted 5% of global petroleum production in a coordinated series of attacks.

The Houthi rebels are actually pretty damn good at running complex rocket/missile systems and McGyvering together field expedient improvements such as range extenders.

The Houthi have managed to snipe approx 450 high value GCC coalition headquarters personnel within Yemen using rockets/missiles, as well as killing a few using weaponised drones within Yemen and now punching into Saudi proper.

Houthi long range missile attacks have been creeping towards Jeddah, Taif, and Riyadh, but large missile bodies are very limited.

Long range weaponised drones are a very cheap and relatively easy to manufacture poor man’s precision cruise missile system.

As stated, the Houthi are pretty solid at asymmetric rocket/missile employment, but those are nearly all expended.

Long range large form factor drones can be manufactured easily enough from COTS designs/components but much has been done to mitigate them from being used in specific conflict zones.

But a state sponsor such as Iran could provide clandestine and less attributable critical components and intelligence to give the Saudis a very big headache at a very low cost.

Taking Bolton and his uberhawk ilk our of the equation, this likely has indirect Iranian fingerprints on it.

But what will the response look like?

[Mega]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...efineries.html

Holy Sh1t !