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OBLITERATED!!!
blaming the attack on the East-West pipeline on pro-Iran militias in Iraq, even if true, is a convenient excuse for KSA's sucky military to put off engaging battle hardened Ansar Allah troops
OBLITERATED!!!
Saudi Arabia recently asked Trump to attack Ansar Allah -- twice
Trump refused both times
Need a lot of butter for all that burnt toast.
"It's a Saudi-American f**k-up of epic proportions", a regional source said to CNN.
"The air support never came. And Mocha has now fallen." — senior Yemeni military source
https://sonar21.com/the-houthis-reac...o-fight-alone/The rationale, as relayed by US officials, is a deliberate husbanding of force. Trump’s directive is reportedly to keep American military effort concentrated on Iran and on protecting the Strait of Hormuz, and to avoid opening a second front in Yemen. There is also recent history behind the caution. In May 2025, after months of costly US and British airstrikes failed to break the Houthis, the Trump administration accepted an Oman-brokered ceasefire under which the US stopped bombing Yemen in exchange for the Houthis halting attacks on American ships. That deal pointedly did not cover Israel — and it did not cover Saudi Arabia. Re-entering the fight now would mean tearing up an arrangement that got US vessels out of the Houthis’ crosshairs, in order to fight a war Washington had already concluded it could not win from the air.
So Riyadh finds itself where it least wanted to be: back in a hot war with the Houthis, without the American firepower it counted on for a decade. Notably, Saudi Arabia had said as recently as July that it could handle the Houthis on its own. That confidence is now being tested.
None of this is comprehensible without the arc that produced it. The Houthis seized Sanaa in September 2014. In March 2015, a Saudi-led coalition — armed, fueled, and intelligence-fed by the United States across successive administrations — launched Operation Decisive Storm to reverse the takeover and restore the government. What followed was not victory but stalemate: more than ten years of bombing that flattened much of the country, produced what the UN repeatedly called the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe, and killed well over a hundred thousand people directly with many more dead from hunger and disease.
The coalition never retook the north. By 2022, an exhausted Saudi Arabia signed onto a UN truce and, over the following two years, pursued a quiet exit — a de-escalation roadmap encouraged by its 2023 rapprochement with Iran. The Houthis, meanwhile, converted survival into strength. When Israel’s war in Gaza began in October 2023, they opened the Red Sea front, attacking shipping through Bab al-Mandeb and drawing the US and Britain into an air campaign that ran through 2024 and into 2025 — and that ended, as noted, in a ceasefire the Houthis reasonably claimed as a win.
The lesson the Houthis appear to have drawn is the correct one: they have outlasted everyone. They survived a decade of Saudi airpower, absorbed the best the US Navy and Air Force were willing to throw at them, and emerged still holding the capital and now reaching for the strait. The lesson Riyadh has drawn is that Yemen is a quagmire it entered in 2015 and has been trying to leave ever since. And the lesson Washington has drawn is that the Houthis are not worth a third simultaneous front when Iran and Hormuz command the priority.
The picture that emerges is one of Houthi ascendancy meeting American retrenchment, with Saudi Arabia caught in between. The movement that a superpower coalition set out to crush in 2015 is, in 2026, advancing on one of the world’s most important waterways and striking Saudi oil infrastructure at will — while the United States, having failed to defeat it from the air and unwilling to try again, confines itself to passing intelligence and targeting coordinates from the sidelines. For a Gulf monarchy that spent a decade assuming American power would ultimately be there when it mattered, the message from this week is stark.
the proof is not in the pudding but in the eating
we'll see
Iranian official says no signed Hormuz deal expected from Monday Oman meeting
Senior Iranian official: Monday Oman Gulf talks will discuss Hormuz but won't yield a signed deal; Iran still wants transit fees Oman rejects (Reuters).
thanks, Trump
lol Trump already lost to Yemen and Iran
Q: What do you make of the Gulf nations meeting with Iran?
TRUMP: I don't care. That's up to them. We'll ultimately get out. Unless we decide to stay and keep the oil! Like Venezuela
Costco is rationing motor oil
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articl...150000292.htmlAs The Drive originally reported, Costco has officially started rationing its motor oil to combat a rapidly deteriorating global lubricant shortage.
The days of grabbing cheap bulk oil are over. A 10-quart box of Kirkland Signature full-synthetic motor oil, which historically retailed for a bargain-basement $30, has skyrocketed to $58. More concerningly, Costco has implemented a strict two-box-per-customer weekly limit. Name brands aren't faring much better; a six-quart case of Mobil 1 is currently sitting at $44, with purchases capped at five per member to prevent hoarders and scalpers from clearing the shelves.
Trump: "Zelenskyy has to do one thing -- he has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia. He's causing a shortage of diesel fuel. This isn't done by the Middle East, this is done by what's happening with Russia and Ukraine."
regional talks called off
https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/13/polit...rait-of-hormuz“In the interests of consensus the regional meeting set for tomorrow in Salalah has been postponed,” Badr Albusaidi, the foreign minister, wrote in an X post. “We remain committed to fostering dialogue that supports stability and lasting cooperation in our region.”
Trump administration officials have privately told those in the Gulf region that they want to refocus any future US-Iran negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear program and not reopening the strait, according to three sources familiar with the matter.
www.reuters.com/business/ene...Saudi Arabia will run out of oil stocks for exports #if it doesn't restart its major pipeline to the Red Sea within days, leading to a loss of up to 4% of global supply, Saudi oil buyers and traders said.’
oil shortage hitting demand
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-N...s-to-2027.htmlThe IEA just took another 1.4 million barrels per day out of its 2026 global oil supply outlook, and it no longer expects normal Gulf flows to return this year, according to a new agency report released on Friday.
Global oil supply is now expected to fall by 5.7 million bpd in 2026, or roughly 6%, compared with the 4.3-million-bpd decline the agency forecast just one month ago. The delayed recovery of Middle Eastern production has pushed the return of normal Gulf supplies into 2027.
Global oil stocks fell at a rate of 3.1 million bpd in August, leaving inventories at 7.8 billion barrels, their lowest since 2023. In July, the IEA had put the ulative inventory loss since the Iran war began at 410 million barrels.
Saudi Arabia accounted for a large chunk of August’s deterioration. Saudi crude supply plunged 2.3 million bpd during the month to just 6 million bpd, its lowest level in more than three decades, after attacks hit facilities and shipping routes. OPEC+ production fell 1.8 million bpd to 38.8 million bpd.
The shortage is already destroying demand.
The IEA now expects global oil consumption to fall by 2.5 million bpd this year, compared with the 1.6-million-bpd contraction it forecast in August. Record fuel prices are forcing consumers to use less, particularly as refinery disruptions tighten diesel and other product markets.
US refinery bottleneck
Winter is coming
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-N...ineries-Maxed-The White House is considering using the Defense Production Act to add U.S. refining capacity, with American refineries already running at 98% capacity and diesel prices above $6 per gallon for the first time.
The proposal was discussed during President Donald Trump’s recent meeting with nearly a dozen U.S. refiners, according to Reuters. No decision has been made, and discussions are expected to continue.
Refining executives told administration officials that federal money would produce more barrels faster if it were used to expand existing plants or improve refinery efficiency. Building an entirely new refinery would cost billions and take years.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...is-for-sept-14In Saudi Arabia, the storage at Yanbu could support exports for five to seven days, but beyond that would cause “huge disruption,” said Suvro Sarkar, head of energy research at DBS Bank Ltd. Pending clarity on repairs, the near-term path pointed toward a test of $120 a barrel, he said.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveb...ates-postponed
- Yemen’s Houthis say they launched a large-scale ballistic missile and drone attack on Saudi Arabia’s King Khalid Air Base in Khamis Mushait and claimed “direct hits”. There was no immediate response from Riyadh.
our rate of winning the war with Iran appears to be decreasing
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