The weekend attack on the Saudi oil refinery may well be looked back at as a true hinge moment in history, for it represents the first time a world power, Iran, through its agents in Yemen*, struck another world power with large numbers of drones in a coordinated fashion. Sure, drones have been used for the last twenty years or so to deploy weapons of war, but those deployments have usually been by singular drones against singular, specific targets.
Think of the strike as the 21st-century Guernica:
I think it highly likely that Hezb'allah, from Lebanon, and Hamas, from Gaza, will strike Israel with multiple or even swarms of low-flying drones in coordinated ways. Iran could increase its attack on Gulf shipping. India and Pakistan could fight their own "Battle of Coral Sea" over Kashmir with neither side ever seeing or firing on the other. And the implications in the China-Taiwan and North vs. South Korea conflicts are staggering to contemplate.
More worrisome, to me, in the short run is what is happening in Yemen, particularly, and on the Arabian Peninsula in general.
Saudi Arabia is weak. It has proven that it is too militarily weak to effectively fight, let alone defeat, the Houthis, even with the aid of the Emirates. It has no chance against the Houthis now that the Emirates have lost interest in the fight.
Furthermore, the Houthis are continuing to gain strength in the whole of Yemen, but particularly in the area of the ruins of the once prosperous and powerful city of Mocha on the Red Sea. From there the Houthis can control the vital Bab el-Mandeb Strait. In a compelling discussion, Jonathan Spyer explains the threat cogently. And this explanation was taped before the refinery attack, so we must presume that the threat may now be even exponentially greater.
Elana DeLozier, a special scholar on the area, gives a thorough, but brief, account of the entire situation in Yemen. Those readers interested in understanding what is now happening in all of Arabia would profit by spending a few minutes listening to both Mr. Spyer and Ms. DeLozier, perhaps whilst preparing the morning's coffee.
So we now have the Houthis emboldened and strengthened by the strike, but we also have an aggressive Iran denying involvement and raising tensions in the region:
Worse yet, as a result of current conditions in the area, exacerbated by the refinery strike, the impulse in Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere, to acquire nuclear weapons will surely intensify. That is, it will intensify if Saudi Arabia doesn't already have nuclear weapons at hand. By that I mean that if you think Saudi Arabia hasn't negotiated such a deal with Pakistan in exchange for its funding of Pakistan's program, then I have a date palm oasis to sell you!
In any case, if the Saudis openly pursue a bomb, Erdoğan's Turkey, Sisi's Egypt, and even Abdullah's Jordan will likely follow or at least want to follow.
And that strike has brought us closer than ever to nuclear conflict.
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