Some analysis here from CNN correspondents on the ground in Saudi Arabia and Iran:
Saturday’s attacks strike “at the heart of the country lifeblood and the basis of its economy,” says CNN’s International Diplomatic Editor, Nic Robertson, fromRiyadh.
The 19 strikes at two facilities were the result of “very clear and careful precision and planning,” he adds
Saudi Arabia is now expected to offset the impact of these attacks through their reserve oil capacity (200 million barrels) in Europe, China and Japan.
Meanwhile inTehran, CNN’s Senior International Correspondent, Nick Paton Walsh, points out that Saudi Arabia haven’t yet come out to blame anyone.
And as for the Houthi rebel’s claim of using drones, he adds: “They’d have to have flown across hundreds of miles of Saudi Arabia through US-supplied air defenses to hit those refineries.”
Even after many months of the US and allies Saudi Arabia, and Iran, “winding each other up,” we’ve seen “nothing on the scale of these attacks,” says Paton Walsh.
“The real fear is we’re in such uncharted territory, with such a perceived vacuum in the security establishment within the White House, we simply don’t know what may come next,” he adds.
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