To paraphrase Ilhan Omar, “some people did something” on Saturday to major Saudi Arabian oil fields through drone strikes. Houthi rebels in Yemen quickly claimed responsibility, but Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said ‘not so fast.’ He blames Iran, not Yemen.

Pompeo tweeted:

“Tehran is behind nearly 100 attacks on Saudi Arabia while Rouhani and Zarif pretend to engage in diplomacy. Amid all the calls for de-escalation, Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply. There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen.”

The ominous aspect here is that the drone attacks knocked out half of the Saudi kingdom’s crude production, which roughly translates to 5% of daily global production of crude oil. However, kingdom officials said they hoped to be fully back in business by Monday. Plus, the Saudis have enough oil reserves to offset Saturday’s loss.

As far as oil supplies in the U.S. — not to worry. We hold a massive global supply cushion since we can quickly raise our own output. In fact, we now produce 15% of global supply.

So the world may have, as they say, dodged a bullet.

But who really launched that drone attack?

But the Saudi oil refineries are hundreds of miles away from Houthi strongholds in Yemen. And while the Houthis have been nipping at the Saudis for some months now, this was the biggest blow yet. Where are rebels getting the muscle to pull off such a major attack?

Answer: Iran. Last year a U.N. panel suspected that Iran was providing drone and missile technology to the Houthis, but this being the U.N., they didn’t go so far as to directly accuse Iran.

But Mike Pompeo did, and that didn’t set well with Ben Rhodes, President Obama’s former speechwriter and forever fanboy. He snapped back at Pompeo’s tweet:

“The Houthis are not the same as Iran and the Saudis are fighting a war against them in Yemen. This is an incredibly dumb, dishonest and dangerous thing to say.”

No, what was dumb, dishonest, and dangerous was for Rhodes’s former boss to suck up to Iran by sending them $1.7 billion in cash in 2016. We’ve been paying for that stupidity ever since.

So why is Iran using the Houthis as proxies to pull off these shenanigans?

It’s because economic sanctions have been strangling Iran. President Trump just imposed new sanctions in June, putting an even greater squeeze on that nation. So now Iran is doing whatever it can to ratchet up oil prices, and what better way than to destroy Saudi refineries and jack up prices of crude? Especially when they can use Houthis as proxies so they can claim innocence.

Bob McNally, energy expert and former member of President George W. Bush’s National Security Council, explained it this way:

“If you really want to stab the Saudi regime in the heart and send oil prices up, this is your target.”

Plus, don’t forget that we’re allies of Saudi Arabia. And whom does Iran hate with the heat of a thousand suns? More than any other nation on earth?

You got it: the United States, the Great Satan. But Iran doesn’t want to attack us directly, so they use their proxies to stir up trouble.

Mike Pompeo knows this, and he’s absolutely correct to point the finger at Iran for Saturday’s drone attacks on the Saudi refineries.

Featured image: State Department/flickr/cropped/public domain.