Lawfare Archive: The Attack in Saudi Arabia
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 15 April 2023
⏱️ 48 minutes
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Summary
From September 17, 2019: Tensions in the Middle East are at a high point. Over the weekend, large Saudi oil facilities were attacked. The Yemeni Houthis jumped in to claim responsibility. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed Iran. President Trump tweets that the U.S. is 'locked and loaded' and ready for potential response. But what has actually happened in the Arabian Peninsula? What does the future hold for conflict between the Saudis and the Iranians? And what role will the United States have?
To talk it all through, Benjamin Wittes spoke with Gregory Johnsen, a researcher on Yemen and Middle East conflict; Suzanne Maloney, a Brookings senior fellow whose research centers on Iran; Samantha Gross, a fellow in the Cross-Brookings Initiative on Energy and Climate; and Scott R. Anderson, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and senior editor at Lawfare. They talked about what we know about what happened over the weekend, the geopolitical context for the attack, potential American responses, and the legal authorities that could justify American military action.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
| 0:07.2 | podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:14.7 | That's patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:18.2 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:40.7 | I am A.Rishmeth. |
| 0:42.3 | In turn at LawFair with an episode from the LawFair Archive for April 15, 2023. |
| 0:49.2 | This week, Iran reopened its embassy in Saudi Arabia after the two countries signed an agreement |
| 0:54.8 | to normalize relations last month. |
| 0:57.2 | The deal comes after seven years of severed ties, during which tensions were high between |
| 1:02.7 | the two nations. |
| 1:04.0 | An incident during this period came in September of 2019, when reports indicated that an attack, |
| 1:10.8 | which crippled Saudi oil production for structure, less than a hundred miles from Riyadh, was |
| 1:16.1 | orchestrated by Iran-backed Houthi forces. |
| 1:19.5 | To recount this defining moment in Iran's Saudi conflict, I chose an episode from the |
| 1:24.3 | LawFair podcast from September 17, 2019. |
| 1:29.4 | In the episode, Benjamin Widis sat down with Gregory Johnson, Suzanne Maloney, Samantha |
| 1:35.5 | Gross and Scott Anderson to discuss the attack, its implications for regional security, |
| 1:41.8 | and the merits of an American response. |
| 1:49.1 | Time, Jacob Schultz, and this is the LawFair podcast, September 17, 2019. |
| 1:56.4 | Tensions in the Middle East start at a high point. |
| 1:58.6 | Over the weekend, large Saudi oil facilities were attacked. |
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