Iran v US confrontation

Buster15 said:
Totally agree.
As a country Saudi Arabia spends a truly massive amount on defence equipment. So they should be perfectly capable of both defending themselves as well as attacking their enemies.
They have a large number of British fighter jets including Tornado which is a precision bomber and Typhoon. In addition the US F15.
In fact they probably have a far more capable airforce than we do.
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They have some expensive toys that they have little experience or ability to actually use well, and they think that you can adequately defend yourself by just spending money.

Saudi Arabia probably couldn't even operate most of their equipment without BAE systems supporting them. Having shiny, expensive jets does not make you a competent military power.
 
Rubbish. All of a sudden with possible talks Iran decided let's go bomb Saudi oil installations
 
SquishyMcSquish said:
They have some expensive toys that they have little experience or ability to actually use well, and they think that you can adequately defend yourself by just spending money.

Saudi Arabia probably couldn't even operate most of their equipment without BAE systems supporting them. Having shiny, expensive jets does not make you a competent military power.
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You are quite right about the involvement of BAE.
Having said that, while some may disagree with selling arms to countries like SA, they have brought a massive amount of money (and oil for arms) to this country. We are a global player in defence sales equipment which you can be sure that if we didn't supply them, others would gladly take this valuable business.
 
I can believe this was Yemeni rebels using Iranian drones. In the context of the Saudi-Yemen conflict it was a valid target which will certainly worry the Saudis. I doubt Iran would do it themselves, whole point of a proxy war is get someone else to do it.
 
nickm said:
I can believe this was Yemeni rebels using Iranian drones. In the context of the Saudi-Yemen conflict it was a valid target which will certainly worry the Saudis. I doubt Iran would do it themselves, whole point of a proxy war is get someone else to do it.
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This is the most logical theory, although there's no reason to be completely against the idea that the Saudis and the Americans did it, either.
 
Dwazza Gunnar Solskjær said:
Fair enough. I only read one or two posts above the bottom anyway.
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I think if we accept their claim, we have to accept that they had Iranian support and probably direction, given the scale/sophistication of the attack which appears to be way beyond anything they’ve done before. If not, then we have to ask why they’d make such a claim - to provide cover for the Iranians?
 
2cents said:
I think if we accept their claim, we have to accept that they had Iranian support and probably direction, given the scale/sophistication of the attack which appears to be way beyond anything they’ve done before. If not, then we have to ask why they’d make such a claim - to provide cover for the Iranians?
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Sure, that's how proxy conflicts work but if the Saudis weren't messing about in Yemen then this wouldn't have happened, right?
 
Dwazza Gunnar Solskjær said:
Sure, that's how proxy conflicts work but if the Saudis weren't messing about in Yemen then this wouldn't have happened, right?
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It’s unlikely, although it’s a difficult question to even contemplate since the Saudis have been messing about in Yemen for as long as the current Saudi state has existed, and that messing is one of the factors which produced the Huthis in the first place.
 
2cents said:
I think if we accept their claim, we have to accept that they had Iranian support and probably direction, given the scale/sophistication of the attack which appears to be way beyond anything they’ve done before. If not, then we have to ask why they’d make such a claim - to provide cover for the Iranians?
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I’m a little confused by why the Saudis should be given free rein to bomb the shit out of Yemen, but Iran helping Yemen would be some huge crime.
 
Kentonio said:
I’m a little confused by why the Saudis should be given free rein to bomb the shit out of Yemen, but Iran helping Yemen would be some huge crime.
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Because for reasons which I’m sure you understand, the Saudis have successfully sold the narrative in Western capitals that Iranian support for the Huthis is just one element of a broader Iranian regional agenda which has seen Tehran come to dominate four Arab capitals over the last fifteen years, and in doing so surround Gulf oil fields to a certain extent.
 
Been reading up on a few articles which highlight the obvious question, how did the drones or cruise missiles (and they keep changing the story on which) manage to get past the air defense shield, the Patriots, especially when so near Bahrain and the major US base there. So far I have seen no good answer, other than that perhaps Patriot systems are pretty useless against low flying drones, and therefore there really is no shield for any of the vulnerable oil plants and bases etc. at all.
 
Iran is hurting from sanctions, it is escalating because the status quo is a loss to it.

They said if we can't sell oil no one in the region will sell oil.

Since then we have had mines planted on tankers, tankers seized and now a direct attack on Saudi oil installations.
 
OohAahMartial said:
Been reading up on a few articles which highlight the obvious question, how did the drones or cruise missiles (and they keep changing the story on which) manage to get past the air defense shield, the Patriots, especially when so near Bahrain and the major US base there. So far I have seen no good answer, other than that perhaps Patriot systems are pretty useless against low flying drones, and therefore there really is no shield for any of the vulnerable oil plants and bases etc. at all.
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Patriots work best against missiles on predictable ballistic trajectories. Can’t see how they could defend against slow moving drones which you could program to change course randomly if you wanted.
 
2cents said:
Because for reasons which I’m sure you understand, the Saudis have successfully sold the narrative in Western capitals that Iranian support for the Huthis is just one element of a broader Iranian regional agenda which has seen Tehran come to dominate four Arab capitals over the last fifteen years, and in doing so surround Gulf oil fields to a certain extent.
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Well there is some truth to that analysis to be fair. Iran does see itself as a regional power which would naturally put it into opposition with Saudi Arabia. The US swing to Iran under Obama, the dwindling reliance of the US on Saudi oil... all factors. Saudi has worked hard to play up the Iranian threat and Trump fell for it hookline, nixed the nuclear deal and put Saudi interests back in the driving seat of US policy.
 
Putin having fun in Ankara:

 
Read a report that Saudi is considering the Russian systems, as an S-400 combined with Pantsir-1 in particular would be better able to defend against these attacks.

US is saying it wasn't drones, which really makes you question Saudi defenses. Even of they weren't shot down, apparently US radar in Bahrain didn't alert to them. Either they were "allowed" to hit, or it's a false flag, or American missile defense is actually ineffective, and none of those is good for the price of Oil going forwards or for America's reputation.
 
2cents said:
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"It's just I never heard of them hitting anything this big before."

"They didn't, but we are meant to think they did....these blast points...too accurate for Sandpeople. Only Imperial stormtroopers are so precise."
 
Grinner said:
When have imperial stormtroopers ever been precise at blasting?
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During the Clone Wars when they were all Jango Fett level troopers? By the time of the OT they were just your average recruits. Since Obi-Wan had been living in a cave for twenty years it's understandable that he'd be unaware of your run if the mill stormtrooper's lack of accuracy.

But it was a metaphor more than anything.
 
OohAahMartial said:
Been reading up on a few articles which highlight the obvious question, how did the drones or cruise missiles (and they keep changing the story on which) manage to get past the air defense shield, the Patriots, especially when so near Bahrain and the major US base there. So far I have seen no good answer, other than that perhaps Patriot systems are pretty useless against low flying drones, and therefore there really is no shield for any of the vulnerable oil plants and bases etc. at all.
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Pretty much all air defence systems are next to useless against small drones. Systems like the Patriot are designed to defend against ballistic missiles or aircraft. That's the major threat, and you can't have something with the speed and power to catch those with the maneuvarability to chase a drone around.

I find it hard to believe anything large hit those facilities, the impacts on the satellite images are fairly small.
 
Do you think other supermarkets were involved? Asda drops the price of fuel by 3p a litre and Morrisons afraid of the competition launch a war in the middle east?
 
fergieisold said:
Why is it hard to believe. They're being dicks because they've had sanctions put on them.
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Have you learned nothing from the illegal war in Iraq. Both Saudi and Israel have interest in seeing war in Iran. And are you seriously saying i must now believe Trump and his Administration , who lie on a second to second basis.
 
Drifter said:
Have you learned nothing from the illegal war in Iraq. Both Saudi and Israel have interest in seeing war in Iran.
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I'm less cynical in general. Hell of a jump to make from them having an interest in a war with Iran to actively staging attacks on their own targets. The way I see it is the easiest explanation is probably closer to the truth and as far as I can tell Iran are probably being dicks over oil. That's a non-expert opinion though!
 
fergieisold said:
Hell of a jump to make from them having an interest in a war with Iran to actively staging attacks on their own targets
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Don’t think anyone is suggesting that, just that there’s no reason as of yet to believe Pompeo’s claim that the attack came from Iranian territory, which the Saudis now seem reluctant to support.

Having said that there’s definitely a bit of a tendency on the Cafe not to take the Iranians seriously and to dismiss them as purely reactive or even passive actors in the region, and to take a reflexively cynical position on any claims made against them. Mostly due to the widespread dislike of SA and Israel and of US foreign policy in general.
 


I understand missile defence sytems have hard times with unpredicatable, small, low-flying drones. But isn't a cruise missile exactly what they are supposed to stop? Either that Patriot system is a bunch of shit or ...
 
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