Policy Alert #194 | September 20, 2019

On September 14, 2019, a large oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia was incapacitated in a drone attack. The Saudi Aramco facility in Abqaiq is one of the world’s largest processing centers for crude oil, with some estimates of its capacity at five million barrels per day. Houthi rebels based in Yemen claimed responsibility for the attack and called for an end to the ongoing civil war in the country, in which the Houthi rebels are backed by Iran and the Yemeni government are supported by Saudi Arabia. Despite the claim, both Saudi Arabia and the United States have accused Iran of perpetrating the attack. With tensions in the region already running high with the US’s withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and reinstatement of economic sanctions against Iran and its trade partners, the Rising Powers are bracing themselves for ripple effects.

 

CHINA
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying expressed China’s resolute disapproval of the attack, regardless of who was responsible: “China condemns the attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities. We are against any attack on civilians and civil facilities.” In response to a question about the US’s accusation against Iran, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying called for cooler heads to prevail: “We don’t think it is responsible to assert who is responsible before a conclusive investigation. China is against any move that will aggravate conflict. We call on relevant sides to refrain from actions leading to escalation of the tensions in the region.” At a later press conference, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Geng Shuang dodged a question from the press regarding whether or not China would address the attack in the United Nations Security Council, instead restating China’s condemnation of the attack.

• The state-supported China Daily criticized the US’s accusation against Iran as part of a larger trend of unnecessarily stirring the pot: “To be fair to Iran, it is not responsible for the current situation. The main cause of the tensions is the US’ withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal despite the International Atomic Energy Agency saying Teheran had fully complied with the multilateral deal.”
• The nationalist Global Times condemned the US, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, for immediately blaming Iran without compelling evidence: “The world needs order, and should not encourage a superpower’s secretary of state to declare a country guilty so easily. Iran has maintained good ties with Yemen’s Houthi rebels. But this does not mean Iran is the country that launched the drone attacks.”
• The independent South China Morning Post called for “diplomacy, not war,” and for the issue to be taken up by the United Nations, which begins its 74th General Assembly next week: “Political hawks in the US and Iran could too easily push their nations into an unwanted conflict, worsening instability in the Middle East and putting global energy supplies at risk. […] The international community has to prevent conflict; the United Nations General Assembly this week is an opportunity to push for dialogue and peace.”

 

INDIA
Following the attack, Indian Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar voiced his country’s disapproval of the attack: “We condemn the attacks of September 14, 2019 targetting [sic] Abqaiq oil processing facility and Khurais oil field in Saudi Arabia. We reiterate our resolve to oppose terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.”

• The left-leaning Hindu expressed concerns about the attack’s disruption of India’s supply of petroleum products, given that two-thirds of its oil is imported from West Africa, but also laid blame across all sides in the dispute: “The sudden disruption of global crude oil supply is the unintended consequence of the unravelling of the painstakingly crafted P5+1+EU-Iran [JCPOA] nuclear deal, the Saudis’ reckless adventure in Yemen and the Iranian empowerment of its proxies in West Asia as a response. […] The government should be prepared to handle the fallout with steps such as re-evaluating the excise duties on petroleum products.”
• The liberal Indian Express similarly described the current “lose-lose” situation as the result of a confluence of miscalculations by the involved parties, and called for India to help smooth over the conflict as Japan and European countries are: “The current lose-lose situation should open the door for sensible compromises all around. India, which is friends with all the actors in the Middle East, can easily do more than being a passive observer.”
• The liberal Hindustan Times focused on what the conflict means for India’s longer term energy security strategy: “New Delhi still has little ability to influence the geopolitics of the Gulf, and should buffer itself for further bad news in that part of the world. India should do much more at home in terms of diversifying its energy sources, gasifying its baseload power and increasing its strategic oil reserves — the latter remain at criminally low levels.”
• The centrist Times of India insisted the government prepare to insulate the economy from any negative effects of the dispute: “One of the highlights of India’s economic performance over the last few years is a durable reduction in the rate of inflation. A softening of crude price has contributed to it; this will be under threat if the geopolitical situation in West Asia deteriorates. If crude prices do harden and stay at elevated levels, there is a strong economic case to lower elevated taxes on retail petro products to ensure consumption demand is not dampened further.”
• The pro-government Daily Pioneer echoed concerns about India’s economic and energy security, but claimed the attack had one more lesson for the government as well: “As we learnt when the Gatwick Airport in London was shut down for almost a week, thanks to drones overflying the runways, precision strikes do not need to be fiery and violent to damage the economy. […J]ust as the Saudis will learn from this lapse, so should India.”

 

JAPAN
The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the attack, and specifically cited the economic threat of such tactics for the region and the world in its statement: “The peace and stability in the Middle East is extremely important for the peace and stability of the entire international community. Stable oil supply from the Middle East region is indispensable for the stability and prosperity of the global economy including Japan. The Government of Japan strongly denounces such terror attacks.”

• The left-leaning Mainichi called for Iran and the US to bury the hatchet for the sake of stabilizing relations in the Middle East: “Tensions between Washington and Tehran will only bring political and economic losses across the world. All the more for that, the international community should encourage the two countries hold talks to settle their dispute.”
• The centrist Japan Times highlighted the economic stakes for Japan in the dispute, noting that Saudi Arabia is one of Japan’s largest suppliers of oil and that Japan is Saudi Arabia’s second largest source of foreign capital, and called for the Japanese government to brace itself for more trouble: “Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s offer to mediate between Iran and the U.S. also inserts this country into regional developments. While any option that increases prospects for peace is to be pursued [..,] Tokyo must be prepared for frustration and blowback if factions in Iran opposed to negotiations want to deter its involvement.”
• The conservative Yomiuri Shimbun called for the parties in the dispute to act “level-headedly,” and for the government to properly release necessary stockpiles of its oil reserves to protect the economy from any supply disruptions: “The government needs to make absolutely sure that energy sources will be stably supplied, while keeping an eye on the trend of crude oil prices.”

 

RUSSIA
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called for a thorough investigation into the attack before the situation escalates: “It’s important to make sure that the process is impartial because unsubstantiated accusations won’t help matters, they are only heightening already existing tensions in the region.” Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s permanent representative to international organizations located in Vienna, meanwhile expressed dismay at the latest round of retaliatory sanctions against Iran and what it will mean for ongoing negotiations with the country regarding its nuclear program: “Isn’t it clear that nobody benefits from this sanctions/ reductions race? Non-proliferation and security in Persian Gulf are victims.”

• State-owned TASS reported that a source in the Russian Defense Ministry characterized the attack as evidence of a weakness in the US’s air defense capabilities, given that Saudi Arabia relies on US-manufactured systems: “The question arises how come such a strong air defense let through dozens of drones and cruise missiles? There can be only one reason for this: the much-advertised US systems Patriot and Aegis fall short of the officially declared parameters. Their effectiveness against small air targets and cruise missiles is low.” TASS further reported on Mike Pompeo’s efforts to “play down” this failure. 
• State-owned Sputnik News featured an interview with Mohammad Marandi, a lecturer on American studies at the University of Tehran, in which he questioned how the next steps by Saudi Arabia and the US will be motivated by an impetus to avoid embarrassment that the attack was even possible: “The Saudis have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on American and Western weaponry, and if they cannot track drones…then what’s that weaponry for? And Americans […]: if they cannot monitor the air space in the region in a decent manner with all the equipment and expensive technology that they’ve brought with them, then what is their military doing in the Persian Gulf region in the first place?”
• Nebojsa Malic, a senior writer at state-supported RT, echoed concerns expressed by political anthropologist Negar Razavi that the US foreign policy is driven by partisan “think-tank factories” rather than actual area specialists and argued that this lack of expertise is driving missteps by the US abroad: “The result of this unholy alliance of tanks and think-tanks has been decades of mis-shapen US foreign policy, with arguably disastrous results – from trillions in squandered treasure to millions of deaths around the world.”
• Leonid Beshidsky, Bloomberg Opinion’s Europe columnist and founding editor of the business daily Vedomosti and opinion website Slon, wrote an op-ed for the independent, Dutch-owned Moscow Times that contextualized Russian President Vladimir Putin’s renewed efforts to sell Saudi Arabia air defense systems in the wake of the attack as part of Russia’s larger strategy in the Middle East: “Russia’s bid to replace the US as the go-to problem solver in the Middle East is based on the success of its relatively low-cost but highly effective intervention in Syria […]. Putin’s foray in Syria was meant, in part, as a sales demonstration to Middle Eastern regimes: Russia will, if asked, intervene on the side of the incumbent ruler in the interest of stability, and it will do so quickly and without political strings attached. The US offers neither of these advantages.”

RPI acknowledges support from the MacArthur Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York for its activities.