Strike Force

Another pause; then: “The general has ordered me to inform you of what has just occurred here, in my own words,” the translator said. “A force of approximately two hundred armed men has taken over the Khomeini Library here in Qom. The soldiers guarding this facility have been captured and the imam in charge has been killed, by the general’s own hand. Before the general’s raid, the library was being used by many members of the government, both clerics and laypersons, who sought shelter here following insurgent raids in Tehran.”

“‘Insurgent raids in Tehran?’ I hadn’t heard anything about this!” Sparks exclaimed beneath his breath. Chief of Staff Minden immediately went to another phone to get confirmation.

“I do not know the status of the imams and government officials who were staying here — the general is not allowing the staff to attend to them,” the student named Ardakani went on. “He and his men have barricaded themselves inside the library and appear to be preparing for a very large battle.”

Patrick was silent for a few moments; then, to everyone’s surprise, said, “Ask General Buzhazi if he is requesting assistance from the United States of America.”

National Security Adviser Sparks’s eyes grew wide in disbelief and he emphatically drew a finger across his throat. “Stand by please, General,” Patrick said, then hit the “MUTE” button on the speakerphone.

“Are you insane, McLanahan?” Jonas Sparks thundered. “You’re asking Buzhazi, the nutcase who tried to start an all-out naval war in the Persian Gulf — with nuclear weapons, I might add — for our help?”

“Buzhazi is up to something,” Patrick quickly explained. “I remember reading about him when I was at the Air Intelligence Agency. He was sold out by the clerical leadership and the Pasdaran at the end of the Gulf of Oman conflict. The leadership was afraid simply executing him would have incited the regular army to declare him a martyr and avenge him, so they demoted him and put him in charge of the Basij, the volunteer paramilitary force in Iran — sort of a militarized AmeriCorps. Speculation was that the clerics were hoping someone in the Basij would do the dirty deed.

“Instead, Buzhazi went about purging the Basij of all the fundamentalist Islamists and just plain-old wackos, and in a few years’ time had transformed it into a real fighting force he renamed the Internal Defense Force. Rumor was that his IDF might actually take some duties away from the Pasdaran, like border security and rural police. But the Basij went down in numbers from almost a million to less than fifty thousand, still mostly very young or very old volunteers, so it was mostly disregarded as a military force.” He fell silent for a moment. “Qom is the religious center of Iran and the second most important Shi’ite Islam city in the world. The library he mentioned was built for the Ayatollah Khomeini’s burial site. When Khomeini’s body was moved to Tehran, the place was turned into a center of Islamic legal thought, training, and indoctrination — but its design makes it look more like a fortress.”

“What does that have to do with offering Buzhazi assistance, McLanahan?”

“The translator mentioned ‘insurgent raids,’” Patrick explained. “What if the leadership in Tehran evacuated the city and moved to the Khomeini library in Qom? No Iranian in his right mind, religious or not, would dare invade a holy city like Qom — except a nutcase like Buzhazi. What if Buzhazi is the insurgency? He guesses or discovers that the clerical leadership evacuated the capital and hid out in Qom, and he went down there to…”

“To what, McLanahan?”

“To snuff them all out,” Patrick concluded, his eyes wide. “He’s getting his revenge on the clerics who stripped him of his rank and title.” He turned to the President and said, “He’s staging a military coup in Iran — and he’s asking for our help.”

The President’s eyes widened in disbelief. “My God, that’s incredible,” he breathed. “What an opportunity…”

“You can’t trust Buzhazi, even if he had a snowball’s chance in Hell of pulling it off,” Sparks said. “He’s just as likely to turn on his friends and allies as he is the clerics in his own country!”

“But it’s worth a try,” Vice President Hershel said. “At least with an active and capable opposition group in Iran the place could be greatly destabilized for years — even if Buzhazi fails, any other home-grown anti-government groups might have a chance.”

The President turned to his chief of staff and said, “Carl, call in the National Security Council and as many members of the Cabinet as you can convene in an hour. Have them bring every scrap of data they have on the current military, anti-government, insurgent, and political status in Iran. I want analysis of this situation and suggestions on an American response.” Minden was on the phone in an instant. To Sparks he asked, “Jonas, what seaborne strike assets do we have available in the Persian Gulf area right now?”