THE SAUDI Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose oilfields were hit recently by a devastating drone and cruise missile attack which he blamed on Iran, has issued a warning to the United States and the UK about a great danger to the capitalist world economy.
The US and the UK are the main arms providers for the Saudi regime, and without their arms supplies Saudi Arabia would have to seek peace and end its attacks on the Yemen and other countries in the region.
His warning is that a war with Iran will lead to ‘a total collapse of the global economy’. He also hastened to urge a political solution to the crisis in the Gulf and endorsed any talks between President Trump of the USA and the Iranian leadership.
Just two weeks after the attack on the Saudi oil facilities, and just days after a major defeat of the Saudi armed forces at the bands of Houthi militias, the Crown Prince spelt out that a full-scale conflict in the Gulf would cause oil prices to leap to ‘unimaginably high numbers that we haven’t seen in our lifetimes’.
He told CBS News: ‘The political and peaceful solution is much better than the military one.’ He now understands that any major war with Iran will lead to the destruction of the Saudi oil industry, end the autocratic rule of the Saudi royal family, and bring the western economies crashing to a halt.
The Crown Prince now says that US President Donald Trump should meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to craft a new deal on Tehran’s nuclear programme and influence across the Middle East.
This realisation comes after the missile attack on its oil facilities and a recent heavy defeat of the Saudi military by Houthi forces.
The Houthis killed more than 200 pro-Saudi fighters and captured 2,000 others in a major engagement near the border with Saudi Arabia’s Najran province. The Houthis have now offered a ceasefire and a prisoner exchange.
In another diplomatic move, Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi has announced that he will visit Tehran soon, in an effort to reduce tension in the region.
He held talks with Saudi King Salman in Jeddah on September 25. He says Saudi Arabia is looking to de-escalate tensions with Iran, adding that it is in everybody’s interest to prevent further war in the region. ‘Nobody possesses the weapons necessary to deal their adversary a fatal blow. Chaos and destruction will hit the region in its entirety,’ he said.
Abdul Mahdi emphasised the importance of resolving the long-running conflict in Yemen as a prelude to achieving regional peace. Mahdi wants to invite Saudi Crown Prince bin Salman and the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to Baghdad for a meeting.
Earlier, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan said that he was also making an effort to mediate between Tehran and Riyadh. He held talks with Saudi Arabia’s leaders in Riyadh, as well as with Rouhani at the United Nations.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels have now unilaterally released 290 detainees as part of a UN peace initiative, the International Committee of the Red Cross says. The UN special envoy for Yemen said he hoped the Houthis’ step would lead to further releases by both sides.
The UN says the fighting in Yemen has left at least 7,000 civilians dead. But monitors believe the death toll is far higher. The US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) estimates that more than 90,000 civilians and combatants have been killed.
Britain has sold at least £4.7bn worth of arms to Saudi Arabia! Trade unions in the UK and the USA must warn their governments that any attempt to attack Iran will be met with general strikes to bring them down.
Workers in the UK and the USA must demand that the UK and US governments stop arming Saudi Arabia and that they allow the states in the region to end the warfare that the US and UK have provoked, and can only end in a devastating rise in oil prices to bring the world economy to a halt.
