BICOM

What happened: Prime Minister Boris Johnson has blamed Iran for the attacks on Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq oil processing facility and oil site on 14 September and said the UK will consider military action in response.

• Speaking to reporters yesterday before his flight to New York for the UN General Assembly, Johnson laid the blame for the attacks squarely on Iran and said the UK might offer military assistance to Saudi Arabia. He said: “The UK is attributing responsibility with a very high degree of probability to Iran for the Aramco attacks. We think it very likely indeed that Iran was  responsible, using both drones and cruise missiles. The Americans are proposing to do more to help to defend Saudi Arabia, and we will be following that closely. And clearly, if we are asked, either by the Saudis or by the Americans, to have a role then we will consider what way we could be useful.”
• Johnson is due to meet Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday, hold joint talks with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, while in New York, as well as a bilateral meeting with US President Donald Trump.
• Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency reported on Sunday that the Stena Impero, the British-flagged tanker detained by Iran on 19 July, will be released soon.

Context: Last Friday the US took its first moves to punish Iran for the attack on the world’s largest petroleum processing facility that disrupted 5.7 million barrels of oil a day, more than half of the kingdom’s oil output and 5 per cent of global crude supplies.

• President Trump ordered new sanctions against Iran’s Central Bank, the National Development Fund of Iran (the country’s sovereign wealth fund), and the Iranian company Etemad Tejarate Pars Co.
• US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin tied these sanctions to the Saudi attacks, saying: “Iran’s brazen attack against Saudi Arabia is unacceptable” and that the sanctions aimed to target “a crucial funding mechanism that the Iranian regime uses to support its terrorist network”.
• US President Donald Trump also approved the deployment of additional US forces and equipment to Saudi Arabia in response to Riyadh’s request for “defensive assistance”. In 2003 the US withdrew all its troop from Saudi Arabia after the army said the continuing US presence in the kingdom was putting American lives in danger.
• US Secretary of Defence Mark Esper said troops would be primarily focused on air and missile defences. The US will also accelerate shipment of military hardware to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, in what Esper said was a clear message of support to US allies.
• Iranian President Rouhani responded saying: “Foreign forces can cause problems and insecurity for our people and for our region.” He called the deployment of such forces in the past a “disaster” and told them to “stay away”.
• An air strike was reported yesterday in western Iraq, targeting a military base believed to belong to an Iran-backed militia within the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF). The attack comes after another PMF base was targeted twice last week in the Al Bukamal region of eastern Syria. The second strike on Thursday reportedly killed at least five people and wounding nine.

Looking ahead: The decision to publicly blame Iran for the attacks in Saudi Arabia is a clear signal from Prime Minister Johnson that the UK will involve itself in any military assistance if requested from allies. The nature of that assistance remains unclear, and will likely lead discussions at the UN General Assembly this week. Prime Minister Johnson will have to balance any request from the US with the position of his European allies, who remain committed to the JCPOA nuclear deal and who will not want to see any military action that could further derail the agreement.

• However, without a clear military response against Iran, increased US pressure from economic sanctions could cause Iran to escalate tensions in the region.​​​​​​​