Above: the Houthi launched missiles and drones that struck a Saudi oil facility in Jizan, some 970km (600 miles) southwest of the capital, Riyadh, igniting fires on March 26, 2021
Finian Cunningham – Strategic Review March 26, 2021
After six years of blowing up Yemen and blockading its southern neighbor, the Saudi rulers are now saying they are committed to finding peace. The move is less about genuine peace than economic survival for the oil kingdom.
The Saudi monarchy say they want “all guns to fall completely silent”. Washington, which has been a crucial enabler of the Saudi war on Yemen, has backed the latest “peace offer”. Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week endorsed the initiative from the Saudi rulers, saying he had spoken with them “on our work together to end the conflict in Yemen, facilitate humanitarian access and aid for the Yemeni people”.
The Saudi foreign ministry stated: “The initiative aims to end the human suffering of the brotherly Yemeni people, and affirms the kingdom’s support for efforts to reach a comprehensive political resolution.”
Can you believe this sickening duplicity from the Saudis and the Americans?
So, after six years of relentless aerial bombing in Yemen causing the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, according to the United Nations, the Saudis and their American military supplier, seem to have developed a conscience for peace and ending suffering.
The real reason for trying to end the conflict is the perilous state of the Saudi oil-dependent economy. Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil, gas and petroleum industry, recently announced that its profits have slumped by nearly half in 2020 compared with the year before. Down from $88 billion to $49 billion.
Given that its oil economy provides nearly 90 per cent of state budget that is a stupendous hit on the Saudi finances. The Saudi rulers rely on hefty state subsidies to keep its 34 million population content. With income from the oil industry nosediving that means state deficits will explode to maintain public spending, or else risk social unrest from dire cutbacks.
Saudi Arabia remains the biggest oil exporter, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic and world economies going into recession crude oil prices have plummeted. At one point oil prices fell to around $20 a barrel. The Saudi economy needs an oil price of around $70 a barrel to reel in a profit.
The upshot is the Saudi war in Yemen has become a critical drain on state finances and potentially jeopardizing the superficial stability of the absolute monarchy.
Of further alarm is the increasing missile and drone attacks by the Houthi rebels in Yemen on key Saudi locations, including the capital Riyadh.
The Yemeni rebels are escalating airstrikes on Aramco installations at its headquarters in Dhahran and Dammam in Eastern Province, as well as in the cities of Abha, Azir, Jazan, and Ras Tanura. The targets include oil refineries and export terminals. The Saudis claim they have intercepted a lot of the missiles with U.S.-made Patriot defense systems. Nevertheless, the mere fact that the Yemenis can hit key parts of the Saudi oil economy over a distance of 1,000 kilometers is a grave security concern undermining investor confidence.
The first major strike was in September 2019 when Houthi drones hit the huge refinery complex at Abqaiq. That caused Saudi oil production to temporarily shut down by half. It also delayed an Initial Public Offering of Aramco shares on the stock market as investors took fright over political risk.
At a time when the Saudi oil economy is contracting severely due to worldwide circumstances, an additional debilitating threat is the intensifying campaign of Houthi airstrikes. They are taking the war into Saudi heartland.
The Biden administration has condemned the Houthi missile attacks on Saudi Arabia as “unacceptable”. Such American concern is derisory given how Washington has been providing warplanes, missiles and logistics for the Saudis to indiscriminately bomb Yemen causing tens of thousands of deaths. The Americans also enable the Saudis to impose a blockade on Yemen’s sea and airports, which has prevented vital food and medicines from being supplied to the country. Nearly 80 per cent of Yemen’s 30 million population are dependent on foreign aid deliveries. The blockade is a war crime, a crime against humanity, and the Americans are fully complicit.
President Joe Biden has said he is ending U.S. military support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen. It was an election promise. However, it is not clear what military support the U.S. has actually stopped, if at all. The Saudi bombing of food depots continues and the blockade on the country could not be maintained without essential American logistics.
More cynically, the Biden administration realizes that the Saudis started a war back in March 2015, when Obama was president and Biden was vice-president, that has turned into an un-winnable quagmire whose horrendous human suffering has become a vile stain on America’s international image.
That’s why Biden and his diplomats have been urging the Saudi rulers to sue for peace. Now it seems the Saudi monarchy realizes that the reckless war launched by “defense minister” Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has come with a price that they can’t afford to sustain if they want to preserve their rickety house of cards, known as the House of Saud.
On the latest peace proposal, the Yemeni rebels have rejected it out of hand. They say it contains “nothing new”. The Houthis say the only way to end the war is for the Saudis and their American sponsors to end the aggression on their country. There is no “deal”. It is a case of the Saudis and the Americans just getting out.
Meantime, the airstrikes on Saudi oil infrastructure are going to continue with ever-increasing damage to the royal coffers. Thus, the Saudi rulers have no choice but to unconditionally surrender in this criminal war. They are facing a humiliating defeat as the Yemenis take revenge and Uncle Sam washes his hands of blood.
I had a freind who married into the saudi Royal family
sh said they are not muslims but secret jews
they are corupt and money grabbing like the USA
did you know that 90% of Syrias oil is being stolen by th USA and the dirty jews of israel ?
Here in london on Monday a 73 year old man suffering from arthritis and emphysema was punched to the ground in a ” knockout drop ataack”
Bob Wall died on the pavement
The black youths responsible said he showed disrespect by not moving off the pavement when they passed
Police took some notes in a 5 minute phone call and that was it
Copare this with the small time drug dealer Stephen Lawrence, we get bashed with this every single week
£ 22 million wa spent to find some one guilty of this
but our own people dont count
time for direct action
Man, I take my hat off to those Houthis.
There is a great difference between US supporting their allies and Iran supporting its allies.
US is “milking” their petrodollar Saudi ally and their Patriot air-defense system has been proven useless time and again. Saudis being the richest Arab country has lost to Houthies of Yemen the poorest Arab country backed by Iran.
Iran empowers its allies so they can fight on their own by transferring missile and drone tech as well as software and doctrines to its allies… while US sells outdated and extremely expensive equipment to its best allies who are also neither liberal nor democratic and chop heads off and cut diplomats to pieces in their embassies!
Zionists are sucking the nearly-dead US corpse and won’t stop until it is completely dead and then move on to china! Americans are watching their country die in front of their eyes as Zionist interests shadow over national interests. With no ideology and little hope left they have nothing to cling to… Liberal market democracy is finished, communism and socialism finished too… Christianity being passive like most other religions… and yet Americans such as LesVisible prescribe Hinduism and Buddhism… seriously!
my two rials
This reminds me of Italy wanting to change sides at the end of WWII. The Saudis have been on the wrong side by colluding with the murderous US and Israel against its Arab brethren. All for paper dollar. It may have realised if it and the US and UK can’t beat the Houthi it has little chance against Iran.
It’s Yemen’s strategic position that makes it desirable land for similar reasons to Afghanistan. Pipelines across the country from the oil states to the Arabian Sea would mean tankers not needing to sail through the Straits of Hormuz (just as Caspian oil pipelines were meant to cut across Afghanistan and likewise the Afghanis said “No!”) But also the southwest tip of Yemen offers any occupiers a chokehold to the entrance of the Red Sea once Somalia is tamed, and control of access to the Suez Canal. Perhaps the grounding of the Ever Green in the Suez Canal has changed that imperative.
There’s no mention about the UK regimes support of the Saudi war in Yemen.
The Saudi war on Yemen has been an entirely air war and it is the UK who trains Saudi pilots and maintains the planes.
The Saudi economy has been in trouble since 2008 when demand for oil slumped by 16% and the price crashed. There’s been some price revival, but no where near enough to bankroll the profligate Saudi economy.
The Saudis failure to use ground forces in the war lustrates just how dismal the Saudi army is, not withstanding the fact that many senior military brass are not loyal to the Saudi regime. You can spend all the money you like on the military, but when the sheeple are divided all the way up to the throne, it kinda destroys your regional & global reputation.
The Saudis did hold a lot of US paper. I’ve not checked if they still do, but I would assume they do have those reserves, if they can find any buyers… lol
Gotta remember the UK regime is upto its neck in Yemeni war crimes and the fake news won’t even touch it. Saudis want peace? I say let them burn in the fire that they started.
Yemen has been the world`s poorest country for decades, and vicious Saudi attacks on Yemen`s Shia population have been constantly ignored, by Western governments. Now with vast local,and regional support, the Shia Houtis are winning the Saudi war, with huge help from Shia Iran,Iraq and Syria.Allah is with them.
I heard that the Saudi pilots were not interested in the war or were no good at it, and ineffective.
yemen was 1-2 times mininuked by saudi or israel airplanes.
yemen has the right to defend and retaliate themself.
the most moslems here know that the saudis are jews !
Aramco facilities are “sitting ducks” for controllable drone missiles. I find it amazing the Yemeni’s are sophisticated enough to launch counter strikes against the ZioSaudpigs. An oil production facility is a web of pipes, an engineering miracle, and any attack on any of the structure will shut it down for expensive repairs.
This reminds me of the V-1 and V-2 attacks on London.
Capitalism has an “Achilles Heel”, capital is concentrated in profit making ventures like oil refineries, dams, electrical production and transmission, chemical factories, oil and gas pipelines, etc. which can be targeted by cheapo missiles, explosive charges etc.
Those under attack by the Ziopigs who run the capitalism for political dominance have a way to fight back by damaging the production facilities owned by the capitalists, and this is especially true in the USSA now run by Ziopigs who want to seize all the guns.
The United States of Covid Hellishness can be shut down by simply taking out the high tension power transmission lines, which cross vast distances of empty countryside and are completely unprotected. Google has maps of all the gas and oil pipelines online. If a civil war broke out stateside then it could get very ugly, and I think that could happen because of Amerika’s intense evil karma of doing it to all those other nations.
I recommend fleeing to a more peaceful place, as hell is coming.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2011/10/25/the-doenmeh-the-middle-easts-most-whispered-secret-part-i/
David Lambert – herewith the proof. The Saudi “royal family” are not Muslims but they do control the Wahahbis who are the vicious terrorists of the ME. It seems that the Donmeh who also control Turkey, are the descendents of the Sabbatean Jews who are or were followers of the crazy Sabbatai Zevi who decided that he was the messiah of the Jews.
There is more to it, but as I understand it, the Wahhabi cult was actually created by the Jews of the Donmeh – who are not Jews!
ps. It is very interesting to read that King Solomon and The Queen of Sheba had their palaces in Yeman and that the Semitic Jews originated in Yemen – NOT Palestine.
Read the works of Ashraf Ezzat – supported by the archaeology – those palace remains are there in Yemen!
Of course, the Ashekanazi Jews who are not Semitic at all, or in any way. Bibi is not and never has been nor ever will be in the least bt Semitic.
There is a whole COUNTRY called Birobijhan in SE Russia, more or less where the Jews originated as the Ashkenazi . It has a modern city with everything you expect in a modern city – with air and rail links to Moscow and Beijing.
Why did they go all the way to steal Palestine when they had Birobijhan which is same size as Switzerland but more fertile???
Wherever whenever a country reaches a self sufficient economy but has no defense it is got to reset back to primitive state because it has become eco- enemy