The Saudis And The Houthis, Con't

In the last 18-24 hours or so, the US and Saudi position on Saturday's attack on the Saudi oilfields of Abqaiq has gone from "Yemeni Houthi rebels made a successful drone attack" to "It was Iranian cruise missiles the whole time" and the Trump regime is all but promising a new shooting war in the Middle East against Iran.

Iran launched nearly a dozen cruise missiles and over 20 drones from its territory in the attack on a key Saudi oil facility Saturday, a senior Trump administration official told ABC News Sunday.

It is an extraordinary charge to make, that Iran used missiles and drones to attack its neighbor and rival Saudi Arabia, as the region teeters on the edge of high tensions.

President Donald Trump warned the U.S. was "locked and loaded" to respond to the attack on Sunday, waiting for verification of who was responsible and for word from Saudi Arabia on how to proceed.

The Trump administration, in particular Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, has blamed Iran for the attack since Saturday, but so far, there's been no public accusation that Iran launched missiles.

The Houthi rebels in neighboring Yemen claimed responsibility for the assault, which hit one of the world's largest oil processing facilities, hundreds of miles from the Yemen-Saudi border, and sharply impacted global oil supplies.

But a senior U.S. official told ABC News Saturday that was false: "It was Iran. The Houthis are claiming credit for something they did not do."

Pompeo tweeted that there was "no evidence the attacks came from Yemen."

The Saudis are going along with this too.

The Saudi-led military coalition battling Yemen’s Houthi movement said on Monday that the attack on Saudi Arabian oil plants was carried out with Iranian weapons and was not launched from Yemen according to preliminary findings.

Coalition spokesman Colonel Turki al-Malki said that an investigation into Saturday’s strikes, which had been claimed by the Iran-aligned Houthi group, was still going on to determine the launch location.

“The preliminary results show that the weapons are Iranian and we are currently working to determine the location ... The terrorist attack did not originate from Yemen as the Houthi militia claimed,” Malki told a press conference in Riyadh.

He said authorities would reveal the location from where drones were launched at a future press briefing.

Iran has dismissed as “unacceptable” U.S. accusations that Tehran was responsible for the assault on Saudi oil facilities that cut almost half of the kingdom’s production, or 5% of global oil supply.

Malki said the Gulf Arab state, the world’s top oil exporter, was capable of protecting vital energy and economic sites. “This cowardly act largely targets the global economy and not Saudi Arabia.”

Cool, so we just had our selling point for another two decades of war in the Middle East.  The drums of war are the loudest they've been since 2002.  The governments of Israel, the US, and Saudi Arabia all desperately want a war with Iran to maintain their current political and economic power.

This is bad, folks.  Real bad.

The Saudis And The Houthis, Con't

As I said yesterday, the drone attack that damaged the heart of Saudi Arabia's oilfields on Saturday is a massive issue, because despite Yemeni Houthi rebels claiming responsibility, the Trump regime says Iran is behind the attack.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pinned the blame on Iran for an attack at a Saudi oil field in a pair of tweets Saturday. 

Drone strikes on crucial Saudi Arabian oil facilities have disrupted about half of the kingdom's oil capacity, or 5% of the daily global oil supply, CNN Business reported earlier Saturday. Yemen's Houthi rebels took responsibility for the attacks but they are often backed by Iran. 

But preliminary indications are that the attacks did not originate from Yemen and likely originated from Iraq, according to a source with knowledge of the incident. The same official said the damage was caused by an armed drone attack. 

CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen said there have been more than 200 drone attacks launched by Houthi rebels from Yemen into Saudi Arabia, and none have been as effective as Saturday's attack, lending credence to the belief that the attack did not originate from Yemen. 

"Tehran is behind nearly 100 attacks on Saudi Arabia while Rouhani and Zarif pretend to engage in diplomacy," Pompeo tweeted, referencing Iran's president Hassan Rouhani and foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. 

"Amid all the calls for de-escalation, Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world's energy supply. There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen," Pompeo continued, providing no evidence that Iran was behind the attacks. 

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, Seyyed Abbas Mousavi, rejected the accusation that Iran was behind the attack. 

"Such blind accusations and inappropriate comments in a diplomatic context are incomprehensible and meaningless," he said, adding: "even hostility needs a certain degree of credibility and reasonable frameworks, US officials have also violated these basic principles." 

John Bolton's mustache may be gone, but the Trump regime is still looking for any excuse for war with Tehran, and it finally may have found one.

The Saudis And The Houthis

The four-year conflict between Saudi Arabia and Yemen was already awful, but things just got entirely serious with a successful Yemeni Houthi attack on the heart of the Kingdom's oil fields.

Saudi Arabia’s oil production was cut by half after a swarm of explosive drones struck at the heart of the kingdom’s oil industry and set the world’s biggest crude-processing plant ablaze.

Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, who have launched several drone attacks on Saudi targets, claimed responsibility.

Saudi Aramco had to cut production by as much as 5 million barrels a day as a precautionary measure after the attack on the Abqaiq plant, according to a person familiar with the matter. Most output will be restored within 48 hours, they said, asking not to be identified before an official announcement.

The biggest attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure since Iraq’s Saddam Hussein fired Scud missiles into the kingdom during the first Gulf war, the drone strike highlights the vulnerability of the network of fields, pipeline and ports that supply 10% of the world’s crude oil. A prolonged outage at Abqaiq, where crude from several of the country’s largest oil fields is processed before being shipped to export terminals, would jolt global energy markets.

“Abqaiq is the heart of the system and they just had a heart attack,” said Roger Diwan, a veteran OPEC watcher at consultant IHS Markit. “We just don’t know the severity.”

Facilities at Abqaiq and the nearby Khurais oil field were attacked at 4 a.m. local time, state-run Saudi Press Agency reported, citing an unidentified interior ministry spokesman. It didn’t give further details and no further updates have been released.

“For the oil market if not global economy, Abqaiq is the single most valuable piece of real estate on planet earth,” Bob McNally, head of Rapid Energy Group in Washington.

Aramco, which pumped about 9.8 million barrels a day in August, will be able to keep customers supplied for several weeks by drawing on a global storage network. The Saudis hold millions of barrels in tanks in the kingdom itself, plus three strategic locations around the world: Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Okinawa in Japan, and Sidi Kerir on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt.

The International Energy Agency, responsible for managing the oil reserves of the world’s industrialized economies, said they were monitoring the situation, but the world was well-supplied with commercial stockpiles.

A satellite picture from a NASA near real-time imaging system published early on Saturday showed a huge smoke plume extending more than 50 miles over Abqaiq. Four additional plumes to the south-west appear close to the Ghawar oilfield, the world’s largest. While that field wasn’t attacked, its crude is sent to Abqaiq and the smoke could indicate flaring. When a facility stops suddenly, excess oil and natural gas is safely burned in large flaring stacks.​

For the Yemeni Houthis to hit the Saudis this hard is a major, major problem.  It guarantees that Riyadh will now go all out to wipe them off the face of the Earth.  That means going to the Trump regime to get more weapons, which we'll gladly sell to them.

On the other hand, raising the price of oil is exactly what the upcoming stock IPO of Saudi Aramco would need, and this attack is more than capable of putting oil over $100 a barrel for an extended period of time, especially if Aramco has difficulties getting production back on line.

Oh, and American consumers get screwed again.  We'll see where oil goes on Sunday and Monday.

The War In Yemen, Con't

A bipartisan vote in the House has approved a Senate bill ending materiel support for the US military presence in Yemen, something that will run into a guaranteed Trump veto, but an important vote nonetheless.

The House on Thursday voted to end American involvement in the Yemen war, rebuffing the Trump administration’s support for the military campaign led by Saudi Arabia.

The bill now heads to President Donald Trump, who is expected to veto it. The White House says the measure raises “serious constitutional concerns,” and Congress lacks the votes to override him.

By a 247-175 vote, Congress for the first time invoked the decades-old War Powers Resolution to try and stop a foreign conflict. The Senate vote was 54-46 on March 13.

“The president will have to face the reality that Congress is no longer going to ignore its constitutional obligations when it comes to foreign policy,” said Democratic Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He said the humanitarian crisis in Yemen triggered by the war “demands moral leadership.”

The war in Yemen is in its fifth year. Thousands of people have been killed and millions are on the brink of starvation. The United Nations has called the situation in Yemen the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The top Republican on the committee, Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, acknowledged the dire situation in Yemen for civilians, but spoke out in opposition to the bill, saying it was an abuse of the War Powers Resolution.

“This radical interpretation has implications far beyond Saudi Arabia,” McCaul said. He warned that the measure could “disrupt U.S. security cooperation agreements with more than 100 counties.”

Democrats overcame a GOP attempt to divide the majority party through a procedural motion involving Israel just minutes before the Yemen vote. Republicans wanted to amend the Yemen bill with language condemning the international boycott movement and efforts to delegitimize Israel. Democrats argued the amendment would kill the Yemen resolution, and most of them voted against the Israel measure.

“This is about politics, this is about trying to drive a wedge into this caucus where it does not belong,” said Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., said to applause from Democrats. Deutch described the boycott movement as “economic warfare,” but called on lawmakers to vote against the amendment.

“The Jewish community also has a history of standing up against atrocities like the humanitarian crisis in Yemen. My colleagues are trying to block us from standing in support of human rights,” he said.

Democrats saw the trap coming and disarmed it, and now Trump has to veto a bill and break one of his major promises of pulling US troops home.  The reality though is that the Saudis own the Trump family, specifically Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.  If Trump doesn't veto the bill and support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen dries up, the Kingdom would immediately retaliate, possibly in a fashion fatal to Trump's 2020 chances.

Trump knows this.  Everyone knows this.

Now Trump has to explain to his base why American dollars have to go to the Saudis, whom they hate.

Should be fun.

Meat The Press, Con't

Once again, Donald Trump is putting America's reputation in the toilet by supporting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Sultan, despite last week's intelligence briefings that had even Republican senators agreeing that MBS ordered the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he stood by Saudi Arabia’s crown prince despite a CIA assessment that he ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and pleas from U.S. senators for Trump to condemn the kingdom’s de facto ruler.

Trump refused to comment on whether Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was complicit in the murder, but he provided perhaps his most explicit show of support for the prince since Khashoggi’s death more than two months ago.

“He’s the leader of Saudi Arabia. They’ve been a very good ally,” Trump said in an interview in the Oval Office.

Asked by Reuters if standing by the kingdom meant standing by the prince, known as MbS, Trump responded: “Well, at this moment, it certainly does.”

Some members of Saudi Arabia’s ruling family are agitating to prevent MbS from becoming king, sources close to the royal court have told Reuters, and believe that the United States and Trump could play a determining role.

“I just haven’t heard that,” Trump said. “Honestly, I can’t comment on it because I had not heard that at all. In fact, if anything, I’ve heard that he’s very strongly in power.”

While Trump has condemned the murder of Khashoggi, a U.S. resident and Washington Post columnist who was often critical of MbS, he has given the benefit of the doubt to the prince with whom he has cultivated a deep relationship.

Trump again reiterated on Tuesday that the “crown prince vehemently denies” involvement in a killing that has sparked outrage around the world.

Trump has come under fierce criticism from fellow Republicans in the Senate over the issue, particularly after CIA Director Gina Haspel briefed them. Last month, the CIA assessed that MbS ordered the killing, which Trump called “very premature.”

“You have to be willfully blind not to come to the conclusion that this was orchestrated and organized by people under the command of MbS,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally, said last week.

Trump is willfully blind here, the question is why.  The answer of course is that Trump is neck deep in Saudi money laundering along with his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and it looks like House Democrats are more ready to stick a fork in Jared come January.

Rep. Eliot Engel, who is poised to lead the House Foreign Affairs Committee, plans to conduct a thorough review of US policy towards Saudi Arabia -- and that could include Jared Kushner's ties to the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, according to a Democratic aide. 

Engel is "committed to conducting a top-to-bottom review of U.S. policy towards Saudi Arabia and that includes what has driven the US response to the Jamal Khashoggi murder," said spokesman Tim Mulvey, referring to the October killing of The Washington Post journalist in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. 

Asked if that meant probing the ties between Kushner and the crown prince, Mulvey said: "Everything is on the table." 

The comments are the latest sign that the White House's handling of the Khashoggi murder is bound to face fresh scrutiny in the new Congress -- beyond this month in the final days of an all-Republican controlled Capitol.

In the Senate of course, things are more "complicated".

The Senate could vote this week to withdraw US support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is also weighing whether to also vote on legislation to suspend arm sales with the country and sanction individuals responsible for the murder of Khashoggi -- including potentially the crown prince and his alleged role in ordering the killing. But "intense" negotiations between Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican and the ranking Democrat, Bob Menendez of New Jersey, over the contents of the sanctions bill are still ongoing, according to an aide familiar with the process. 

Corker objects to the language in the bill by Menendez and Sen. Todd Young, R-Indiana, that would impose mandatory sanctions on people involved in the Khashoggi murder under the Global Magnitsky Act. The law currently requires the administration to make a determination about a human rights violation and then the US can impose sanctions.
"Our nation typically has tried to punish the countries for that type of behavior but not the individuals. So, I'm actually trying to keep it strong because I think what would happen (under the Menendez-Young bill) is if the administration knew they had to sanction, they would likely not find him responsible for the killing. I'd rather them find him responsible for the killing, him become an ever-greater pariah in the world and us find other ways of pushing back on what they've done," Corker said. 

But Menendez told CNN about Corker: "He wants to neuter the Global Magnitsky mandatory (sanctions under the bill) -- and that's really one of the significant parts of the bill. A deal is always possible but right now we are not there." 

Corker warned the Menendez bill could have broader impact around the world beyond Saudi Arabia. 

"He's trying to add language that says if the crown prince is found guilty then sanctions be automatically be put in place. That changes the entire relationship that we've had with world leaders. We ... know Putin has tried to kill people with chemical weapons, but we typically have not sanctioned the leaders, we've sanctioned the countries," Corker explained.

Corker's afraid other countries could start sanctioning Trump, his family, and members of Congress.   He should be afraid, frankly.  Of course, the larger problem is that Donald Trump still doesn't care about intelligence briefings because they bore him, and he has a narrative to get out, and if it means attacking his own intelligence agencies, then so be it.

The President’s Daily Brief (PDB), a document that for decades has been drawn up specifically for the commander in chief, “has become more important for Cabinet-level officials than the president,” said a former senior U.S. intelligence official who until earlier this year was involved in drafting such documents. The official, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

He has "people" for that.

Stay tuned.

Rock The Trumpbah

Trump may think he's immune to any repercussions from continuing to pretend Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's war machine in Yemen isn't a major issue, but for the first time during this regime, it looks like there's enough support in the Senate to rein Trump in.

Senators are planning to vote this week on a measure to end U.S. support for the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen, shortly after two Cabinet officials head to Capitol Hill to brief them on the situation — a briefing House members say they are being denied.

The expected vote on a measure to invoke the War Powers Resolution — likely to take place Wednesday or Thursday — will be the first test of whether the slaying of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi has broken Congress’s long-standing pattern of prioritizing the sanctity of the U.S.-Saudi alliance through weapons sales and other cooperative military ventures over repeated, documented human rights violations.

Key senators are hinting they are done turning a blind eye to Saudi Arabia’s transgressions, even if President Trump is still sticking by Saudi leaders.

“I’ve laid in the railroad tracks in the past to keep us from blocking arms to Saudi Arabia,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said Monday. “I’m in a real different place right now as it relates to Saudi Arabia.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis are scheduled to speak to senators Wednesday about Saudi Arabia’s continued engagement in Yemen’s civil war, as well as last month’s killing of Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. But many senators, including Corker, are dissatisfied that CIA Director Gina Haspel will not be present at the briefing.

Thus far the White House has also refused to schedule a similar session with the House, according to Republican and Democratic aides in that chamber. A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi is apparently a bridge too far, and as Republicans found out the hard way earlier this month, Trump can't shield the rest of the GOP from the fallout from his unpopularity.

The CIA recently assessed that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman almost certainly directed Khashoggi’s killing — an assessment Trump has repeatedly sought to downplay as he has defended the crown prince’s denials.

Lawmakers of both parties have been growing increasingly angry with Trump for siding with Saudi leaders over his own intelligence officials. For a group of senators, that frustration presents an opportunity to end U.S. military, intelligence and air support for Saudi Arabia until it ceases military activities in Yemen amid the worsening humanitarian crisis there.

This March, 44 senators voted in favor of an effort to invoke the War Powers Resolution to end U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition. Sponsors of that legislation said over the weekend that they were sure that this time they could amass enough support to clear the 50-vote hurdle to pass such a resolution on the Senate floor.

Getting it through the Senate is one thing, but a House vote will never happen.  At least...not until the new management takes over in January.

We'll see.

Last Call For Yemen To Do That

Even I'm getting tired of the descriptions of the "scandal-free" Obama administration, because they screwed up badly in the foreign policy arena multiple times, and while you can definitely make the case that Syria was Obama playing the garbage hand of cards dealt by Assad, Iran, and Russia, the entirely of the disaster in Yemen is 100% his fault.

The number of people facing starvation in Yemen could rise to nearly 12 million as conflict intensifies around the port of Hodeidah, a vital aid delivery link, the World Food Programme told CNN Monday. 

A collapsing currency and deteriorating economic situation in the Middle East's poorest country are also aggravating the situation, the UN agency said. 

The WFP said 18 million people in Yemen already do not know where their next meal is coming from and eight million of those are "considered on the brink of famine." 

"Since June, some 570,000 people have had to flee their homes from fighting in Hodeidah, while the Yemeni riyal has undergone an alarming depreciation, and the cost of basic food items has gone up by a third since this time last year," WFP Yemen country director Stephen Anderson told CNN. 

"If this situation persists, we could see an additional 3.5 million severely insecure Yemenis, or nearly 12 million in total, who urgently require regular food assistance to prevent them from slipping into famine-like conditions," he said.

No, Trump has done everything possible to make the situation in Yemen worse by the day, with tacit permission for the Saudis to bomb the crap out of the place while selling Riyadh the weapons to do it with, but let's not forget that the disaster started on Obama's watch, like the December 2015 assassination attempt on anti-Emirati dissident Anssaf Ali Mayo, which now turns out to be a joint UAE/Saudi operation with US cooperation.

The operation against Mayo — which was reported at the time but until now was not known to have been carried out by American mercenaries — marked a pivot point in the war in Yemen, a brutal conflict that has seen children starved, villages bombed, and epidemics of cholera roll through the civilian population. The bombing was the first salvo in a string of unsolved assassinations that killed more than two dozen of the group’s leaders.

The company that hired the soldiers and carried out the attack is Spear Operations Group, incorporated in Delaware and founded by Abraham Golan, a charismatic Hungarian Israeli security contractor who lives outside of Pittsburgh. He led the team’s strike against Mayo.

“There was a targeted assassination program in Yemen,” he told BuzzFeed News. “I was running it. We did it. It was sanctioned by the UAE within the coalition.”

The UAE and Saudi Arabia lead an alliance of nine countries in Yemen, fighting what is largely a proxy war against Iran. The US is helping the Saudi-UAE side by providing weapons, intelligence, and other support.

The press office of the UAE’s US Embassy, as well as its US public affairs company, Harbour Group, did not respond to multiple phone calls and emails.

The revelations that a Middle East monarchy hired Americans to carry out assassinations comes at a moment when the world is focused on the alleged murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi Arabia, an autocratic regime that has close ties to both the US and the UAE. (The Saudi Embassy in the US did not respond to a request for comment. Riyadh has denied it killed Khashoggi, though news reports suggest it is considering blaming his death on a botched interrogation.)

Golan said that during his company’s months-long engagement in Yemen, his team was responsible for a number of the war’s high-profile assassinations, though he declined to specify which ones. He argued that the US needs an assassination program similar to the model he deployed. “I just want there to be a debate,” he said. “Maybe I’m a monster. Maybe I should be in jail. Maybe I’m a bad guy. But I’m right.”

And yes, I realize the timing on this revelation is absolutely dogpiling on the Saudis when they're already in trouble for assassinating people, but it doesn't change the fact that it happened, the Obama administration knew about it, and the US was happily helping the UAE and the Saudis destabilize Yemen to the point where now the place is a humanitarian disaster that may actually eclipse Syria in scope.

I fully understand the Republicans are going to be worse in every aspect given any chance and I'm sure when the dark history of the Trump regime's operations in Yemen become public, it will be far more gory...but I'm also getting bone weary of defending, you know, targeted assassinations by paid mercs, which is pretty much the legal definition of war crime and should be investigated as such.

Sigh.  I know, the Trump regime isn't going to open so much as a can of beer over this, let alone a DoJ investigation, not unless they can use it to lock up Obama, Kerry, and Clinton over it, but it doesn't make it right.

Of course, it's a moot point, because Republicans will think big manly Trump is sending US mercs to kill those people and that's "awesome".

The Fulcrum Crumbles In Riyadh, Con't

The fallout from Jared Kushner's latest trip to Saudi Arabia continues to pile up and all indications are that the Saudis have been given a tacit green light to go after Iran's Shi'a Gulf State alliance in full.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman continues to roll up his opposition in Riyadh as he fully consolidates power.

Saudi Arabia's attorney general says at least $100bn (£76bn) has been misused through systemic corruption and embezzlement in recent decades. 

Sheikh Saud al-Mojeb said 199 people were being held for questioning as part of a sweeping anti-corruption drive that began on Saturday night. 

He did not name any of them, but they reportedly include senior princes, ministers and influential businessmen. 

"The evidence for this wrongdoing is very strong," Sheikh Mojeb said. 

He also stressed that normal commercial activity in the kingdom had not been affected by the crackdown, and that only personal bank accounts had been frozen. 

Sheikh Saud al-Mojeb said investigations by the supreme anti-corruption committee, which was formed by royal decree and is headed by 32-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, were "progressing very quickly". 

He announced that 208 individuals had been called in for questioning so far, and that seven of them had been released without charge. 

"The potential scale of corrupt practices which have been uncovered is very large," the attorney general said. 

"Based on our investigations over the past three years, we estimate that at least $100bn has been misused through systematic corruption and embezzlement over several decades."

Make no mistake, MBS wields the political power now.  What of the military power though?  Well, they're going to be a bit busy right now.

Saudi Arabia has ordered its citizens out of Lebanon amid skyrocketing tensions between their two governments.

A brief statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency called on all Saudis living in or visiting Lebanon to depart, and warned against travel to the country.

"Due to the circumstances in the Lebanese Republic, the kingdom asks its citizens who are visiting or residing" in the country to leave it as soon as possible, a Saudi Foreign Ministry source quoted by the agency said. 

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri shocked his country Saturday when he announced in a televised statement out of Saudi Arabia that he was resigning. He has not been seen in Lebanon since.

He said his country had been taken hostage by the militant group Hezbollah, a partner in his coalition government and a major foe of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia says it considers Hezbollah's participation in the Lebanese government an "act of war" against the kingdom.

Bahrain and Kuwait are issuing similar warning to their citizens: get out of Lebanon now.  The storm is coming and it's going to be a bad one.

Saudi military action against Lebanon to fight Hezbollah will certainly draw in Iran, which is what the Saudis, the Israelis, and the Trump regime want.  That's the point.  Of course, other players in the region will have to be dealt with too.  Syria will need to be resolved, but an upcoming meeting between Trump and Putin in Vietnam will work out those details, the most likely will be the end of the Assad regime with Syria under nominal Russian control.  Yemen too will have to dealt with, but the Saudi vice grip on all entrance to the country by land, sea, and air is not going to be a long-term solution, but it is a short-term one.

The Turks are more than happy to look the other way as long as they get to beat up on the Kurds on their border.  Israel gets the go ahead to flatten what's left of the Palestinian Authority.  Everybody gets what they want out of the deal, including Trump.

It's a race at this point to see who Trump ends up with at war with first, Tehran or Pyongyang.  The truth of what went on in Jared Kushner's meeting with MBS, when it comes out, is going to be shocking.  But make no mistake, an illegitimate American president is now hurtling towards global conflict in order to wash away his domestic problems with blood.

We're very close now to a point of no return.

The Fulcrum Crumbles In Riyadh

Saudi Arabia's King Salman just cleaned house, in this case pretty much the entire House of Saud, the most notable arrest in Salman's purge is billionaire Prince Alaweed Bin Talal.

Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, a prominent member of the county's royal family and a wealthy investor, was arrested on Saturday in connection with a wide-ranging anti-corruption initiative, according to local reports.

Saudi Arabia's King Salman removed a host of prominent officials in a sweeping crackdown, in which dozens of princes and former ministers were detained. News outlets, including Saudi-owned Al Arabiya, and The Wall Street Journal, reported Bin Talal was among those arrested. CNBC could not immediately confirm Bin Talal's status.

Bin Talal is considered one of the most prominent members of the Saudi royal family, and has been the subject of numerous profiles in U.S. and international publications. He has made numerous appearances on CNBC dispensing investment advice — such as last month, when he predicted bitcoin was little more than a speculative bubble that would soon "implode"

The billionaire is an American-educated philanthropist and investor who is heavily invested in U.S. corporate giants like Citigroup, Apple, 21st Century Fox and Twitter, just to name a few. Between 1991 and 1995, bin Talal came to the rescue of President Donald Trump, whose real estate empire was under strain. Bin Talal purchased a yacht, and invested in Trump's Plaza Hotel.

It's that last part that I think is a big part of the puzzle. Don't forget that this action is coming on the heels of last week's announcement of a massive new half-trillion dollar Saudi mega-city project.  That level of grandeur would almost certainly attract massive corruption, but King Salman got his house in order.

Literally.

And later Saturday a missile attack from Yemen was intercepted.

Saudi Arabia says it has intercepted a ballistic missile fired from Yemen, after a loud explosion was heard near Riyadh airport on Saturday evening.

The missile was destroyed over the capital and fragments landed in the airport area, officials quoted by the official Saudi Press Agency said.

A TV channel linked to Houthi rebels in Yemen said the missile was fired at the King Khalid International Airport.

The civil aviation authority said that air traffic was not disrupted.

Saudi forces have reported shooting down Houthi missiles in the past , though none has come so close to a major population centre.

Not to mention Lebanese PM Saad al-Hariri resigning out of fear of assassination.

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri has resigned, saying in a televised broadcast from Saudi Arabia that he feared for his life, while also fiercely criticising Iran.

He accused Iran of sowing "fear and destruction" in several countries, including Lebanon.

Mr Hariri's father, former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, was assassinated in 2005.

The Hariri family is close to Saudi Arabia, Iran's regional competitor.

Mr Hariri has been prime minister since December 2016, after previously holding the position between 2009 and 2011.

"We are living in a climate similar to the atmosphere that prevailed before the assassination of martyr Rafik al-Hariri," he said in the broadcast from the Saudi capital Riyadh.

"I have sensed what is being plotted covertly to target my life."

Mr Hariri also attacked the Iran-backed Shia movement Hezbollah, which wields considerable power in Lebanon.

Addressing "Iran and its followers" he said Lebanon would "cut off the hands that wickedly extend into it".

Iran said the resignation would create regional tensions and rejected Mr Hariri's accusations as "unfounded".

As a good friend has reminded me, all this is connected.  The shadow war between Riyadh and Tehran is old and ugly, and just because it's the 21st century doesn't mean it's any less dangerous.  The Saudis have been making moves all throughout 2017 in order to consolidate power and shut out Iran.  That mega-city project is the future as oil dies in the sands, and King Salman isn't taking any chances that his family is going to try to screw him over on it.

Everyone left is 100% on board, or soon will be.  The House of Saud is moving forward because they're running out of time.  Trump may be taking America back to a fossil fuel nightmare, but the Saudis aren't as stupid.

Let's not kid ourselves though, as the Saudis remain a brutally oppressive theocratic monarchy with deadly authoritarian tendencies.  They are not our buddies, or anyone's buddies for that matter, they are part and parcel of the problem in the Middle East for the last several decades, and that power they wield comes from oil.

But what this really comes down to is the fact that Jared Kushner was in Saudi Arabia last week.  The last time Kushner was in Saudi Arabia, we got the whole Qatar mess.  Now, days after his latest visit to Riyadh, we have a massive purge including a Saudi business billionaire who has a long-running feud with one Donald Trump.

Prince Alwaleed was giving interviews to the Western news media as recently as late last month about subjects like so-called crypto currencies and Saudi Arabia’s plans for a public offering of shares in its state oil company, Aramco. 

He has also recently sparred publicly with President Donald J. Trump. The prince was part of a group of investors who bought control of the Plaza Hotel in New York from Mr. Trump, and he also bought an expensive yacht from him as well. But in a twitter message in 2015 the prince called Mr. Trump “a disgrace not only to the GOP but to all America.” 

Mr. Trump fired back, also on Twitter, that “Dopey Prince @Alwaleed_Talal wants to control our U.S. politicians with daddy’s money.”

And Trump tweeted today about a new IPO by Aramco here in the US.  Out of the blue.

You do the math.

The Big Bug Out In Aden

With Yemeni President Hadi gone and even despite Saudi-led coalition airstrikes, it looks like there's very little to stop Houthi rebels in Yemen from capturing the port city of Aden and removing the last vestiges of the US-backed government. Foreign diplomats and UN staffers are taking advantage of the Saudis offering an exit by naval route.

Saudi Arabia's navy evacuated dozens of diplomats from Yemen and the United Nations pulled out international staff on Saturday after a third night of Saudi-led air strikes trying to stem advances by Iranian-allied Houthi fighters.

Residents reported heavy clashes between the Houthis and mainly Sunni tribal fighters in the south of the country, while the Saudi-led air campaign sought to stall a fresh offensive by the Shi'ite Muslim group on Aden from the east.

Riyadh's intervention, a surprise move from a conservative monarchy better known for flexing its muscle in oil markets than through military might, is planned to last a month but could extend for five or six, a Gulf diplomatic source said.

He said satellite imagery had shown that the Houthis had repositioned long-range Scud missiles in the north, close to the Saudi border and aimed at Saudi territory. A Yemeni official said Iran was providing parts for the missiles.

Dozens of diplomats were shipped out of Aden to the Red Sea port of Jeddah, Saudi television said, escaping the city where President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi had taken refuge until Thursday, when he left for Egypt to shore up Arab support for his crumbling authority.

Again, the Saudis are involved because the notion of a failed state now fallen to the point of being a base for Shi'a terrorists (not to mention the remnants of Sunni AQ Yemen) is something of a security problem on their southern doorstep.

Hadi running for Egypt shows you just how bad the situation is here, and oh yes, Iraq to Saudi Arabia's north is still very much a problem, with Islamic State running around from Basrah all the way over to Homs in Syria.

The Middle East is in pretty bad shape right now, and nothing I've seen makes me think anything's going to improve after a six month air strike campaign in Yemen.