U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo dismissed the Houthi claim that the Yemeni rebel group had carried out Saturday's strike on two huge Saudi Arabian oil processing facilities. There was "no evidence" that the drones belonged to the Houthis, he said. Instead, he blamed Iran.

No surprise there. The way things are at the moment, if an incoming asteroid were about to strike the Earth, the United States would blame Iran. But there's "no evidence" that the drones came from Iran either. Pompeo is simply trading on the assumption that Yemenis are too ignorant to manage that sort of technology, so it must be Iran.

Saudi Arabia and the alliance of other autocratic Arab States that have been bombing Yemen since 2015 push the same line all the time. It goes down fairly well in the kingdom, where most people look down on Yemenis for being poor and less well educated, but it isn't actually true.