Breitbart⁠90%

Reports: Saudi Crown Prince Urges Trump to Avoid Wider Middle Eastern War ⁠60%

By John Hayward⁠85%

8/3/2026, 8:38:00 AM

BS Summary: This article contains 20 faulty reasoning types, including Ambiguity (Equivocation), Availability Heuristic, and Unattributed Quote, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 48.6% saturation with 288 hits. Analysis detected 1,898 faulty-reasoning hits from 592 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 49.5% and a BS Rank of ⁠60% (10,864 of 26,820 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 59.50% of the article peer group.

Reports: Saudi Crown Prince Urges Trump to Avoid Wider Middle Eastern War 
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), the de facto chief executive of Saudi Arabia, reportedly urged President Donald Trump to avoid turning the Iran crisis into a “wider conflict whose repercussions would affect regional and international security and stability” when they spoke by telephone on Sunday. 
Trump said on Sunday that American forces were “all set to go” for a “massive attack” on Iran, but he called it off at the urging of America’s allies in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia. 
“What would you rather do? 
Would you rather have us do this or not? 
They said, ‘We would much prefer a deal as opposed to an attack, because you don’t know where these attacks lead,’” Trump said of his conversation with MBS. 
According to the state-run Saudi Press Agency (SPA), MBS stressed “the need to prioritize dialogue to reduce escalation and the importance of making every possible effort to achieve calm that paves the way for diplomatic solutions” in his conversation with Trump. 
A “person familiar with the call” told Qatar-based Al Jazeera News that MBS was worried that “a major US strike on Iran’s energy infrastructure could trigger Iranian retaliation against Gulf oil and gas facilities.” 
The Saudis have already been attacked by Iran several times over the past few weeks and have also fended off strikes from Iran’s terrorist proxies in Yemen, the Houthis. 
Two weeks ago, the Houthis declared a “maritime ban” on Saudi shipping in the Red Sea, potentially blocking an oil shipping route Saudi Arabia was relying upon to bypass Iran’s shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz. 
On Friday, Iran’s state-run Tasnim news agency reported that Tehran had prepared a detailed list of targets across the Middle East to attack if the U.S. proceeded with the strikes threatened by Trump. 
Iran’s targets purportedly included the Ghawar oil field in Saudi Arabia, which produces about five percent of the world’s oil supply, plus refining facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais, which the Houthis attacked with drones during a previous round of hostilities against Saudi Arabia. 
According to Tasnim, Iran’s blueprint for revenge also included bombing the Zakum oil field and Ruways refinery in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Burgan oil field in Kuwait, the Sitrah refinery in Bahrain, and the Ras Laffan gas field in Qatar – plus Israel’s Leviathan and Tamar gas fields. 
“We have prepared a comprehensive plan to respond to any potential American recklessness,” said a senior Iranian security official quoted by Tasnim. 
Axios reported on Saturday that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told his Saudi counterpart that “any hostile action by the U.S. or Israel” would “be met with a decisive and proportionate response from Iran’s powerful armed forces.” 
The implication was that Araghchi either threatened the Saudis with heavier attacks or convinced the Saudis that a more high-intensity war in Iran would threaten their interests. 
Former U.S. defense official Dana Stroul told India’s NDTV that the Saudis are worried about getting drawn into another bloody and expensive stalemate against the Houthis in Yemen, having forged an uneasy truce in 2022 after years of leading a multi-state intervention in the Yemeni civil war that won Riyadh little except grief from the international community over civilian casualties from its airstrikes. 
“Saudi Arabia learned the hard way — after years of war — that military force alone was not sufficient to address the Houthi threat from Yemen,” Stroul said. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 20.9%John Hayward: 5.8%Breitbart: 4.2%Confirmation Bias20.9%This article: 6.1%John Hayward: 1.1%Breitbart: 0.6%Anchoring Bias6.1%This article: 25.3%John Hayward: 5.4%Breitbart: 3.6%Availability Heuristic25.3%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 0.5%Breitbart: 0.8%Representativeness Heuristic0.0%This article: 4.7%John Hayward: 0.6%Breitbart: 0.7%Hindsight Bias4.7%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 2.6%Breitbart: 3.1%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 11.5%John Hayward: 8.6%Breitbart: 10.8%Framing Effect11.5%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 0.7%Breitbart: 0.4%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 6.9%John Hayward: 0.5%Breitbart: 0.6%Status Quo Bias6.9%This article: 10.6%John Hayward: 0.4%Breitbart: 0.2%Sunk Cost Effect10.6%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 2.0%Breitbart: 3.1%Optimism Bias0.0%This article: 21.1%John Hayward: 3.7%Breitbart: 1.7%Pessimism Bias21.1%This article: 48.6%John Hayward: 14.2%Breitbart: 9.5%Negativity Bias48.6%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 2.1%Breitbart: 2.1%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 4.6%John Hayward: 2.2%Breitbart: 1.3%Fundamental Attribution Error4.6%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 0.0%Breitbart: 0.2%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 0.6%Breitbart: 3.9%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 2.1%Breitbart: 1.7%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 1.4%Breitbart: 2.5%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 0.2%Breitbart: 0.3%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 0.0%Breitbart: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 11.8%John Hayward: 2.9%Breitbart: 1.7%Recency Bias11.8%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 0.0%Breitbart: 0.5%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 0.0%Breitbart: 0.0%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 0.7%Breitbart: 2.5%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 0.0%Breitbart: 1.2%Straw Man0.0%This article: 15.5%John Hayward: 3.1%Breitbart: 3.7%Appeal to Authority15.5%This article: 6.1%John Hayward: 4.5%Breitbart: 2.3%False Dilemma6.1%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 2.6%Breitbart: 1.3%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 0.0%Breitbart: 0.3%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 15.5%John Hayward: 6.5%Breitbart: 7.2%Hasty Generalization15.5%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 0.0%Breitbart: 0.5%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 0.2%Breitbart: 1.0%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 19.1%John Hayward: 6.1%Breitbart: 8.4%Appeal to Emotion19.1%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 1.2%Breitbart: 1.5%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 11.8%John Hayward: 4.3%Breitbart: 2.9%Post Hoc (False Cause)11.8%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 0.2%Breitbart: 0.3%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 1.3%Breitbart: 1.0%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 0.0%Breitbart: 0.2%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 0.3%Breitbart: 0.2%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 1.7%Breitbart: 2.2%Anecdotal0.0%This article: 4.7%John Hayward: 0.2%Breitbart: 0.2%No True Scotsman4.7%This article: 39.0%John Hayward: 5.7%Breitbart: 1.9%Ambiguity (Equivocation)39.0%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 0.0%Breitbart: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 0.2%Breitbart: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 0.0%Breitbart: 0.0%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 0.2%Breitbart: 0.2%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 0.0%Breitbart: 0.3%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 24.0%John Hayward: 4.5%Breitbart: 2.6%Unattributed Quote24.0%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 0.9%Breitbart: 1.9%Quote-first Misdirection0.0%This article: 12.5%John Hayward: 4.6%Breitbart: 6.7%Biased Writer Voice12.5%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 1.2%Breitbart: 1.7%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 0.2%Breitbart: 0.6%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 3.9%Breitbart: 6.3%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%John Hayward: 0.0%Breitbart: 0.7%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

592 words analyzed.

Speakers

5speakers57%attributed speech252writer words
Selected voice

Tasnim

100%flagged-word coverage
93 attributed words27% of attributed speech95% writer coverage
0%27.5%55.0%Unattributed Quote+31.5 ptsWriter: 22.2%Tasnim: 53.8%53.8%Biased Writer Voice-29.4 ptsWriter: 29.4%Tasnim: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…

Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.