Page 10 - MEOG Week 02

MEOG PolICy MEOG
Face off in Iran – cause and consequence
Iran
LAST week, Middle East Oil & Gas (MEOG) made the reasonably obvious statement that in connection with the Iran-US face-off “the future canvas is very hard to decipher and is a signifi- cant worry for the prospects of peace”. The sub- sequent week has borne this out.
Three notable reactions: the limited Iranian attack on two US/Iraqi bases; Iran’s statement that the JPOA Nuclear deal is dead and the downing of a Ukrainian airliner by an Iranian missile have move matters on in various ways.
The missile attacks on the bases at Ayn al Asad in western Iraq and Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan last Tuesday was quoted by Iranian state media to be in retaliation for the killing of General Qas- sem Soleimani.
The action appears to have been carefully cal- culated to satisfy the anger of hardliners while minimising the chances of the situation spiral- ling out of control. For his part, President Trump appears unwilling to respond to the attacks, cit- ing the fact that there had been no American casualties, and it has been said that the United States was even given three hours warning through an Iranian tip-off.
Although this tit-for-tat action seems to have run its course, it may well be that the Iranian state is lying in wait for a better opportunity to make a dramatic response to the general’s assassination.
This brings us to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), known as the Iran nuclear deal, which has been in place since 2016, but since the withdrawal of US by President Trump in 2018 the deal has been on life support.
The non-US signatories, UK, Germany, France, Russia and China, have tried to keep the deal alive, even while being pressed by the US to ditch it.
Not only are the signatories facing an uphill struggle with the US on the deal, as a reaction to the general’s killing, Iran has said it will no longer abide by the uranium enrichment limits contained in the agreement.
As President Trump has a habit of making up his own mind on matters rather than listening to his allies, there is very little that the Europe- ans can do to bring the US back on board. The Europeans have expressed concern at the Ira- nian statement – even though the Iranian For- eign Minister has said his country will continue to co-operate with the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
A spokesman for China’s foreign ministry was quoted as saying that “it was of vital impor- tance to maintain the JCPOA under the current circumstances,” and European foreign minis- ters have come together to try to find a way of
keeping the deal alive and also to diffuse tensions in general between the US and Iran.
The third consequence of last week’s events was the tragic destruction of a Ukrainian passen- ger plane with the loss of 176 lives.
Mirroring the confrontational political and military situation, claim and counter-claim swiftly arose about whether the jet, which departed Tehran for Kiev on Wednesday, was brought down by an Iranian missile.
Initial comments centred on the fact that the jet had just undergone routine maintenance and no distress calls were made by the crew.
Shortly afterwards Western intelligence sug- gested that the flight was likely to have been shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile, which was followed by a flat denial from Iran, quoting technical cases for the disaster and in particular noting that the casualties included 82 Iranians and 63 Canadians (many of whom were of Ira- nian descent) and blaming the US for “spreading lies” about the crash.
Such was the force of comments that Iran should “come clean” that this was quickly fol- lowed by the unusual announcement from Teh- ran that their earlier statement was incorrect and that one of their missiles had indeed hit the Ukrainian plane.
This did not make the accident any less tragic but for once in this long saga there was some symmetry of statements from the US and Iran and it may offer some encouragement for those who wish to find a way through the competing attitudes of the US and Iran to reach some form of peaceful co-existence.
On the back of the dramatic events in Iraq and Iran has come news from the UN stating that the Houthi rebels in Yemen were not responsible for launching of the drone and missile attack on Saudi oil infrastructure last September.
Reuters have quoted its authors from the UN Security Council Yemen sanctions committee as saying “that despite their claims to the contrary, the Houthi forces did not launch the attacks on Abquaiq and Khurais on 14 September 2019.” These findings will lend strength to US and Saudi claims that the attacks originated in Iran, even though some disputed the evidence that the Saudi military presented for this claim.
The US and Saudi Arabia blamed Iran for the attacks soon after September 14, and Iran vigor- ously denied any responsibility.
The drone and missile attacks caused a fire at the Abqaiq oil processing facility and a produc- tion outage at the Khurais field, taking 5.7mnn barrels per day in daily production offline.
This caused a temporary spike in oil prices as Aramco struggled to restore production as
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w w w. N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 02 15•January•2020