“Today Saudi Arabia finally lost the war on Yemen”
Eric Zuesse
On August 17th the “Moon of Alabama” blog headlined “Long Range Attack On Saudi Oil Field Ends War On Yemen”, and opened:
Today Saudi Arabia finally lost the war on Yemen. It has no defenses against new weapons the Houthis in Yemen acquired. These weapons threaten the Saudis economic lifelines. This today was the decisive attack:
Drones launched by Yemen’s Houthi rebels attacked a massive oil and gas field deep inside Saudi Arabia’s sprawling desert on Saturday, causing what the kingdom described as a “limited fire” in the second such recent attack on its crucial energy industry. …
The Saudi acknowledgement of the attack came hours after Yahia Sarie, a military spokesman for the Houthis, issued a video statement claiming the rebels launched 10 bomb-laden drones targeting the field in their “biggest-ever” operation. He threatened more attacks would be coming.
New drones and missiles displayed in July 2019 by Yemen’s Houthi-allied armed forces [photo]:
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Today’s attack is a check-mate move against the Saudis. Shaybah is some 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) from Houthi-controlled territory. There are many more important economic targets within that range. …
The attack conclusively demonstrates that the most important assets of the Saudis are now under threat. This economic threat comes on top of a seven percent budget deficit the IMF predicts for Saudi Arabia. Further Saudi bombing against the Houthi will now have very significant additional cost that might even endanger the viability of the Saudi state. The Houthi have clown prince Mohammad bin Salman by the balls and can squeeze those at will.
Moon of Alabama is run by an anonymous German intelligence analyst, who has perhaps the world’s best track-record of publicly identifying and announcing historical turning-points, and who is therefore also a great investigative journalist regarding international relations (especially military matters, which are his speciality).
He went on to say that the drones aren’t from Iran but are copies from Iran’s, “assembled in Yemen with the help of Hizbullah experts from Lebanon.”
He has been predicting for a long time that this war couldn’t be won by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud (MbS). In the present report, he says:
The war on Yemen that MbS started in March 2015 long proved to be unwinnable. Now it is definitely lost. Neither the U.S. nor the Europeans will come to the Saudis help. There are no technological means to reasonably protect against such attacks. Poor Yemen defeated rich Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi side will have to agree to political peace negotiations. The Yemeni demand for reparation payments will be eye watering. But the Saudis will have no alternative but to cough up whatever the Houthi demand.
The UAE was smart to pull out of Yemen during the last months.
If he is correct (and I have never yet found a prediction from him turn out to have been wrong), then this will be an enormous blow to the foreign markets for U.S.-made weapons, since the Sauds are the world’s largest foreign purchasers of those, and have spent profusely on them — and also on U.S. personnel to train their soldiers how to use them. So (and this is my prediction, not his), August 19th might be a good time to sell short U.S. armament-makers such as Lockheed Martin.
However: his prediction that “the Saudis will have no alternative but to cough up whatever the Houthi demand” seems to me to be the first one from him that could turn out to have been wrong.
If the Sauds have perpetrated, say, $200 billion of physical damage to Yemen, but refuse to pay more than $100 billion in reparations, and the Houthis then hit and take out a major Saudi oil well, isn’t it possible that the Sauds would stand firm?
But if they do, then mightn’t it be wrong to say, at the present time, that: “Today Saudi Arabia finally lost the war on Yemen.”?
He has gone out on limbs before, and I can’t yet think of any that broke under him. Maybe this one will be the first? I wouldn’t bet on that. But this one seems to me to be a particularly long limb. We’ll see!
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EarthRise BTL SyrPer relays this optimistic comment from Veterans Today:
“Do note that Germany and France have really left NATO, that Britain has left the EU and that America’s new ally of choice, Poland, just refused to host American bases.”
https://www.veteranstoday.com/2019/08/20/breaking-turkish-planes-flee-russian-interceptors-over-syria-in-last-ditch-try-to-save-terror-group/
The Empire is crumbling fast.”
https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/us-conducts-cruise-missile-test-previously-banned-under-inf-treaty/news-story/a5d36f3cc7c792197aff716cc6a070c8
Recent experiences have cast a dark shadow on ‘Moon of Alabama’. One is advised to take a look at the comment section to find out more about it. A few points are noteworthy. MoA does not have its own correspondents. The information provided is available on news outlets in the areas in question. The same goes for maps. Of course, one can interpret what is and arrive at what ‘might be’. An analyst analyzes what is. What ‘will be’ is quite unpredictable. Only in retrospective one can see whether something turned out to be as alleged. However, we live in a fast paced world and most people are stuck in the present moment – forgotten is the present moment from e.g. 2015. Unless you saved the web page and archived it. I generally do that, as it provides a comparison. Maybe I have become very critical of MoA, because I… Read more »
The THAAD system is inappropriate for this situation as it is a ballistic missile defense system akin to the Patriot.
https://missilethreat.csis.org/system/thaad/
Checked to see if the Sauds would buy the Iron Dome system from their zionist friends, but this system might not fit the bill either. I also don’t believe the propaganda that it has a 90% hit rate. Yeah right. Since Raytheon helped build the system they have to spew the garbage for their shareholders.
https://www.raytheon.com/capabilities/products/irondome
The Houthis have also attacked Patriot missile defense systems with drones and the system didn’t fire back.
I would say that the headchoppers are between a rock and a hard place.
Send in the drones (sung to Send in the Clowns)
It is a mess for sure. Since I don’t spend time on military gear abilities beyond what is known generally, I picked the often cited THAAD system. It is of course praised by the manufacturer, but if it is not capable to be refitted for drone interception it has already become worthless, correct? Because the ghosts the U.S. regime unleashed with the indiscriminate use of their drones, who were for years without notable competition, is now biting it in the behind. It was only a matter of time until others, even depicted as inferior to cave people, would catch up to the drone designs. This is a David versus Goliath story, when lots of small drones render ‘sophisticated’ equipment useless. It appears that the Russian system works much better in the disabling of small drones.
There have been reports that the Chosen Folk are about to join in the war in Yemen on the pretext that they are “fighting Iran.”
In future if you or anyone else uses the inaccurate and intentionally provocative phrase ‘chosen folk’ to refer to the political entity of Israel we will correct it for you.
Let me remind you a Jewish reader here a few days ago asked you very pleasantly not to use such terms which she described as ‘hurtful’. At the time you agreed to abide by her wishes.
MOA has an excellent record of geo-political analysis, would be keen to see if you can provide anything to evidence your claims at the start of your post. I would note that a large amount of commentators disagreeing with your position is not evidence that western intelligence agencies are running the blog, or that your asserted original position was correct. It confirms nor denies nothing in this context. More-over, of all the independent blogs and news sites I visit regularly, I’d wager MOA is one of the best for longer form discussions below the line, and suffers far less from rogue trolls of both an establishment and anti-semitic nature. The bits about MOA’s domain registration may be more intriguing, though assuming the back story is factual, it’s not exactly difficult to suppose why they’d have an interest in remaining anonymous either. Of course, you’re free to form your own opinions,… Read more »
I have been visiting the blog for many years for the reasons you stated. It is no longer possible beyond looking at the analysis the blog provides. Of course it has to do with character defamation that is not dealt with. You would not see anything like it here on OffGuardian for good reasons. Everything I wrote on MoA should still be there, since I never had issues with the analysis given. It is only now that I have become extremely turned off by the assault against my ‘opinion’, that is generally and easy to prove original and most of all skeptical of the official narratives by the owner class. There is nothing wrong with an excellent record of analysis. But everything with infiltrators that are given free reign to defame others. This is a practice I personally never condoned. Everybody has an opinion about how things might be. My… Read more »
Agree with you. I actually came here last year to escape some vicious Zionist trolls on an Australian site, one of whom reported me to Mossad for “jew hatred and anti semitism”. Its happened elsewhere as well with quite vile attacks, being called a Russian troll and a Putin lover, etc, so found myself here with this pseudonym and all my fellow commenters at OffG. It was going well until recently, and now we seem to be under seige from quite a few trolls. I won’t name them, but we know who they are. I try and go by Rhisiart Gwylliam’s advice: Dr Dare – don’t read, don’t look, don’t engage, don’t give them any oxygen. The more people that read important sites like OffGuardian, the more they will come under attack by, as you say, ‘a legion of trolls’. The 0.01℅ want sites like ours gone, and their Praetorian… Read more »
Bernhard is very reliable.
As to your experience with the commenters there, there are plenty of loonies among them-such is the nature of the collapse of the Left, that a surprisingly large proportion of those critical of the Empire are true believers in Capitalism, poisoned by neo-nazi tropes passed off as ideas the Establishment has suppressed, McCarthyites-obsessed with conspiracies involving communists and- the traditional enemies of the KKK and Orange Order-Jews, Catholics, and non-‘whites’.
And then there are, as always the trolls, professionals, paid by the governments of NATO, which cannot afford education and healthcare, and amateurs, auditioning for commissions in Brigade 77 or some other such gang of traitors.
This makes my day . The filthy rich wannabe king of SA will be eating crow very soon.The Houthis have him by the balls .If he wants to survive , and I hope he does not literally , he will have no choice otherwise his water will be cut off and the house of Saud will be no more.
Another good piece of news is the fact that the MIC will also be hurt . I would love to ask Trump how all that winning is coming along. LOL
As well as the Moon Of Alabama article, there’s a good article by Alaistair Crooke on this very subject at Strategic Culture Foundation. I sincerely hope the debauched, medieval, murderous Saudi dictatorship gets its richly deserved comeuppance. Hopefully, the beginning of the end for the Anglo Zionist Empire and their pet wahhabist ghouls.
Agree – an excellent article from Mr Cooke
Could you provide a link to that article please,I can’t access it.
Sorry Guy, didn’t realise you’d replied as didn’t receive any email notification that you had; glad you found the article anyway. The only notification I got was a reply on another story by one of our little trolls who tried to bait me into replying. I completely ignored him.
Ignored and as we should .
Cheers.
No probs, enjoy your weekend😁
Just got the link from vexarb’s post.Thanks anyway.
Schadenfreude….. the arrogant ksa twats have worked diligently to achieve this level of embarrassment!
I smell a regime change in the wings.
So do I. Perhaps MbS might get a taste of his own medicine. The mass war crimes against Yemen, the blockades, the school buses, everything…. All with the complete support of the so so civilised West, all eager to make lots of $$$ on flogging weapons to Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E, including Australia, which allegedly has a compassionate, humane Christian prime minister. Who fully serves the agenda of the Anglo Zionist Empire.
“Today Saudi Arabia finally lost the war on Yemen”
It was NATZO who lost. Saudi Arabia is just the monkey who could not achieve what his AZC masters Kushner and Trump asked of him. And that pair are are monkeys too, members of a tribe that look human but … the Bandersnatch.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/08/19/the-deeper-meaning-in-lost-war/
I don’t want to cast doubt on the expertise of MOA, but on the face of it I think these conclusions may be premature and over optimistic. On the Yemeni side, we are talking about a relatively small number of Scuds and Scud knock offs, probably not particularly accurate and with a payload of about 1 tonne. And a larger number of cloned smaller Iranian drones, mostly with a normal payload of under 100 lbs. They have used these imaginatively as reprisal weapons for Saudi/ US/ UK terror bombing, and have targeted oil and infrastructure targets successfully, inflicting apparently fairly limited damage on an oil pipeline and hitting airports. These clearly raise the cost of the Saudi adventure in Yemen, There was a recent operation where they carried out a drone attack on a Saudi military parade in Yemen, killing 7, including an officer of general rank, and wounding 11.… Read more »
The US is rapidly coming to an ‘all or nothing’ match point. It will choose to play. It will go up without allies against Russia and suffer defeat. The exceptionalists have drunk the cool aid. Defeat lays beyond comprehension. Those whom the gods would destroy they first make crazy.
There is a giant difference between the USA and the Americans it governs. Just as there is a giant difference between the British People and UK, and the Saudi and the kingdom’s rulers, Israelis are at odds with their leaders as are the Egyptians with their leaders and the Turks with the leadership in Turkey. Everywhere this difference between nation state leadership and the populations controlled by national leadership is growing. Everyone has come to realize the nation state means the governed are a virtual colony of the bankers. Many different populations have already raised moral issues with national leaders that urge war or that establish by law and rule curtailment of the human rights of the governed. Might be, playing as you call it, will not be an option to those who rule. Its all about how effective the propaganda can be made to be and how effective certain… Read more »
Let’s hope the Houthis have enough drones to make the Saudis and the US understand that this is checkmate. Go the drones!
It’s not quite as simple as this article implies.
The United States of psychopaths is now threatening the first use of nuclear weapons, first strike, against any target the USA wants (it’s now Pentagon policy). The USA as a world power is rapidly going down the plughole. The orange-haired clown who is presently the US President is a symptom of the last dying days.
If American citizens don’t take back their country they will for the first time ever experience world war on their own continent.
It really is as simple as that.
They aren’t going to use them in the Yemen. First strike usage was always a possibility because they could never match the numbers the Soviets could manage, but that was then. Pontificating about American first use is simply alarmism.
https://sputniknews.com/us/201903151073262507-dunford-preemptive-nuclear-strike/
It’s the in the bodily fluids, isn’t it. THE COMMIES ARE COMING TO GET US! Ad nauseam.
By the way, the USA is unique in being the only nation to have used nuclear weapons on civilian targets, and to have used chemical weapons on civilian targets.
It sure as hell ain’t DisneyLand, whatever the propaganda rollocks brainwashes you with.
Agent orange was a defoliant, not a chemical weapon.
And depleted uranium is just a permitted defensive measure?
What exactly are your objections to depleted Uranium? I suspect it is simply the word ‘Uranium’
DU has no nuclear properties. It’s simply used because it is twice as dense as lead, and so is very good at penetrating armour.
It creates minute particles which are carcinogenic for anyone in the area, including the military personnel using them. Birth defects in places like Fallujah are horrific.
Don’t feed the troll.
Except depleted uranium.
You have unrealistic expectations of safety for an anti tank weapon.
DU has been mentioned for the sole purpose of proving the US uses chemical weapons (it doesn’t). No-one regards DU as a chemical weapon. You’d have done better to concentrate on agent orange (which is closer, but still not a chemical weapon)
Most unimpaired people would not believe multi-generational non-life compatible birth defects in an innocent civilian population is an acceptable side effect, Bill. The fact you do is actually quite shocking even in a troll. You continue to give these little glimpses of a truly impaired psychopathy beneath your troll skin. Hopefully no one will react by attempting to teach you basic decencies. No point.
what about white phosphorus, bonney? what valid military use has that (as i think you may be implying with Agent Orange) beyond sticking to human flesh and flensing it to the bone, hmm? i wonder how you view napalm, too?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S3DcCtoUubo
On the off chance that you mean that sincerely, I urge you to view the above.
He doesn’t mean it sincerely. He’s a troll. Please stop engaging with his transparent attempts to divert and hijack. He will not watch your vid. He will not respond with reasonable debate. He will lie and twist and obfuscate in hopes of wearing you out and wasting your time. We will deal with him so you don’t have to.
Weren’t they the first and only to use them when Hirohito wanted to surrender with the war already won?
The U.S. regime used tactical nuclear weapons in Afghanistan. But since Afghanistan is just a Nation of ‘ragheads’, nobody really cared about it when they dropped bunker busters and the mother of all bombs in the mountainous region of a country that 99% of Americans cannot point to on a map. They will not hesitate to use tactical nuclear weapons again. This is also the reason why they quit the INF treaty. It is fair to say, that the U.S. is digging its own grave by allowing verifiable psychopaths to run its affairs. Like you said, they were the first to use nuclear weapons – to show Stalin and the Soviet Union what will happen to them if they don’t abide by what the U.S. wanted at the time. Nuclear blackmail on the expense of millions of civilian lives. To the present day, these bombs show their effects in the… Read more »
Evidence?
“they could never match the numbers the Soviets could manage”
Strange how this amazing Soviet superpower that was so vastly ahead of America nevertheless crumpled up and fell. And as for “first use” no longer being a worry re: America, they already waged a “pre-emptive” attack on Iraq.
If the Sauds have perpetrated, say, $200 billion of physical damage to Yemen, but refuse to pay more than $100 billion in reparations, and the Houthis then hit and take out a major Saudi oil well, isn’t it possible that the Sauds would stand firm? Saudis standing firm? That in itself seems doubtful, given that the Saudis have already demonstrated that with all the weaponry, equipment, planes, other materiel and advice they have received from the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and a good part of Europe (western and eastern) along with mercenaries from, it seems, most of the rest of the world, they still couldn’t fight their way out of a sack against the Houthis (who themselves have been subjected to trade and military sanctions along with Yemen, hence the humanitarian crisis in the country). And with Saudi Clown Prince Mohammad bin Salman being responsible for prosecuting the war… Read more »
… it would be in the Saudi’s interest to give in to the Houtis’ demands for reparations … I spent most of the 1980’s in the middle east and for a fair proportion of that time I was resident in ‘The Kingdom’, enough to see at first hand throughout my time there the mind set that seemed to prevail in the way Saudi nationals conducted themselves in their attitudes to business and their general outlook. Initially I was amazed at the logic they proffered for decisions taken when things subsequently went awry having disregarded the advice and consequences of paid-for specialists until I was told they were suffering from the scorpion and frog syndrome. The fable went as follows : A frog sat sunning himself at the edge of a pond when he is approached by a scorpion. The scorpion, not being able to swim himself, asks the frog to… Read more »
I read the Moon of Alabama article about this three days ago. It is rich in in-text links:
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/08/long-range-attack-on-saudi-oil-field-ends-war-on-yemen.html
Australia, now ruled by the white-supremacist-wealth-accumulating-Presbyterians, brags about privileged market opportunities to export enhanced-lethality military equipment.
But they would like to keep this information secret to prevent newcomers from competing for these market opportunities, not because they are making immense profits at the expense of Muslims killing each other.
https://newmatilda.com/2017/12/01/the-cover-up-of-australian-arms-sales-to-saudi-arabia/
Sounds like desperation on Australia’s part to preserve its share of the trade in exporting arms to Saudi Arabia, not because Canberra wants to stop other countries from wanting a piece of the, uh, action. Australia doesn’t make much these days that can be exported and what is exported is either not unique to the country (such as university education to foreign students), can be replaced by something else (such as coal being replaced by other energy sources) or is of mediocre quality.
We make pretty rad baby formula.
Canberra’s mullahs want to walk tall on the supremacist world stage.
I think you meant Pentecostals not “Presbyterians”.
Yes .. Morrison was raised in the Presbyterian Church of Australia .. He later became a Pentecostal .. Morrison is Australia’s first Pentecostal prime minister.
Do Pentecostal promise more wealth?
They do, indeed. Another convert, of about six years I believe, is the President of Brazil Bolsonaro.
I’m not convinced at all that MbS will stop the war. He had no legitimate reason for starting it in the first place. He is the Devil Incarnate, or a brother at the very least. He will not stop until he is removed or liquidated.
Hmm Eric, his writing style looks rather familiar…to yours. Surely only a coincidence.
If you are suggesting b. of Moon of Alabama and Eric Zuesse are the same person I can assure you they are not. b. makes quite a few mistakes in his English whereas Eric writes like a native English speaker. b. focuses on very specific issues while Eric writes more generally. For me, b. is quite unique while there are others who write in a similar vein to Eric.
I happen to know b’s name. It is not Eric Zuesse.
Thanks for clearing that one up, appreciated.
Alistair Crooke https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/08/19/the-deeper-meaning-in-lost-war/agrees: “It’s pretty clear. Saudi Arabia has lost, and, notes Bruce Riedel, “the Houthis and Iran are the strategic winners”. Saudi proxies in Aden – the seat of Riyadh’s Yemeni proto-‘government’ – have been turfed out by secular, former Marxist, southern secessionists. What can Saudi Arabia do? It cannot go forward. Even tougher would be retreat. Saudi will have to contend with an Houthi war being waged inside the kingdom’s south; and a second – quite different – war in Yemen’s south. MbS is stuck. The Houthi military leadership are on a roll, and disinterested – for now – in a political settlement. They wish to accumulate more ‘cards’. The UAE, which armed and trained the southern secessionists has opted out. MbS is alone, ‘carrying the can’. It will be messy.” “So, what is the meaning in this? It is that MbS cannot ‘deliver’ what Trump and Kushner… Read more »
I am from Canada Bevin and I totally agree .What is called our leadership is nothing of the kind. They are boot lickers and can’t muster enough self confidence to stand on their own feet and lead my country as a sovereign nation . Trudean makes me long for the days of Mulroney .I never thought I would ever say that .LOL Cheers.
Yes Freeland is the worst External affairs Minister ever. And that is saying a lot.
I gather that there is to be a big meeting in September in Toronto to home in on her Foreign Policy positions-God Willing someone will run against her and highlight her appalling policies on Ukraine, Venezuela, Honduras, China and the rest of the world. As to Trudeau ….!!!