Iran’s relationship with Saudi Arabia – once seen as improving following President Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s 2007 visit to Riyadh – has deteriorated to the point that the Saudis may consider military intervention by joining the U.S. to protect oil shipped in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran threatened to choke off oil transportation in the Gulf following the U.S. President Barack Obama’s tightening economic sanctions at the end of December and again this week when the European Union voted to gradually impose a ban on Iranian oil. Last week, Chinese leader Wen Jiabao made a round of visits in the Gulf in a move seen by many observers as securing alternatives to Iranian oil.
“I personally don’t think Saudi Arabia will participate with the military, but it’s a direct threat to our national interests and a direct threat to our industrial installations on the coast,” Ali Al-Tawati, a Saudi military affairs analyst and professor at the College of Business Administration in Jeddah told The Media Line. “That region is a most precious region with most of our resources coming from there.”
While building a more comprehensive military force is vital to protect the GCC’s oil interests, alternatives to shipping oil through the Strait of Hormuz have largely been ignored. A 745-mile east-west pipeline connecting the Eastern Province’s Abqaiq oil processing facility to the Red Sea port of Yanbu is operating under capacity.
The Saudi government has expanded the Yanbu facility as insurance against trouble at the Strait of Hormuz, but capacity growth remains stagnant.
http://www.themedialine.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsID=34261 [3]