Another ‘highly likely’: UK, France & Germany blame Iran for Saudi oil attack, without evidence or investigation

Without evidence, leaders of the UK, France and Germany joined the US in blaming Iran for the recent attack on Saudi oil installations, repeating a pattern set with Salisbury and Syria even as they pretended to care about peace.

“It is clear to us that Iran bears responsibility for this attack. There is no other plausible explanation,” British PM Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a joint statement on Monday, after meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

“We support ongoing investigations to establish further details,” the trio added. In other words, to them, Iran’s guilt is a foregone conclusion.

This kind of attribution by wishful thinking isn’t new. In March 2018, former double agent Sergey Skripal and his visiting daughter Yulia were taken to a hospital in Salisbury, allegedly with symptoms of exposure to the “novichok” chemical agent. The official story kept changing and never made any logical sense, but the British authorities declared it was “highly likely” that the Russian government was behind it. 

No evidence was provided, but none was necessary – the US took its British ally’s word for it and launched a massive purge of Russian diplomats. Other allies soon followed. Russia has been told to prove it didn’t novichok the Skripals ever since.

Less than a month later, the US, UK and France launched a missile attack against Syria, having decided the “dictator” Bashar Assad was surely responsible for the alleged chemical attack in the city of Douma on April 7 – because who else could it have been? 

Never mind that no evidence of the actual chemical attack, beyond a propaganda video produced by the “White Helmets,” has ever been found. The missiles were flying before the international investigators were able to get to Douma, and indeed delayed their inquiry by several days. Mounting evidence that the alleged attack was a hoax, produced since, has simply been ignored.

Interestingly, the statement of blame appeared after Johnson and Macron – but not Merkel – floated the possibility of some kind of “new” deal with Tehran, presumably based on the 2015 JCPOA but expanded to cover ballistic missiles and regional issues. 

Macron even said that world leaders had to be “very careful” about attribution of the Saudi attack – but that was Sunday, talking to the French daily Le Monde. He was singing a different song on Monday, apparently.

In the joint statement, the trio of European leaders call on Iran to comply with the JCPOA and “refrain from further provocation and escalation.” At no point do they ever mention the US, or the fact that President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the pact in May 2018, violating Washington’s commitments under the deal by reimposing all the sanctions against Iran and adding new ones.

Nebojsa Malic, senior writer at RT

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