Massive Fires In Saudi Arabia - Aramco Oil Facilities Hit By Drones

I remember Macron saying when he was trying to get the US not to go against the Treaty on the UN deal that he would have liked Iran to make more concessions and possibly that could be done so it is possible that he believed that Iran could be pushed further so maybe there is something in that. However even Johnson is not speaking in terms of going with the US to war with Iran - which may be one of the reasons the US has not - it was trying to get allies onside and I think even the US is aware that it going on an open war against Iran with only Israel and the Sauds on its side is not going to impress and possibly could even result in unexpected ramifications.

Iran is being put into a corner. I think what they did not expect is Iran's resilience and from how I see it the ability of people like Zarif to make the situation clear to any who will listen and that does include Europe who it would appear do not want war and nor do they want the US to be world Dictator. Zarif and others appear to be able to stop the US from achieving any momentum that what it is doing is right. At the same time the United States seems inclined to starve the people of Iran to death if possible. These sanctions are against all International Law. Apparently Carney of the Bank of England has been suggesting that we need to end the US position of having the $ as the currency reserve etc not just because the US financial position no longer supports this but, and this wasn't said though implied in the interview I watched, to stop the US dictating to the world.

I think Iran is under massive attack by the US one which does put it in the position where any aggression would be an act of defence and so legally an acceptable move (though it would not be seen as that) It would appear the US plan is to cause the death of millions of Iranians and the eventual destruction of Iran - and for what? It was not Iran who acted in the wrong against International Law but the United States of America. We appear to be living very much in a 1984 world.

I don't know what these things are. I think Iran is in an incredibly difficult position at the moment. Iran is the one who has been attacked by the US going back on a UN deal and forcing the rest of the world to also. Where I think the US has absolutely failed is in getting the rest of the world to believe what it is doing is in any way right. Indeed I think the US is totally destroying any position of hegemony it had as the rest of the world can see it has become a world tyrant and people will resist this as can be seen with the desire to take away the US unfair advantage with the $'s position which now is no longer being spoken about just by people like Russia but even by the Bank of England.

(I also noticed in Zarif's interview that he speaks about an Iranian Professor who went to the US on a visa being held in jail in the US for about a year without charge. The without charge is part of the total breakdown of the system of democracy which the US is experiencing and indeed the ability to put this in was done by the Obama admin not Trump.)

 

Instead of addressing your points directly, I will point to 3 things which I believe should guide how we look at the situation:
1- No military engagement against Iran will ever happen unless Iran has weakened or compromised its retaliatory options or made it appear it is cowed and wouldn't resort to them. Otherwise, this is no propaganda or wishful thinking: Iran can blow up the region and turn (including anything the US cares about it here) in flames. Of course, since the Americans can blow up Iran and burn Iran in flames too, it will often be a game of chicken. About which side blinks? Which side will actually go through with the threats.

It is not even so much a poker game where the US has the better hand. Iran has a stronger hand even if it comes to a conventional war. But the US has a gun under the table and all sorts of people saying Iran should watch out as that gun may go off, while others have been pushing Iran to throw away its best cards so the other side doesn't act like a spoiled brat and act unpredictably.

2- In a game of chicken, if you start blinking, you will lose the game. The 'reformists' in Iran, with their ties to Europeans who aren't interested in a game of chicken but reducing the heat, usually push Iran to blink. Wittingly or not, then they create conditions where the other sides piles more on the pressure and threats.

3- If Iran isn't willing to stand firm, and if it is going to blink, its best option is to actually talk directly to Trump and give him what he wants completely in return for one thing he has promised: wanting Iran to be at least a successful and rich state (even if a subservient one).

 

Heard we recently sent more troops to Saudi Arabia. Perfect. Nineteen of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis. Now the taxpayers are going to be on the hook for the bill to fight their war, and our children are going to be canon fodder for them.
Nothing in Saudi Arabia has anything whatsoever to do with the taxpaying peasants in the US.

 

If you understood fracking in 2016 you would know it was the price of oil not Obama that killed the N. Dakota oil fields.
It was a self inflicted wound.


What was the price of oil in 2016?
Brent Crude oil prices from 2014 to 2020 (in U.S. dollars per barrel)
Price in U.S. dollars per barrel
2017 54.15
2016 43.74
2015 52.32
2014 98.89

 

One hijacker was killed in 2000 in a crash in Ft Lauderdale. 4 others are still alive. We don't know the identity of those four who were killed in 9-11 because they were using stolen identities. They may not be Saudis at all considering that OBL hated Arabia as much as he hated the US.

 

Yep.. When you have a glut of petroleum in the supply chain the ppb goes down.

Meanwhile, the Permian Basin is in steep decline.. and investors have gone cold.

 

Abqaiq is not in flames. The refinery complex was attacked not the town of Abqaiq.

 

Seems earlier I was wrong about Britain's position. This comes from our Parliament having been suspended.

I have just heard Dominic Raab blame Iran for the Sauds (with the help of America and Britain) destruction of Yemen. Prior to that they claimed to have proof beyond proof that it was Iran who blew up the oil in Saudi Arabia. I have heard everything now. Clearly our Politicians have zero interests in truth.

Raab is also like Macron wanting the JCPOA be changed to suit Trump.

He finished saying that Iran must stop its attacks on its neighbours - not one word about the massacres committed by both Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Emily Thornberry, Labour, came on next and agreed Iran would have done everything bad that has ever happened in the ME but blamed this fundamentally on the United States. She believed that the UK was intending on sending Troops to Saudi Arabia to grovel to the United States and demanded this did not happen.

Raab claimed this was not the case. However he then suggested Britain was thinking about giving air support.

His position and Emily Thornberry's is that we must get the JCPOA started again and I would think that is with the extras which you were talking about before. They claim that Iran has no right not keeping to the JCOPA and that Iran must comply keeping the full JCOPA. Now I understood from Zarif that in fact Iran is not misbehaving re the JCOPA, that indeed Iran is only going by the procedures which were set in motion if one of the participants turned rogue which the US did.

I did a research for the proof that Iran had done the Saudi oil attack but did not find any uncontroversial proof which Raab told Parliament there is but did not say what it was.

So to look at what you were saying.

Well from listening to the British Parliament if you do not want to fight and want to do 3, they will want a revised deal probably much the same as the US has been wanting. Another Tory is up saying we must be in step with the US. Raab is answering saying it is all Iran's fault and what Iran is trying to do is to split the International Community which is why we must stay close to the US working with getting Europe also there.

Frankly give up if you want but they are totally incapable of seeing any wrongs done to Iran and have Iran as the bogey man of the world as were Saddam and Gaddafi. The West has done nothing wrong and Iran has done nothing right.

They were even talking about giving Iran more sanctions and given that they are already for the first time in the world and against International Law sanctioning Iran's ability to get food or medicine I really do not know what more there is. Iran can become a puppet of the US if it wants. If it dose not then I would say it is going to be war.

Another thing that you would need to think about is whether people in Iran do what they do as a matter of conscience. That possibly could cause internal discontent. I have now just heard another man stand up and speak about how happy he was to hear Raab's 'balanced' account of Iran. He then said but we need to get people to speak up about the horrendous attacks on Saudi Arabia by the Houthis.

I am sorry. This is sick. Either people are determined to get at Iran or, for most of them, they have not a clue what they are talking about and are totally unaware they are being fed spin.

 

International politics is governed by power, not principle. I am not saying when the interests at stake aren't all that significant, issues of principle and justice don't play any role. But whatever role they play, takes an immediate backseat whenever you have a situation which involves more intricate set of interests (be they financial, geopolitical, or simply political).

 

That really should not be the position in a democracy. Obviously that is the reason they are doing their best to destroy views which do not come from Corporate media. It just makes me want Independence more. There is no integrity here.

 

Bin Laden hated the Saudi King for having allowed the American military on its soil and it was denigrating to Islam. The terrorists who died, were probably takfiri's themselves with an equal hatred for the Saudi king as Osama had. If they were not Saudis, then they had to be from Qatar.

 

Or Yemen. OBL's family was originally from Yemen.... and his mother was Syrian. KSA revoked his citizenship in 1994 and declared AQ a terrorist organization.

 

One of the biggest problems Iran faces is that our president needs the JCPOA (which is his 'landmark achievement') more than Iran needs it! If Rouhani could stop chasing something that was a fraud from the beginning, take notice of Saudi Arabia's message in response to Iran's olive branch (see below), and not complicate how Iran should react to these things, things would work out quickly.

Incidentally, this is the same guy the US once alleged Iran had tried to assassinate on US soil.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ith-iran-not-inexhaustible-warns-saudi-arabia
US patience with Iran not inexhaustible, warns Saudi Arabia
Saudi minister says military response to attack on oil facilities still being considered