INSANITY: Saudi Arabia opens up a new front in the war against it
This is the latest fromPepe Escobar, Larry Johnson and Zulfiqar Ali.
What concerns me most is the wilful destruction of energy markets and the world economy.
I have therefore given a partial transcription of Larry Johnson’ s comments.
So what they’ve done effectively is open up a new front in the war, which is going to hurt Saudi Arabia even more than this attack on Iran, in terms of the fallout.
EX-CIA & PEPE BREAKS :Saudi’s Suicidal Attack Just Shook the IRAN Talks And Trump Is LYING About It
The four days of optimism about the Iran–US talks died this morning. Hours after the US and Saudi Arabia struck Iraq's Hashd al-Shaabi — forces attached to Iraq's own Ministry of Defense — Transition Protocol's overnight sources report the hour-long call between Foreign Minister Aragchi and his Saudi counterpart, with Pakistan's Ishaq Dar looped in, that kept the Strait of Hormuz talks from collapsing outright. That call has since appeared in public readouts; here is what our sources are telling us now.
Pepe Escobar breaks down the strikes and why the White House's 'coordination with the Iraqi government' story doesn't add up; former CIA analyst Larry Johnson delivers his verdict — 'the optimism is dead' and Saudi Arabia's new three-front war is 'almost like committing suicide' — and lays out the Houthi counter-blockade trapping tankers off Yanbu plus the global diesel and jet-fuel shortage building underneath the war; and Zulfiqar Ali reports Iran's exact three-step sequencing — Hormuz first, the frozen funds, then the nuclear file — and the new Omani 'window-dressing' formula on the table.
PARTIAL TRANSCRIPTION:
Larry Johnson: So what they’ve done effectively is open up a new front in the war, which is going to hurt Saudi Arabia even more than this attack on Iran, in terms of the fallout.
We remain confronted with a situation where the global supply of oil continues to shrink with each passing day. The amount of oil that used to go into the system is no longer there, and it’s not being replaced. In fact, additional restrictions have come out of Russia on exporting diesel fuel, and now we’ve got the threat that the United States is going to impose sanctions on China and India simply for purchasing Russian oil.
What we’re looking at is further disruption of the international financial system, with grave international economic repercussions.
With respect to India, China, South Korea, Japan, and the Gulf Coast of the United States—now officially the Gulf of America, formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico—those are the four regions where you’ve got the massive refineries that were built to process sour crude.
When you’re dealing with sour crude, the refineries have to be designed for it. Sour crude is a more impure oil. Sometimes, in addition to having a high sulfur content, it’s what they call heavy crude. It’s very thick, so it requires additional processing.
When refineries are built, they have to be designed to handle a particular kind of crude. They’re either built to process sour crude or sweet crude. Sweet crude refineries are much cheaper to build, and they’re less maintenance-intensive because processing that oil into diesel or jet fuel is not as difficult.
The reason they build these heavy sour crude refineries is that there’s much greater opportunity for profit.
Those four regions—India, China, the rest of Asia, including South Korea and Japan, along with the Gulf Coast of the United States—continue to suffer significant shortages of the crude that’s needed to produce diesel and jet fuel.
As a result, there is now a global shortage of diesel and jet fuel, and that shortage is only going to grow. That adds another dimension of economic pressure on the West to bring an end to this war with Iran.
Instead of looking for an exit ramp, Donald Trump and his advisers have apparently decided they’re going to go further and put themselves even deeper in the ditch.
This is an unwelcome prospect, but I think we’re going to see violence visited not just upon Iran, but upon Israel and the other Gulf countries. I believe that violence will be significant in the coming days.
Iraq’s National Security Council has condemned Wednesday’s Saudi-US strikes against the Iran-backed Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), which killed at least 20 members of the Iraqi paramilitary group.
The council meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, called the attacks on PMF bases in seven Iraqi provinces “a flagrant violation of Iraq’s sovereignty and the sanctity of its lands”.
“An aggression”, according to a statement shared on X, “in contravention of the principles of international law and the United Nations Charter”.
“Any transgression or compromise of Iraq’s security and sovereignty will not be tolerated under any circumstances”, it said.
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