Will Americans Let Trump Start World War III for Saudi Arabia and Israel?

Co-Written by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J S Davies

On Saturday, September 14th, two oil refineries and other oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia were hit and set ablaze by 18 drones and 7 cruise missiles, dramatically slashing Saudi Arabia’s oil production by half, from about ten million to five million barrels per day. On September 18, the Trump administration, blaming Iran, announced it was imposing more sanctions on Iran and voices close to Donald Trump are calling for military action. But this attack should lead to just the opposite response: urgent calls for an immediate end to the war in Yemen and an end to US economic warfare against Iran.

The question of the origin of the attack is still under dispute. The Houthi government in Yemen immediately took responsibility. This is not the first time the Houthis have brought the conflict directly onto Saudi soil as they resist the constant Saudi bombardment of Yemen. Last year, Saudi officials said they had intercepted more than 100 missiles fired from Yemen.

This is, however, the most spectacular and sophisticated attack to date. The Houthis claim they got help from within Saudi Arabia itself, stating that this operation “came after an accurate intelligence operation and advance monitoring and cooperation of honorable and free men within the Kingdom.”

This most likely refers to Shia Saudis in the Eastern Province, where the bulk of Saudi oil facilities are located. Shia Muslims, who make up an estimated 15-20 percent of the population in this Sunni-dominated country, have faced discrimination for decades and have a history of uprisings against the regime. So it is plausible that some members of the Shia community inside the kingdom may have provided intelligence or logistical support for the Houthi attack, or even helped Houthi forces to launch missiles or drones from inside Saudi Arabia.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, however, immediately blamed Iran, noting that that the air strikes hit the west and north-west sides of the oil facilities, not the the south side that faces toward Yemen. But Iran is not to the west or northwest either – it is to the northeast. In any case, which part of the facilities were hit does not necessarily have any bearing on which direction the missiles or drones were launched from. Iran strongly denies conducting the attack.

CNN reported that Saudi and US investigators claim “with very high probability” that the attack was launched from an Iranian base in Iran close to the border with Iraq, but that neither the U.S. nor Saudi Arabia has produced any evidence to support these claims.

But in the same report, CNN reported that missile fragments found at the scene appeared to be from Quds-1 missiles, an Iranian model that the Houthis unveiled in July under the slogan, “The Coming Period of Surprises,” and which they may have used in a strike on Abha Airport in southern Saudi Arabia in June.

A Saudi Defence Ministry press briefing on Wednesday, September 18th, told the world’s press that the wreckage of missiles based on Iranian designs proves Iranian involvement in the attack, and that the cruise missiles flew from the north, but the Saudis could not yet give details of where they were launched from.

Also on Wednesday, President Trump announced that he has ordered the U.S. Treasury Department to “substantially” increase its sanctions against Iran. But existing U.S. sanctions already place such huge obstacles in the way of Iranian oil exports and imports of food, medicine and other consumer products that it is hard to imagine what further pain these new sanctions can possibly inflict on the besieged people of Iran.

U.S. allies have been slow to accept the U.S. claims that Iran launched the attack. Japan’s Defense Minister told reporters “we believe the Houthis carried out the attack based on the statement claiming responsibility.” The United Arab Emirates (UAE) expressed frustration that the U.S. was so quick to point its finger at Iran.

Tragically, this is how U.S. administrations of both parties have responded to such incidents in recent years, seizing any pretext to demonize and threaten their enemies and keep the American public psychologically prepared for war.

If Iran provided the Houthis with weapons or logistical support for this attack, this would represent but a tiny fraction of the bottomless supply of weapons and logistical support that the U.S. and its European allies have provided to Saudi Arabia. In 2018 alone, the Saudi military budget was $67.6 billion, making it the world’s third-highest spender on weapons and military forces after the U.S. and China.

Under the laws of war, the Yemenis are perfectly entitled to defend themselves. That would include striking back at the oil facilities that produce the fuel for Saudi warplanes that have conducted over 17,000 air raids, dropping at least 50,000 mostly U.S.-made bombs and missiles, throughout more than four long years of war on Yemen. The resulting humanitarian crisis also kills a Yemeni child every 10 minutes from preventable diseases, starvation and malnutrition.

The Yemen Data Project has classified nearly a third of the Saudi air strikes as attacks on non-military sites, which ensure that a large proportion of at least 90,000 Yemenis reported killed in the war have been civilians. This makes the Saudi-led air campaign a flagrant and systematic war crime for which Saudi leaders and senior officials of every country in their “coalition” should be held criminally accountable.

That would include President Obama, who led the U.S. into the war in 2015, and President Trump, who has kept the U.S. in this coalition even as its systematic atrocities have been exposed and shocked the whole world.

The Houthis’ newfound ability to strike back at the heart of Saudi Arabia could be a catalyst for peace, if the world can seize this opportunity to convince the Saudis and the Trump administration that their horrific, failed war is not worth the price they will have to pay to keep fighting it. But if we fail to seize this moment, it could instead be the prelude to a much wider war.

So, for the sake of the starving and dying people of Yemen and the people of Iran suffering under the “maximum pressure” of U.S. economic sanctions, as well as the future of our own country and the world, this is a pivotal moment.

If the U.S. military, or Israel or Saudi Arabia, had a viable plan to attack Iran without triggering a wider war, they would have done so long ago. We must tell Trump, Congressional leaders and all our elected representatives that we reject another war and that we understand how easily any U.S. attack on Iran could quickly spiral into an uncontainable and catastrophic regional or world war.

President Trump has said he is waiting for the Saudis to tell him who they hold responsible for these strikes, effectively placing the U.S. armed forces at the command of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.

Throughout his presidency, Trump has conducted U.S. foreign policy as a puppet of both Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, making a mockery of his “America First” political rhetoric. As Rep. Tulsi Gabbard quipped, “Having our country act as Saudi Arabia’s bitch is not ‘America First.’”

Senator Bernie Sanders has issued a statement that Trump has no authorization from Congress for an attack on Iran and at least 14 other Members of Congress have made similar statements, including his fellow presidential candidates Senator Warren and Congresswoman Gabbard.

Congress already passed a War Powers Resolution to end U.S. complicity in the Saudi-led war on Yemen, but Trump vetoed it. The House has revived the resolution and attached it as an amendment to the FY2020 NDAA military budget bill. If the Senate agrees to keep that provision in the final bill, it will present Trump with a choice between ending the U.S. role in the war in Yemen or vetoing the entire 2020 U.S. military budget.

If Congress successfully reclaims its constitutional authority over the US role in this conflict, it could be a critical turning point in ending the state of permanent war that the U.S. has inflicted on itself and the world since 2001.

If Americans fail to speak out now, we may discover too late that our failure to rein in our venal, warmongering ruling class has led us to the brink of World War III. We hope this crisis will instead awaken the sleeping giant, the too silent majority of peace-loving Americans, to speak up decisively for peace and force Trump to put the interests and the will of the American people above those of his unscrupulous allies.

Medea Benjamin is cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher with CODEPINK and the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.

Trump’s Threats Towards Iran Aren’t Working. Here’s Why.

By treating the Iranian regime as a monolith the Trump Administration risks closing one of the few remaining avenues for defusing the crisis

by

Stephen Zunes, Medea Benjamin

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani speaks to the media at a joint press conference in Tehran. (Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)

The Trump Administration has imposed sanctions against more than 1,000 Iranian entities, including Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, targeting almost every significant sector of that nation’s economy. But recently it reversed course, backing off its threat to sanction a top Iranian diplomat, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, in response to concerns that it would foreclose any diplomatic recourse.

Top Iranian diplomat, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. (Photo: Stephen Zunes)

Targeting Zarif—who lived in the United States for thirty years, including high school, college, and graduate school—is particularly ironic, given that he is a leading moderate voice in Tehran. Unlike most autocratic regimes, where power is centralized in a political party, a military junta, or a single dictator, Iran’s government is divided between conservative clerics, the moderate president, the military, the parliament, and other forces.

Successful diplomacy with Iran depends on cultivating ties with the moderates and isolating the extremists. By treating the Iranian regime as a monolith and targeting Zarif, the Trump Administration risks closing one of the few remaining avenues for defusing the crisis.

Despite not formally sanctioning him, the Trump Administration is still intent on isolating the diplomat. The State Department is limiting Zarif’s movements to a six-block area between United Nations headquarters, the Iranian mission, and the residence of Iran’s UN ambassador.

Successful diplomacy with Iran depends on cultivating ties with the moderates and isolating the extremists.

This is a far greater limitation than the United States imposed on such notorious figures as Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and Zarif’s rival, hardline former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was allowed to speak at Columbia University, various media outlets, and elsewhere. It would appear that the Trump Administration is more afraid of moderation than extremism.

In February, we were among a small group of American scholars and peace activists who met with Zarif at the Iranian Foreign Ministry in Tehran. Zarif described how the nuclear deal was the result of ten years of posturing and two years of intense, painstaking negotiations, during which he and Secretary of State John Kerry met no fewer than fifty times to hammer out every line in the agreement.

Zarif was able to convince his government, over the objections of hardliners, to agree to destroy billions of dollars’ worth of nuclear facilities and material and accept a strict inspections regime in return for the lifting of debilitating sanctions.

Iran has honored its agreement, as confirmed repeatedly by the International Atomic Energy Agency. But—in response to the United States breaking its part of the agreement by re-imposing sanctions and forcing others to do so—Iran earlier this month increased its stockpiles of enriched uranium. From the Iranian perspective, it makes no sense to stick to an agreement that the United States has violated by withdrawing and imposing crushing sanctions, while the rest of the world does little to ease the blows.

Despite the unpopularity of the Iranian regime, which was evident in our conversations with ordinary Iranians, anger at the United States for reneging on the deal and re-imposing sanctions runs across the political spectrum.

The United States’ big mistake in Vietnam was failing to recognize that the power attained by the Communists came from their ability to rally the nationalist sentiments of their people. Massive U.S. military force only strengthened the resistance against what civilians saw as foreign invaders. Similarly, the Islamist leaders of Iran have been successful in appealing to nationalism when they feel their country is unfairly targeted.

Indeed, we saw far more flags and nationalist symbols on display in Iran than religious imagery. Iranians are among the most stridently nationalistic people in the world. Pride in their nation’s 2,500-year history is universal. In talking to ordinary Iranians during our visit, while we found widespread anger at the corruption and heavy hand of the Iranian regime, people also believe that their government is right to resist U.S. sanctions and military threats. They would rather risk a war than give in.

Iranians wonder why they should accede to Trump Administration demands that they totally eliminate their nuclear program, which under the strictures of the seven-nation nuclear agreement would not result in a single nuclear bomb, while their neighbors Israel, Pakistan, and India continue to develop their nuclear arsenals. Iranians also wonder why they should bow to U.S. demands to eliminate ballistic missiles while rivals Israel and Saudi Arabia continue to develop theirs with U.S. assistance.

Every criticism the Trump Administration levels against Iran—its suppression of women and religious minorities, lack of free and fair elections, ongoing human rights abuses, support for oppressive governments and extremist militias, a growing military arsenal, intervention in regional conflicts—can be made for Saudi Arabia, a major U.S. ally and purchaser of billions of dollars’ worth of U.S. weaponry. In fact, Saudi Arabia is arguably worse on every one of these counts.

Saudi military spending is several times that of Iran, even though it has less than one-third of Iran’s 82 million people. Even Israel and the United Arab Emirates, each with less than one-tenth  of Iran’s population, has a higher military budget than Iran. The United States’ Gulf allies spend at least eight times more on their militaries than does Iran. Add to that advantage, the thousands of U.S. troops, along with dozens of Navy ships (include two aircraft carriers), B-52 bombers, and over thirty military bases surrounding Iran on three sides. Trump’s insistence that Iran poses a serious threat to regional security is absurd.

Like it or not, the Trump Administration must accept the fact that Iran has been a regional power for close to two and a half millennia. Imposing brutal sanctions, threatening Iran with obliteration, and marginalizing moderate voices like Zarif’s is not going to change that.