In a sharp, if perhaps not unexpected, escalation, US Secretary of State – now without John Bolton by his side – tweeted at 4pm on Saturday, that contrary to earlier reports, “there is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen” and instead accused Iran of launching today’s “unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply” which has now indefinitely taken offline as much as 5mmb/d in Saudi crude production.
In a follow up tweet, Pompeo said that he calls “on all nations to publicly and unequivocally condemn Iran’s attacks” which is odd as not even Saudi Arabia accused Iran of today’s aggression (which many speculated could have been a Saudi false flag in hopes of sending the price of oil soaring ahead of the Aramco IPO). Pompeo concluded that “the United States will work with our partners and allies to ensure that energy markets remain well supplied and Iran is held accountable for its aggression.”
Will this pivot away from Houthis to Iran as the “origin” of the attack be sufficient grounds to re-inflame tensions between the US and Iran, especially following last week’s news that one of the reasons Bolton was fired was due to his hard-line stance on Iran even as Trump was willing to sit down with the Tehran regime for negotiations. Since the deep state stands to make much more money from war rather than peace, our guess is that the answer is a resounding “yes.”
We call on all nations to publicly and unequivocally condemn Iran’s attacks. The United States will work with our partners and allies to ensure that energy markets remain well supplied and Iran is held accountable for its aggression
— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) September 14, 2019
