Could this lead to war between Iran and Saudi Arabia?

On Saturday, Saudi Arabia’s oil production was attacked by drones, which shut off about 5% of the global production of oil. Saudi Arabia produces 9.7 million barrels of oil a day, and the attacks disrupted the production of about 5 million barrels a day.

Abqaiq, which is an oil processing plant, was attacked. It refines roughly two-thirds of Saudi Arabia’s oil. This led to the price of oil skyrocketing over the weekend. The price jumped about 19.5% to $71.95 on Monday, which can cause the prices of gas to increase as well.

Currently, Saudi Arabia is working to get their production back up and running. However, they also want justice to be served to those who caused the attack, which some investigators say that the attack was launched from an Iranian base.

On the other hand, the Houthis, which is an Iranian rebel army, has claimed responsibility for the attack. In the last few months, there have been reports of attacks by Houthi drones on airports in Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, and Dubai. The difference between this attack and the other recent attacks is sophistication and how advanced the drones were. This has led many to believe that Iran assisted the Houthis in obtaining and using the drones.

Recently, Iran has made threats to oil tankers in Saudi Arabia due to sanctions on Iranian oil that are hurting their economy. However, the United States government does not want conflict with Iran. If Saudi Arabia strikes Iran, however, the U.S. will give support with targeting information, surveillance, and intelligence, but the U.S. will not be using any weapons against Iran.

According to CNBC, Ron Johnson, Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman, said he is 100% convinced that Iran was behind these attacks.The Saudi Arabian and the United States government are still studying intelligence reports to figure out if it was Iran who attacked and what to do in response. As of now, President Donald Trump has not ruled out the idea of the U.S. putting higher sanctions on Iran.