The Liberal Gun Club Forum

The United States has issued satellite images and cited intelligence to back its allegation Iran was behind attacks on major Saudi oil facilities. Iran denies involvement in Saturday's air attacks, which were claimed by Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in Yemen. But unnamed US officials speaking to US and international media say the direction and extent of the attacks cast doubt on Houthi involvement. The incident has cut global oil supplies by 5% and prices have soared.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed Iran at the weekend, without providing any evidence, prompting Tehran to accuse Washington of deceit. Tweeting on Sunday, President Donald Trump stopped short of directly accusing Iran, but suggested possible military action once the perpetrator was known. Unnamed US officials have been speaking to the New York Times, ABC and Reuters.

One official said there were 19 points of impact on the targets and the attacks had come from a west-north-west direction - not Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen, which lies to the south-west of the Saudi oil facilities. The officials said that could suggest launch sites in the northern Gulf, Iran or Iraq. A close-up image of damaged tanks at the Abqaiq processing plant appeared to show impact points on the western side.

Iraq denied at the weekend that the attacks were launched from its territory. Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said Mr Pompeo had assured him in a phone call on Monday that the US backed Iraq's position. Officials quoted by the New York Times said a mix of drones and cruise missiles might have been deployed, but that not all had hit their targets at Abqaiq and the Khurais oilfield.

ABC quoted a senior US official as saying Mr Trump was fully aware that Iran was responsible. China and the European Union have, separately, urged restraint. In the UK, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said it was not yet clear who was responsible for what he described as a "wanton violation of international law".

Prices eased after President Trump authorised the release of US reserves. But there are concerns that higher prices could continue if tensions worsen further. As for consumers, it is too early to tell if they will see an impact, writes BBC Business reporter Katie Prescott. Any rise could take weeks to feed through to petrol prices. US Energy Secretary Rick Perry, blaming Iran, said on Monday the oil market was "resilient and will respond positively".

Iran has yet to respond to the latest US assertions. But Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif tweeted on Sunday to deride Mr Pompeo, saying that "having failed at max pressure, Sec Pompeo's turning to max deceit". He was referring to the Trump administration's stated "maximum pressure campaign" which has targeted Iran with sanctions since Washington pulled out of an international agreement to limit the scope of Iran's nuclear programme.

In an Oval Office rant on Monday, President Donald Trump said that he wasn’t worried about a war with Iran because the United States has enough “ammunition.”

“I’m not concerned at all,” Trump told reporters. “We have military power the likes of which the world has never seen. I’m not concerned at all.”

Trump went on to tell a story about how one of his advisers discouraged military action against an unnamed country due to low “ammunition.”

“I’m not blaming anybody,” the president explained. “But that is what he told me. Because we were in a position where with a certain country, I won’t say which one, we may have had conflict. And he said to me, sir, if you could delay it because we’re very low on ammunition. And I said, you know what, general, I never want to hear that again from another general.”

“No president should ever, ever hear that statement, we’re low on ammunition. And we now have more ammunition, more missiles, more rockets, more tanks. We have more of in everything than we’ve had before,” he added, before pausing to praise the F-16 fighter jet.

Trump concluded: “So we are very high on ammunition now. That is a story I’ve never told before. Breaking news. But we were very low. I could even say it stronger. I don’t want to say no ammunition but that gets a lot closer.”

Donald Trump is taking marching orders from Saudi Arabia, said progressive members of Congress and foreign policy analysts, after the president tweeted Sunday that the U.S. military is prepared and waiting for the kingdom to assign blame for attacks on its oil facilities over the weekend.

“There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification, but are waiting to hear from the kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed,” Trump said.

Karen Attiah, global opinions editor at the Washington Post, called the tweet the “clearest expression of Trump’s ‘Saudi Arabia First’ doctrine yet.”

“The Saudi regime has drained its economy of billions to bombard Yemen for years,” said Attiah. “All there is to show for it is a humanitarian disaster. This is the regime Trump wants to take targeting orders from.”

Saudi and U.S. officials were quick to claim Iran was behind the attack, which paralyzed Saudi oil output and sent crude prices skyrocketing. The two countries based their accusations on flimsy satellite evidence and unspecified intelligence.

Iran denied responsibility for the attacks and accused the Trump administration of spreading “deceit.”

Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), said in a statement that allowing the Saudis to dictate U.S. foreign policy heightens the risk of “triggering a regional war more catastrophic than the 2003 invasion of Iraq.”

“The U.S. is not obligated to fight Saudi Arabia’s wars,” said Abdi, “and we urge Trump to discard his repeated willingness to cede U.S. policy to other nations.”

Congress has voted multiple times to end US involvement in the war on Yemen. Now that war may suck the US into all out regional war with Iran and, instead of going to Congress or making his case to the American people, Trump is asking the Kingdom for instructions.

Lawmakers reminded the president that Congress alone—not the White House nor the Saudi dictatorship—has the constitutional authority to approve U.S. military action.

“Mr. Trump, the Constitution of the United States is perfectly clear,” tweeted Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate. “Only Congress—not the president—can declare war. And Congress will not give you the authority to start another disastrous war in the Middle East just because the brutal Saudi dictatorship told you to.”

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) echoed Sanders in a tweet on Monday.

“Congress has the constitutional power to declare war,” said Omar. “Not the president. Not the Secretary of State. And definitely not Saudi Arabia.”

The Washington Post reported Sunday that Trump is “contemplating what U.S. officials characterized as a serious military response.”

Sunday night, the Trump administration released satellite images purporting to show the oil facility attacks, apparently carried out with drones, originated from Iran or Iraq.

But, the New York Times reported the photos do “not appear as clear cut as officials suggested, with some appearing to show damage on the western side of the facilities, not from the direction of Iran or Iraq.”

NIAC’s Abdi slammed Trump for threatening military action on Saudi Arabia’s behalf even “before the facts have become clear.”

“We do not know definitively who was behind the attacks, though Houthi forces in Yemen have been at war with the Saudi coalition since 2015 and have claimed responsibility for them,” said Abdi. “Iran has a motive, given the economic warfare being waged against it, but there is no smoking gun to implicate them.”

“Those jumping to conclusions without sufficient evidence,” Abdi said, “seem eager to embroil the U.S. in another war that does not serve our interests.”