Étiquettes
John Bolton is gone from the White House, yet war with Iran is suddenly imminent. I had begun to believe irony was dead.
“[Bolton] calls for the preemptive bombing of Iran with dreary regularity during his many Fox News appearances,” I wrote after he became Donald Trump’s national security adviser in March of 2018, “and has labored for years to arrange the proper set of circumstances that would allow Tehran to be rendered into a pile of rubble.”
I was actually foolish enough to indulge in a brief moment of optimism after Bolton was unceremoniously shown the door last week. There was talk of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo taking on Bolton’s role like some dual use neo-Kissinger, but that idea guttered out quickly. Trump could replace Bolton with Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster, I told myself, and war with Iran — the issue over which Bolton reportedly lost his gig — would still be less likely. It felt like a tiny reprieve in a chaotic age.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed responsibility on Saturday for drone attacks on the crown jewel of Saudi Arabia’s petroleum empire: the Abqaiq oil facility, the centerpiece of Saudi Arabia’s petroleum infrastructure, which sits astride the massive Hijra Khurais oil field. Secretary of State Pompeo immediately accused Iran of direct involvement in the attack. On Monday afternoon, Saudi Arabia claimed that Iranian weapons were used in the attack. Iran has vehemently denied the accusation.
Oil markets reeled as news of the attack spread. In a world that runs on fossil fuels, the attack was the equivalent of a punch in the heart.
Groupe Gaulliste Sceaux 