Will fight if Iranians start war, Saudis say

In Baghdad, rocket hits near U.S. Embassy

Russian Minister of Energy Alexander Novak arrives Sunday in Jid-dah, Saudi Arabia, for a meeting of energy ministers from OPEC and its allies to discuss oil prices and production cuts.
Russian Minister of Energy Alexander Novak arrives Sunday in Jid-dah, Saudi Arabia, for a meeting of energy ministers from OPEC and its allies to discuss oil prices and production cuts.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Saudi Arabia does not want a war but will not hesitate to defend itself if Iran decides to start one, a top Saudi diplomat said Sunday.

The statement came hours before a rocket was fired into the Iraqi capital's heavily fortified Green Zone. The rocket strike prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to warn on Twitter that "if Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran."

Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs, was addressing a series of terrorist attacks in which he said Iran had played a role over the past few decades. He spoke a week after four oil tankers -- two of them Saudi -- were targeted in an alleged act of sabotage off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, and days after Iran-allied Yemeni rebels claimed a drone attack on a Saudi oil pipeline.

"The kingdom of Saudi Arabia does not want war in the region and does not strive for that ... but at the same time, if the other side chooses war, the kingdom will fight this with all force and determination and it will defend itself, its citizens and its interests," al-Jubeir told reporters.

The Saudi oil pipeline has reopened after the drone attack, but officials from all sides have warned that recent events have left the region at risk of sliding into a potentially devastating international conflict.

"We won't stand with our hands bound," al-Jubeir said. "The ball is in Iran's court, and Iran should determine what the path will be."

The commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the military branch recently designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., said his country also isn't looking for war but also isn't afraid of a confrontation.

Recent incidents have "made the extent of the enemy's strength clear," Gen. Hossein Salami said, according to the semiofficial Fars news agency.

However, Salami also said the U.S. is going to fail in the near future "because they are frustrated and hopeless" and are looking for a way out of the escalation in the Persian Gulf.

The U.S., citing intelligence reports of unspecified threats from Iran that have been disputed by some key allies, dispatched an aircraft carrier and moved B-52 bombers to the region.

The U.S. Navy said Sunday that it had conducted exercises in the Arabian Sea with the aircraft carrier strike group. The Navy said the exercises and training were conducted Friday and Saturday with the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group in coordination with the U.S. Marine Corps, highlighting U.S. "lethality and agility to respond to threat."

The USS Abraham Lincoln has yet to reach the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a third of all oil traded at sea passes.

The current tensions are rooted in Trump's decision last year to withdraw the U.S. from the 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and world powers and impose wide-reaching sanctions.

Iran has said it would resume enriching uranium at higher levels if a new nuclear deal is not reached by July 7. That would potentially bring it closer to being able to develop a nuclear weapon, something Iran insists it has never sought.

Energy ministers from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, including major producers Saudi Arabia and Russia, met in Saudi Arabia on Sunday to discuss energy prices and production cuts, including for Iran. The U.S. has stopped renewing waivers that allowed Iran to continue selling oil to some countries.

OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers have production cuts in place, but the group of exporters is not expected to make its decision on output until late June, when they meet again in Vienna.

ROCKET NEAR EMBASSY

The rocket fired into Baghdad late Sunday landed less than a mile from the sprawling U.S. Embassy, an Iraqi military spokesman said. Iraq's state-run news agency said the apparent attack did not cause any casualties.

It was the first such attack since September, when three mortar shells landed in an abandoned lot inside the Green Zone.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack that took place after sunset, when many Baghdad residents were indoors breaking their fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Iraqi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasoul told The Associated Press that a Katyusha rocket fell near the statue of the Unknown Soldier, less than a mile from the U.S. Embassy. He said the military was investigating the cause but that the rocket was believed to have been fired from east Baghdad. The area is home to Iran-backed Shiite militias.

Shortly afterward, the rocket launcher was discovered by security forces in the eastern neighborhood of Wihda, according to a security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. The official also said the roads leading to the Green Zone were closed briefly for security reasons before they were reopened as normal.

American forces withdrew from Iraq in 2011 but returned in 2014 at the invitation of Iraq to help battle the Islamic State extremist group. A U.S.-led coalition provided crucial air support as Iraqi forces regrouped and drove the Islamic State out in a costly three-year campaign.

Iraq now hosts more than 5,000 U.S. troops. It is also home to Iranian-backed militias that fought alongside U.S.-backed Iraqi troops against the Islamic State, gaining outsized influence and power. Some of those militias now want the U.S. forces to leave.

The U.S. State Department has ordered all nonessential, nonemergency government staff members to leave the country. Employees of energy giant Exxon Mobil have also begun evacuating from an oil field in the southern Iraqi province of Basra.

On Sunday, Iraqi Oil Minister Thamer al-Ghadban said in a statement that he sent a letter to Exxon Mobil asking for clarifications over the evacuation, calling it "unacceptable and unjustified."

Al-Ghadban said he would be holding a meeting with Exxon Mobil executives this week over the evacuation, adding that the foreign employees' departure was "temporary."

COTTON, OTHERS WEIGH IN

Several U.S. officials said Sunday that war with Iran isn't an immediate threat unless Tehran strikes first.

Former U.S. CIA Director David Petraeus said during an interview that aired Sunday on ABC's This Week that it didn't seem the sabotage actions would provoke the U.S. "to do something very significant." Iran would likely have to seek back-channel diplomacy with Trump to relieve economic pressure, he said.

U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said on CNN's State of the Union that he didn't believe Trump, national security adviser John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo or "anyone else in a serious senior position of leadership in the White House has any interest in going to the Middle East and going to war" short of an attack by Iran.

Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said there is evidence of an increased threat from Iran. But he blamed the administration's rhetoric and actions, such as withdrawing from the nuclear deal, for increasing the chances for confrontation.

"This ratcheting up of tensions was all-too predictable, all-too calculated by people like Bolton and Pompeo, and it has led us to the precipice of potential catastrophe," Schiff said on CBS' Face the Nation on Sunday.

U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton told NBC's Meet the Press that the U.S. "is not going to take the first strike here."

Responding to a question about his previous statements that "if they take the first military strike, we will take the last military strike," Cotton, R-Ark., said he was not advocating regime change in Iran, but calling for the regime to "change its behavior."

"But if Iran attacks the United States or our allies in the first strike, then it will be up to America in a time and a manner of our choosing to take the last strike," he said. "Because our military will devastate theirs."

Information for this article was contributed by Aya Batrawy, Fay Abuelgasim, Amir Vahdat, Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Bassem Mroue of The Associated Press; and by Vivian Nereim of Bloomberg News.

A Section on 05/20/2019

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