Since late 2016, Moscow and Riyadh, with help from other OPEC countries, have reduced oil production and raised prices, which are now nearing $70 per barrel. John Hannah urges Washington to pressure Saudi Arabia to change course, not just for the sake of the American consumer but for strategic reasons as well:

[A]nything that would invariably end up strengthening the oil-dependent economies of both Russia and Iran, two of America’s most dangerous international adversaries, should be deeply troubling. It’s hard to view a scheme as benign if it guarantees more cash with which Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei can threaten vital U.S. interests.

Strangely, [the tightening of oil markets] comes from a Saudi regime that blithely claims that Iran’s supreme leader, if not stopped, will prove more dangerous than Adolf Hitler. Even setting aside the hyperbole, the long-standing Iranian project to destabilize and take down the House of Saud is real and pressing—as is the Iranian origin of many of the 100-plus missiles that Houthi rebels in Yemen have rained down on Saudi cities and installations in the past few years. Russian military firepower has also joined in a murderous alliance with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Syria to prop up Bashar al-Assad’s genocidal regime, kill hundreds of thousands of Saudi Arabia’s Sunni co-religionists, and put Iran on the threshold of dominating the Levant. . . .

The Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Salman has been desperate for U.S. help not only to manage the Iranian threat abroad and economic modernization at home but also to legitimize his brazen bid for absolute power within the royal family. In exchange for that help, the United States ought to press continuously its own set of concrete demands with the Saudis, including combating the ideology of jihadism, containing Iranian aggression, and . . . not colluding with Putin in a scheme to manipulate global oil markets. It’s high time the president’s agenda with the Saudis moved beyond the endless quest to sell them ever greater quantities of advanced weaponry that they really don’t need and can’t effectively use.

Surveying news websites and social media on Sunday morning, I immediately found some intelligent and well-informed observers arguing that Iran deliberately warned the U.S. of its pending assault on Israel, and calibrated it so that there would be few casualties and minimal destructiveness, thus hoping to avoid major retaliation. In other words, this massive barrage was a face-saving gesture by the ayatollahs. Others disagreed. Brian Carter and Frederick W. Kagan put the issue to rest:

The Iranian April 13 missile-drone attack on Israel was very likely intended to cause significant damage below the threshold that would trigger a massive Israeli response. The attack was designed to succeed, not to fail. The strike package was modeled on those the Russians have used repeatedly against Ukraine to great effect. The attack caused more limited damage than intended likely because the Iranians underestimated the tremendous advantages Israel has in defending against such strikes compared with Ukraine.

But that isn’t to say that Tehran achieved nothing:

The lessons that Iran will draw from this attack will allow it to build more successful strike packages in the future. The attack probably helped Iran identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Israeli air-defense system. Iran will likely also share the lessons it learned in this attack with Russia.

Iran’s ability to penetrate Israeli air defenses with even a small number of large ballistic missiles presents serious security concerns for Israel. The only Iranian missiles that got through hit an Israeli military base, limiting the damage, but a future strike in which several ballistic missiles penetrate Israeli air defenses and hit Tel Aviv or Haifa could cause significant civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure, including ports and energy. . . . Israel and its partners should not emerge from this successful defense with any sense of complacency.