The latest US military buildup into the Middle East was announced today, fresh off the Trump Administration’s briefing on “options” for responding to Iran. The Pentagon is announcing they will be deploying more US forces in the area around Saudi oil facilities.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper says Trump has approved the deployment already, and that it will be focused primarily on air and missile defense systems, at the request of Saudi Arabia.
This has been a major concern for Saudi Arabia. Even though they have the third most expensive military in the world, behind only the US and China, their defensive systems have proven unable to fend off drones and many missiles fired from neighboring Yemen.
The expectation is that the US will be sending more air defense batteries to the area to try to fend off future attacks. Whether or not that’s actually going to work is a huge if, however, since the US has been selling the Saudis their top-of-the-line gear in the first place. It didn’t work for the Saudis, so the question is if adding more of it will make it any more successful.
The US has been investing substantially in trying to improve anti-drone capabilities in recent years, finding that their existing anti-aircraft arsenal is neither cost effective nor super capable against the much smaller, cheaper drones coming into fashion.
Saudi and US officials continue to try to blame the Saudi attack from last weekend on Iran, and are presenting the US deployments as being an attempt to counter Iranian capabilities.
In reality, Iran has denied involvement, and Yemen’s Houthis have been very public about the fact that they launched the attack as retaliation for Saudi airstrikes. President Trump has suggested he wants to avoid a war with Iran, but as the US continues to blame them, the hawks are trying to use it as a pretext to start such a war.
Forgetting the ethics of defending a terrorist regime that bombs school busses in open air markets with American-made guided munitions. There is not even a legitimate strategic interest in being Saudi Arabia’s bitch. We have plenty of oil in North America. We are net EXPORTERS. To hell with that regime.
Why should we defend the Saudi oil fields when we did not defend the Yemen sea port to allow food to be imported by Yemen
It’s not about oil. USA doesn’t defend Venezuela’s oil, or Iran’s oil. It is all about power projection & making Israel happy.
There is no end to this B.S.! DC GHOULS sell out the citizens of the USA for Saudi Black Gold.
It appears the Saudi’s and yanks are backed into a corner again. Both China and Russia have signed a deal with Iran and Iraq to buy up neglected oil fields and associated infrastructure shared by both countries in an area 30 miles NE of Basra. China will put up the cash and manage construction projects. Oil exports from the shared region will be worth and estimated $8 to $9 billion in profits every year for China. And they did this deal without killing any Iraqi kid or bombing an Iraqi village.
See, that’s why we are the “exceptional nation”, we can kill all those kids and get nothing at all…….;?)
Yoo bet…. Defend dat oil what don’t belongs to us for data muderin Muslim Prince…. OOO YEAH…
Does he realise one option is to avoid war and another is to lose? Just look at 18 years in Afghanistan, unable to beat farmers and market traders who have no air capability and who cross mountains on foot while leading pack animals. Iran is a lot more capable, and it can also wipe out Saudi oilfields (show them what it can really do) to paralyse Wall Street and kill the Fed.
But that is not the objective. Objective is to stay. Every now and then there is another “sincere” evaluation, desire to withdraw, have peace negotiations. Now, having come this “close” to sign a deal with Taliban — and are so “unhappy” as it failed, so now we must punish them, bomb farmers harvesting, call them ISIS. This bought another two years.
Who is funding ISIS to just fly their Magic Carpet Airlines, from Syria refugee camp where US stashed ISIS fighters? Even though media talks about this camp in US controlled part of Syria — it is assuming an incredible stupidity of readers.
Sooo, ISIS currently exists ONLY and repeat, ONLY in US controlled areas in Syria, and in Kabul controlled areas of Afghanistan. Again, US controlled.
Terrorists under whatever name are very handy — they will keep everyone on edge, peace cannot take root.
We never get out of places we enter. It is permanent. We do not care any more about Somalia, or any other hundreds of God forsaken places we keep our bases in. The method is called Permanent Revolution. Keep place boiling. Trotsky invented it. With plenty of help from wealthy donors toppled Russian monarchy, and wanted nothing less then a permanently boiling social chaos, and take power through a well disciplined cadres of “activists”. Just keep those backwards peasants down.
How many more times we need to redefine reasons for staying everywhere? As many as it takes. Forever. Or until money inventing schemas eventually fail.
No. The objective is never to stay, per se. Staying would entail an effort to rebuild a destroyed society. What US militancy does is similar to a home invasion. They tear up your house, take what’s valuable, kill and maim a couple family members. Then with the “peace” of destruction, announce that the invaders are keeping a bedroom, maybe a bath, to Sally out on weekends to destroy whatever you have fixed. Nothing to break ? Maybe go next door and start destroying their lives. This is what we observe.
Now, your description of the russian “permanent revolution” is straight out of Senator McCarthy’s fear mongering following the fall of czar. I suggest better books on the russian revolution, civil war, and invasion from the west by 4 countries.
Yes, I have studied all versions. Some are fanciful and with transparent agendas. . Many are incomplete , and require finding pieces.
Funny you should mention Permanent Revolution. The father if it, and the first successful implementation guru — just
happens to be mentor to many neocon family members.
What you described is IDENTICAL to what I said. This process of breaking can go in ad-infinitem. I NEVER mentioned nation building.
There never was any. It was money for contractors and bribes of officials.
It was PR for those, more humanitarian-oriented times. Not needed any more. But if you pay attention — the breaking of things is purposeful. And becoming more economical. Witness Syria-Iraq-Turkey borders. And using Kurds we can stay there very economically and blocking the entire regional development. Turkey pretty much said it — we will not be cut off and isolated in Anatolia, Foreign Minister said.
Thus — no energy infrastructure, no roads nor rail. Do you think Kurdish YPG cares about development of their people instead of just being used like tissue paper? No, for as long as their check is good.
And occasionally we revive ISIS so we can stay longer. UK is nursing Al-Qaeda in Idlib — no problem. All is good. Just keep on chaos, fighting, redefining the already many times redefined and redefined wars. As I said, all is good.
We have plenty of money, so nobody cares. If nobody cares about two decades of Afghanistan — why bother. Throw in some phony negotiation, let Trump does what he does best — act like he was going for Camp David, and bad Taliban! Seriously, anybody falling for the drama. Let us see how much time it buys before next surge. Yawn.
“Permanent Revolution, the father of it happens to be mentor to many neocon family members”…really ? From Marx-Engles written address to the Communist League
“It is our interest and our task to make the revolution permanent until all the more or less propertied classes are driven from their ruling positions, until the proletariat has conquered state power and until the association of proletarians has progressed sufficiently far-out not only in one country but in all the leading countries of the world- that competition between the proletarians of these countries ceases and at last the decisive forces of production are concentrated in the hands of the workers, their battle-cry must be Permanent Revolution.”
Now, I often see, on these pages, references to linking neocons with Trotsky ideology, can you tell me Bianca of a neoconservative which “mentor” from any of the writing above ?
Notice how everyone is avoiding the issue of the direction of attack. Houthis always claimed drones, and given that they previously reached Riyadh area — not outside of their range. But it is unclear where missiles came from.
It is literally impossible for US to claim that the attack came from Iran — and that US assets in the area did not see it. For the attack to come from Iran — any part of it — and hit the Saudi oil infrastructure, it had to pass near or directly above US fifth Fleet base, or other assets in the Gulf, including Saudis warships with missile defence. Zero chance that the attack would not be noticed well ahead of any missile arrival. While Patriot cannot see as far as Russian S-400, and cannot track at very high altitudes, nor very low ones, or track too many of them simultaneously — they COULD NOT HAVE MISSED. missiles. The radar recordings would not fail this spectacularly.
I would not be shocked if low flying drones from Yemen were invisible to Patriots. But missiles? Unless they are not being truthful about capabilities— cruise missiles from that distance should have been spotted. I would not dismiss a possibility that missiles were false flag, coming from Israel and skirting Saudi-Iraqi border. There Prime Minister is facing prosecution and wants to cling to power after losing election. Since American establishment is supporting him — consider all the gifts showered upon him by US (not just Trump). And the only option for keeping him in power, is to be in war. There would be emergency powers invoked. All that is needed is for US to start the war.
These are actually very tense and dangerous times. Trump will be maneuvered into hostilities, inch by inch. Somebody wants this war badly.
I’ll bet every penny I have whoever “somebody” is, they’re not poor.
This is the safest bet in planet Earth.
The problem with the poor or even not so poor, very complacent the rest of the population is — they do not care. They have not seen hardship fir a ling time. A third post war generation has come of age, and their views of reality does not invite questioning. All is quiet in the Western front.
Yes, as others have noted, this just puts US forces at risk – and since the US is blaming Iran directly for the attacks, this means the next Houthi attack will be a casus belli for the US to attack Iran directly.
Which is, of course, precisely why it’s being done.
As for the effectiveness of new US air defense systems, that will depend on whether they are set to cover a 360-degree range. The problem with the Saudi systems is they are pointed at Iran. Drones and cruise missiles can be maneuvered to come from any direction. Also, it depends on what US systems are going to be deployed. Patriots would be a waste of time as they can’t do the job, from what I’ve read.
Everyone, read this comment to Larry Johnson’s post over at Colonel Pat Lang’s blog:
https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2019/09/iran-we-got-to-do-something-by-larry-c-johnson-1.html#comment-6a00d8341c72e153ef0240a4aff557200d
I have no idea who that guy is, or whether he has his facts right, but it sure sounds like it.
Another detailed analysis of the Saudi air defenses in the area of the Houthi attacks…found via Moon of Alabama’s blog…
https://twitter.com/DuitsyWasHere/status/1174186756708679681
Here’s another one worth reading in detail, from Pepe Escobar at Asia Times:
Houthi rebels overturned the chessboard
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/09/article/how-the-houthis-overturned-the-chessboard/
Note these – Quote:
UN officials openly admit that now everything that matters is within the 1,500 km range of the Houthis’ new UAV-X drone: oil fields in Saudi Arabia, a still-under-construction nuclear power plant in the Emirates and Dubai’s
mega-airport.
My conversations with sources in Tehran over the past two years have
ascertained that the Houthis’ new drones and missiles are essentially
copies of Iranian designs assembled in Yemen itself with crucial help
from Hezbollah engineers.
US intel insists that 17 drones and cruise missiles were launched in
combination from southern Iran. In theory, Patriot radar would have
picked that up and knocked the drones/missiles from the sky. So far,
absolutely no record of this trajectory has been revealed. Military
experts generally agree that the radar on the Patriot missile is good,
but its success rate is “disputed” – to say the least. What’s important, once again, is that the Houthis do have advanced offensive missiles. And their pinpoint accuracy at Abqaiq was uncanny.
On the energy front, Tehran has been playing a very precise game under
pressure – selling loads of oil by turning off the transponders of their tankers as they leave Iran and transferring the oil at sea, tanker to tanker, at night, and relabeling their cargo as originating at other producers for a price. I have been checking this for weeks with my trusted Persian Gulf traders – and they all confirm it. Iran could go on doing it forever.
End Quote
Note that the only way for the US to prevent the latter is a strict US Navy blockade of the Straits and boarding and searching every vessel. If Trump wants zero Iranian oil exports, that is what he is going to have to do.
Also note that reference to Hezbollah – apparently Hezbollah is in Yemen helping the Houthis build missiles. This would be no surprise. Hezbollah is not only in Lebanon and Syria, but in Iraq and now Yemen and elsewhere operating against Israel and the Saudis. If there were any Iraqi forces involved in the Saudi attack, it was quite possibly Hezbollah since they would have the drone experience (although of course it could have been Iran-allied Iraqi Shia militia with Iranian adviser help.)
Here’s another piece which describes Saudi oil production processes in some detail:
What blew up in Saudi Arabia
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&u=http://putc.org/chto-vzorvali-v-saudovskoj-aravii/
The bottom line is: wreck enough of these (automated) processes – and keep doing so periodically before they can be repaired (which is the hard part, presumably) – and you halt Saudi oil production completely.
Which is why the Saudis are scared and calling for more American air defense – which may or may not work.
Moon of Alabama as usual has a lot of useful information:
U.S. Ships More Air Defense Systems That Do Not Work To Saudi Arabia
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/09/us-ships-more-air-defense-systems-that-do-not-work-to-saudi-arabia.html#more
Specifically re the Patriot missile (although that is not the system that would be useful in countering slow, low drones), re the previous discussion here:
Quote:
While the Washington Post writer recognizes that the Patriot system can cover only one third of the horizon and fails to detect smaller low flying objects he still asserts that it is better than the systems Russia makes:
While Russia’s S-400 system may have impressive specifications on paper, many analysts are cautious in their assessment of it. It has not been fully tested in real life, whereas the Patriot system successfully intercepted missiles during both the Gulf War and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
The “successfully intercepted” link goes to the a site named missiledefenseadvocacy.org which is obviously a lobby organization to
promote U.S. air defense systems. Its description of the Patriot includes these two claims:
During the Gulf War, U.S. Patriot batteries brought down at least 11 enemy missiles and other Patriot batteries deployed in defense of Israel’s major cities intercepted numerous incoming missiles as well.
…
During Operation Iraqi Freedom, U.S. Patriot batteries intercepted a total of nine enemy tactical ballistic missiles. One notable intercept occurred on March 23, 2003 when Iraqi forces launched an Ababil-100 tactical ballistic missile (TBM) at coalition forces in Kuwait. The TBM was destroyed by a Patriot system protecting over 4,000 Soldiers and the Aviation Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division.
There is serious doubt that those numbers are true. Besides that the
number of hits does not say anything about the system unless one also
knows the number of missiles it failed to engage. After the first Gulf
war Congress investigated the issue and concluded:
The Patriot missile system was not the spectacular success in the Persian Gulf War that the American public was led to believe. There is little evidence to prove that the Patriot hit more than a few Scud missiles launched by Iraq during the Gulf War, and there are some doubts about even these engagements.
End Quote
Other cases are cited where the Patriot was claimed to work, but either shot down far fewer than claimed or far fewer than were actually fired – as well as accidentally shooting down two US and British planes.
The US knows this stuff doesn’t work. They just want it paid for – like all the thousands of nukes that will never be used in a real nuclear war.
Another very interesting piece over at Veterans Today:
Saudi oil strikes perfect example of Yemeni forces’ military capabilities
https://www.veteranstoday.com/2019/09/21/saudi-oil-strikes-perfect-example-of-yemeni-forces-military-capabilities/
The Houthis are saying they can hit anything up to 1,700km and that the Saudis have under-reported the amount of damage based on Yemeni drone photos – shown by the Houthis – taken after the attack.
Note this: “signal jamming devices effectively disabled the enemy’s air missile defense systems…” If that is true, it will be very interesting to see where that came from and whether it was used against the older Saudi systems or the newer US-supplied air defense systems.
Meanwhile, from the same site, the US is deploying an electronic warfare aircraft to the Gulf:
Preparations for War?
https://www.veteranstoday.com/2019/09/21/preparations-for-war/
This team in the White House are blatant war mongers and ready to start killing based on lies. IF Iran had attacked Saudi Arabia Iran would have expected immediate retaliation and would have been preparing for the worst case, moving troops and equiptment around which would have been easily detectable by any and all the military’s in the region. Pompeo and Trump will be guilty of war crimes and treason if they attack Iran based on lies.
US soldiers will be to the West (Iraq), East (Afghanistan) and South (Saudi Arabia). If we can get into Georgia and Turkmenistan Iran will be surrounded.
How convenient it must have been to have Patriot systems undergoing maintenance or “shut off” when an ally unleashed on Saudi oil facilities.
Have they ever headed ANYWHERE over anything OTHER THAN OIL, other natural resources, heroin, etc.? They certainly don’t go anywhere to actually defend AMERICA…that’s for sure.