Ministry of Intelligence and Security.
Buzhazi had no control of that group—they reported directly to the Council of Guardians and to Khamenei. “What kind of damage was sustained? What casualties?” Khamenei asked.
“Few casualties, thanks to Allah, and only a handful of injuries,” Buzhazi said dismissively. “The attack was directed against the Silkworm and Sunburn anti-ship missile emplacements, and the major port facilities.
Unfortunately, the attack caused some damage.”
“My information says the damage was considerably more than that,” Khamenei said.
It had been less than an hour since the attack, Buzhazi reminded himself, and Khamenei already had a briefing from his intelligence people—very efficient work for a pious holy man. This man did not sit contemplating his navel in an ivory tower. He was fully engaged in the operation of the government. “Regrettably, that is true,” Buzhazi said. “But island defenses will be restored by the end of the day, and until then, we have naval and air forces on the scene to maintain security.”
“How fortunate,” Khamenei said, almost in a whisper, like the hiss of a snake’s tongue. “But your defensive strategies for Abu Musa seem to have been somewhat shortsighted”
“Eminence, with all greatest respect, that was not the case,” Buzhazi said. “The defensive systems I placed on the island were designed to protect the defensive anti-ship missile emplacements from high-and low-altitude air threats as well as massed maritime threats. The island was under surveillance by long-range radars from Bandar Abbas and by short-range radars from Abu Musa Island itself. In addition, we have seven thousand troops on that island to defend against amphibious assaults, all very much aware that our enemies were seeking to destroy those weapons and take those islands from us at any time. All island defenses were fully functional and on full alert.”
“And so why were these defenses so easily destroyed, General …?”
“Because President Nateq-Nouri countermanded my general orders to launch on alert,” Buzhazi said angrily, “and instead ordered that, unless the island was unmistakably under direct attack, that all launch orders be issued by the Defense Ministry in Tehran, not by the on-scene commanders.
It was madness! I argued against that policy and appealed to reverse the order..
“The Council of Guardians has not received any such notification or appeal,” Khamenei pointed out.
“I was going to present my arguments in person with your representative at the next meeting of the Supreme Defense Council,” Buzhazi lied, knowing full well that Nateq-Nouri had never countermanded any of Buzhazi’s orders. The policy of “launch on alert”—fire without warning on any vessel or aircraft that crossed Iran’s claimed borders or boundaries—had never been an official peacetime policy of the Iranian government except over Iran’s most highly classified research centers, bases, or over the capital or the holy cities. The simple fact was that Iran possessed few trained individuals and workable air defense systems for very low-altitude air threats; even if the forces on Abu Musa had had “launch on alert” orders, they probably wouldn’t have been able to stop the attackers.
“It appears to be a moot point now, does it not, General?”
Khamenei commented.
“My point, Eminence, is that I should be given the tools to do my job if I am to defend the Republic properly from attack by our enemies,” Buzhazi retorted. “Abu Musa Island and Greater and Lesser Tumbs belong to Iran, not to Sharjah or the so-called United Arab Emirates or the Gulf Cooperation Council or the United Nations or the World Court. I was given the task of defending the Republic, but my hands were tied by a President, his Cabinet, and a parliament afraid of stirring up resentment and hatred overseas, afraid of losing investors and popularity. What more do we surrender? Do we surrender Kermanshahan and Kurdistan to the murderous Kurds? Do we surrender the Shatt at Arab to the Butcher of Baghdad? Perhaps Turkmenistan would like the holy city of Mashhad?”
“Enough, General, enough,” Khamenei interrupted, with a weary tone in his voice. “Why do you not take this matter up with President Nateq-Nouri? The task of commander-in-chief was delegated to him by His Holiness the Imam Khomeini.”
“Eminence, the President’s inaction in defense matters is plainly obvious to everyone,” Buzhazi said. “He has reduced the budget of the Pasdaran to less than what we need for training and proficiency, and chosen to give it instead to the Basij militias as a form of public welfare and to buy votes for himself. We purchase advanced weapons, but no money is spent for spare parts or for building our own military infrastructure—again, the money goes to public-welfare programs to bribe factory owners and wealthy landowners who support him. Military base construction is at a standstill because he coddles the labor unions. The outcome was inevitable, despite all my warnings and precautions: Abu Musa Island’s defenses have been destroyed, and the base is in danger of being retaken by American and Zionist sympathizers.”
Khamenei could obviously recognize Buzhazi’s flowery exaggerations, but he paused in thought. The conflict between the military and the civilian government had been brewing for some time, he thought, and this early- morning meeting was perhaps the wake-up call to action he had been anticipating—perhaps dreading.
It was time for Iran’s clergy to take sides in this dispute: Support the government or support the military?
The Grand Ayatollah had known Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri, the former speaker of the Majlis-i-Shura, Iran’s Islamic Consultative Assembly, and former President Hashemi Rafsanjani’s handpicked successor, since before the Revolution, and had watched General and so knew that the only thing between them was their uniforms.
Both men were intelligent, opportunistic, single-minded, power hungry, and ruthless. Both gave lip service to the role of Islam in the government, but neither truly believed that the clergy should have a strong voice in day-to- day affairs—an opinion that happened to be shared by many in Iran. “What is it you would have us do?”
“I have spoken of my plans many times, Your Holiness,” Buzhazi said. “First and foremost, Iran and its territories must be protected. This is our most important goal, and we must do all we can to ensure it is done.” He paused, then said, “We must prohibit all non-Arab warships from entering the Persian Gulf No aircraft carriers, no guided-missile cruisers, no submarines carrying Tomahawk missiles. These are all offensive vessels, designed to wage war on those who call the Persian Gulf home.
“The Khomeini carrier group must be made fully operational and deployed immediately to the Gulf of Oman to screen for foreign warships,” Buzhazi went on. “As we have seen, even with proper warning, it still takes far too long for land-based aircraft to respond to an attack on the islands—only the carrier can properly defend the islands against very low-altitude attackers.”
“The Chinese aircraft carrier? The rusting piece of flotsam in the harbor at Chah Bahar?” Khamenei said scornfully. “I thought we were using that to House the Chinese advisers, prisoners, Basij volunteers, and jihad members working on the base-construction project.”
“The Khomeini is operational, and it is ready to help defend our rights,” Buzhazi said. “We have a full complement of sailors, fliers, and weapons aboard, and the carrier’s escort vessels are also ready to set sail. I had ordered the carrier to Abu Musa Island to assist with island defenses, but as all of our military forces, they were unprepared for this treacherous attack.”
The Ayatollah Khamenei paused to consider that request. The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini aircraft-carrier project had been a pie-in-the-sky project from the very beginning. The Russian aircraft carrier Varyag had been laid up at Nikolayev, Ukraine, since 1991, completely stripped of all essential combat systems; it had no radar, no communications, no aircraft, no weapons, only its nuclear power plant, a flight deck, and more than three thousand watertight compartments. The People’s Republic of China had purchased the 60,000-ton vessel and made it an operational warship, but the world’s political consternation at China owning and operating a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the fragile South China Sea and Sea of Japan region had been too great—if China had a carrier, Japan wanted five, and the United States wanted to base five more in the region—so those plans were shelved.
At the time, Iran had concluded a $2 billion arms deal with China, and relations between those two countries had been at an all-time high. The carrier had been moved to Iran’s new military and oil terminal on the Gulf of Oman called Chah Bahar, where it had once again been laid up in floating storage. No definite plans had emerged for the ship: some said it was to be cut up as scrap, then as a floating hotel, then as a floating prison.
General Buzhazi had other ideas. Over the next eighteen months, the Iranians had begun to install new, relatively modern weapon systems on board the ship, including Russian anti-ship missiles, Russian aircraft, and state-of-the-art sensors and equipment from all over the world—all the while insisting to the world that they were “experimenting” or “assisting” China with its plans to convert the carrier for other uses. Then Iranian MiG-29 and Sukhoi-33 fighter crews had begun practicing carrier landings.
