“Back when he was chief of staff and commander of the Pasdaran, I’d say ‘never’—five thousand Americans on an aircraft carrier, yes, but a bunch of power-hungry Muslim clerics, never,” Maureen replied. “But the man was dumped, disgraced, nearly assassinated, and relegated to training half-crazy volunteer fighters. He went from leading the fight for the clerical regime to nothing almost overnight. If anyone’s got an axe to grind against the current regime, it’s him.”
“Let’s say he succeeds,” the President asked. “Would he be worse than the clerical regime, or would he work with us to help stabilize the region — and perhaps even assist the West in stopping the current tide of radical fundamentalist Islamists operating around the world?”
Maureen turned to the speakerphone and said, “The only two Americans who have spoken to him since his insurgency began are Generals Briggs and McLanahan. Patrick? What are your thoughts?”
“He swore up, down, and sideways that he was going to take down the theocracy or die trying, ma’am,” Patrick said. “My initial gut reaction is I don’t trust him, but everything he’s done so far points to one thing: his objective is the destruction of the Pasdaran and elimination of the theocracy. I don’t know if he wants to become the strong-armed dictator of Iran, but if he gets the support of the regular army he could certainly take over.”
“But what are the chances of that?”
“He’s a disgraced military chief of staff who was blamed for Iran’s greatest military defeat in history,” CIA director Vista said. “He tossed away a third of Iran’s navy in just a few days, including the Middle East’s first aircraft carrier. Not only that, but he was commander of the Pasdaran — he gave the orders that resulted in the executions of thousands of regular army soldiers, government officials, and ordinary citizens, usually on skimpy or no evidence whatsoever, on allegations they conspired against the clerical regime. The regular army would never follow him.”
“I disagree, Director Vista,” Patrick radioed. “Because he refused to be exiled — he was given a shit job that should have killed him and he excelled in it. He purged the Basij, the paramilitary group of volunteers, of all the radicals and fundamentalists, and he turned it into a real fighting force — and he did it with pure leadership, convincing the dedicated men and women in the Basij to get rid of the maniacs. He turned the organiation around without resorting to intimidation or violence. The grunts respect that. I think he has a very good reputation with the regular army. Combine all that with the regular army’s hatred of the Pasdaran, and I think Buzhazi is lining himself up very nicely for a coup d’etat.”
“My information says otherwise,” Vista insisted. “Buzhazi is an outsider. Besides, the regulars are too afraid of the Pasdaran to support a rebellion, especially one without any other support besides a few thousand volunteers.”
“OK, folks, I need some ideas,” the President said, barely masking his impatience. “Let’s assume Buzhazi survives Qom. What happens next? Gerald?”
“Overall I’d say his odds are terrible, sir,” the CIA chief replied. “He needs the regular army — his little group of Basij fighters can’t survive against the Pasdaran. The Pasdaran is like the U.S. Marine Corps, except much larger with respect to the regular army: while our Marine Corps is one-tenth the size of the army, the Pasdaran is one- third the size of their entire armed forces, and just as well equipped; I would equate Buzhazi’s Basij fighters with a well-trained Army National Guard infantry battalion.”
“I agree with the DCI, Mr. President,” Secretary of State Carson said. “And even if Buzhazi does succeed in destroying or disrupting the Pasdaran with help from the regular army, using some sort of magical leadership ability as General McLanahan describes, he’ll have to contend with other forces as well. Every covert ops and insurgent force the Pasdaran has created over the years will return to Iran to try to topple the junta or at least cause it a lot of trouble: al-Quds in the Gulf region; Hizb’ Allah in Lebanon; Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front to Liberate Palestine-General Command in the Gaza Strip and West Bank; Ansar-al-Islam in Iraq; and Hizb’Islami in Afghanistan, just to name a few. All of those groups are controlled and funded by Iran through the Pasdaran, and they’d undoubtedly be brought back to assist in a wide-ranging insurgency against Buzhazi. We could even see pro- Iranian military or terror groups from Chechnya, Pakistan, or North Korea fighting against Buzhazi. Then of course there is the one-third of Iran’s citizens, about twenty million adults, who actively support the theocracy and who might support an Islamist insurgency against a secular military regime.”
“Doesn’t sound like a winner to me,” the President said. “Anyone disagree with this analysis?”
The room was quiet…until: “I don’t disagree with Dr. Carson’s or Director Vista’s analysis, sir,” Patrick McLanahan said through the videoconference link, “but if Buzhazi survives and is actively trying to stage a coup in Iran with the help of the regular army, we should do everything possible to support him.”
“Support him?” Carson asked incredulously. “If I remember correctly, he tried to kill you and your men several times. Now you want to risk your life to help him?”
“We may never get another chance for years,” Patrick said. “Iran doesn’t hide the fact that it actively supports insurgent groups all around the world who try to topple secular or unfriendly governments in favor of a fundamentalist theocracy — we shouldn’t be afraid to support any movement, even a military coup, that tries to establish a democracy.”
The President shook his head with a sardonic smile. “As usual, a solid consensus about a course of action,” he deadpanned. He slumped in his chair, rubbed his temples wearily, retrieved a bottle of water from a desk drawer, and took a deep sip. “I’d be just as happy to see the two factions tear each other apart,” he said. He finally turned to General Sparks: “Jonas, I asked you to come up with a plan of action for dealing with Iran. Anything yet?”
“No, sir,” Sparks replied. “No real consensus from the intelligence and operations staffs. Buzhazi’s insurgency is just complicating the issue worse and worse every day. We should just continue surveillance, monitor the situation carefully, and be sure to warn the Iranians that we won’t tolerate any foreign offensive operations in the wake of this Buzhazi insurgency.”
The President nodded. “Holding pattern — not exactly what I had in mind,” he said. “Anyone else?”
“Mr. President, in my staff’s opinion, Buzhazi is not the issue — the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and their control of Iran’s weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems are,” Patrick McLanahan said via the videoconference link. “If the regular Iranian army keeps sitting on the sidelines, the Pasdaran will only turn up the heat even more. Eventually the army will be completely marginalized, maybe even dismantled. Once the Pasdaran takes over, they’ll tear the country apart. Then they’ll start on any other neighboring countries they feel is a threat to the Islamist regime.”
“So what do you propose, Patrick?”
“I’d like permission to launch a dedicated constellation of reconnaissance satellites over Iran to look for their missile sites,” Patrick replied. “I’d like to forward-deploy Air Battle Force air and ground teams to Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, ready to go into Iran covertly and destroy the most dangerous missile batteries. And I’d like permission to place two of our fleet of three Black Stallion spaceplanes in orbit, armed with precision-guided weapons to react in case Iran launches any attacks that we can’t reach. I’ve sent this proposal to Mr. Minden and General Sparks for their review.”
“You’re recommending putting a major strike force over Iran in the middle of their internal crisis?” Secetary of State Carson asked incredulously. “How do you think the Iranians will interpret such an action?”
“I don’t intend for the Iranians to find out, Madame Secretary,” Patrick said, “but if they do, they’ll know we mean business.”
“More gunboat diplomacy,” Carson said irritably. “Makes my job all the more difficult.”
“The Air Battle Force will stay out of Iran unless they lash out against the United States or our allies in the region,” Patrick said. “But once they move, they move swiftly and silently, and even after they engage they leave a very small footprint. If the Iranians never threaten our interests — if they confine their reaction to Buzhazi’s insurgency to their own borders — we never go in. But if they do try to launch missiles or mobilize for large-scale operations, we can hit them in vital spots while our main forces start gearing up.”
“We don’t need McLanahan’s gizmos, sir,” Secretary of Defense Gardner said. “We’ve got one carrier battle group in the Persian Gulf, one in the Arabian Sea, and another in the western Pacific en route to the Indian Ocean. There are twenty-five thousand NATO troops in Afghanistan, a thousand U.S. troops in Uzbekistan, fifty thousand in Iraq, and another fifty thousand ashore and afloat spread between Turkey and Diego Garcia. The Air Battle Force doesn’t and never has integrated with the total force. They’ll just get in the way.”
“But the fact is, Joe, they can send a tremendous force out there in a real hurry,” the President said. “Special Operations Command can send a small force out quickly; the army can send a big force out slowly. McLanahan’s
