“Ambassador Cleveland might appreciate a change of scenery. And he’s a perfect fit for Israel. That’s a sound idea, Noah. We—”
“Thank you, sir. We could ask Senator Thornwood if he would like to present the idea to the White House, if you think that would be helpful.”
Evan Townsend felt the door close. He knew he had just walked into something that was not of his own making. This was going to be a long day.
3
Arvand Island, Persian Gulf
May 7, 6:57 p.m.
Dusk was being swallowed by darkness over the Arvand Naval Surveillance Base. The only light visible to Samir Al-Qahtani from his perch on the balcony were the running lights on the bow and stern of the Iranian Moudge-class frigate Janamar as it slipped into a berth at the far end of a distant dock. Positioned in the Persian Gulf at the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab River, the border between Iran and Iraq, Arvand Island was the Iranian military’s forward listening post over Iraq. This night Arvand would host a clandestine but friendly meeting between Muhammad Raman, chairman of the Iranian Expediency Council—the actual rulers of Iran—and himself, the newly appointed deputy prime minister of Iraq.
To many in the outside world, Al-Qahtani knew, this meeting would have been considered impossible. Fifteen years earlier, Iran and Iraq had reached the end of the longest war of the twentieth century, the eight-year Iran-Iraq War that—depending on whose estimate you believed—killed between four hundred thousand and one million military and civilians with an equal number of wounded.
Since the seventh century, the Muslim world had been divided between two sects of the Islamic faith—Sunni and Shia Muslims. The division erupted from a disagreement about who should lead the religion after the Prophet Muhammad’s death … a disagreement that, for fourteen hundred years, had all too often flashed from bitterness to violence. Even though both Iran and Iraq were nations with vast Shia majority populations, they had waged a brutal, often inhumane, war because of the hatred that dominated the relentless conflict between the Sunni-dominated Baath party of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and the religious Shia mullahs who ruled the Islamic Republic of Iran.
But in the aftermath of Saddam’s overthrow and the Allied occupation of Iraq, a new, Shia-led military and political power began to exert growing influence in Iraq. Thousands of Iraqi military abandoned Saddam during the Iran-Iraq War and fled to asylum in Iran, where they were trained by Iranian officers and reconstituted into anti-Saddam militia units. When the US-led Allies invaded Iraq to depose Saddam in 2003, the Allies quickly adopted these Shia militia units as allies.
The Badr Brigades, led by Samir Al-Qahtani, were the largest, best organized, and most powerful of the Shia militia. They were also the fiercest and most feared by Iraq’s suddenly beleaguered Sunni minority. In the years since the Allied invasion, Badr, still under the control of Iran, also became a political party. Al-Qahtani took his fight against the Sunni minority not only to the streets in an ongoing eruption of sectarian violence but also to the Iraqi parliament and the halls of its government. His Badr Organization Party had won more than twenty seats in parliament in the last election. And its popularity and power were growing daily.
With the religious fanatics of the Islamic State overrunning vast areas of western Iraq, routing the inept Iraqi army, Al-Qahtani’s Badr Brigades—along with the Kurdish Peshmerga—were the only military forces standing against an ISIS invasion.
Al-Qahtani’s Badr Brigades were led by military officers from Iran who were loyal to the Iran-based Shia Islamic party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). The Shia brothers in Iraq and Iran were finally joining forces. And their ultimate goal was coming within reach.
Chairman Raman entered the room, a private reception area on the top floor of Arvand’s headquarters building, and bowed at the waist, a sign of respect. Raman was slight of build, fully unremarkable in his appearance. He was dressed in the plain black robes adopted by members of the ruling Iranian clergy, a round, black pillbox hat on his head, and a long, bushy white beard projecting from his chin. Only his eyes commanded respect.
“Salaam aleichem, my brother,” said Al-Qahtani, his head bowed as expected of a guest. Where Raman was an indistinguishable cipher, Samir Al-Qahtani dominated any room he entered. A massive man by any standards, but particularly among his Persian brothers, Al-Qahtani stood six foot five and carried 250 pounds of muscle and sinew with the rippling potential of a notched arrow in a fully extended bow. He was always only a finger flick from unleashed aggression. No robes for this warrior. Al-Qahtani wore his battle fatigues with dignity, like a general’s hand-sewn uniform, and the scars on his face like medals of valor. He was a professional soldier, ruthless, loyal only to his faith and his Shia brothers.
Raman crossed the room, and his right hand touched the Iraqi’s outstretched arm. “Wa’ aleichem salaam … and God be with you also. I thank you for your courtesy, but there’s no rank here tonight, my brother. We have enemies on all sides and weighty matters to discuss. Our hearts should beat as one.”
A small cup of thick, black coffee suspended in his hand, Raman turned to his guest. “No, Minister. We cannot lose focus. There are many tasks before us, but the first and most important is to destroy this so-called Islamic State of ISIS and restore Iraqi sovereignty over the Anbar Province.” Raman placed his cup on the side table. “You have made significant inroads into Al-Bayati’s government.”
Al-Qahtani was already dismissive of Raman, who was all motion and gestures, never still. Al-Qahtani displayed the patience of a soldier. Despite his imposing bulk, he was comfortably relaxed on one of the room’s cushioned divans, his strength and energy coiled, prepared, waiting.
“Once one of our party was appointed minister of transportation,” Al-Qahtani said of his military commander, “it became easier to keep the door open to bring more of our organization into positions of influence—soon a high-ranking member of Badr Brigades was minister of human rights, and last week we added the Interior Ministry to our portfolio. An ally was even elected governor of Diyala Province. So yes, we have more influence. But it is not enough.”
Raman gathered his robes to stand and started pacing around the spacious but intimately furnished meeting room. “Listen, my friend,” he said, as if he were speaking to himself, “we have an opportunity to do something that hasn’t been accomplished in over two thousand years: the restoration of the greatest Persian Empire of all time. Think of it.” He turned to face Al-Qahtani. “Persians ruling from India to Egypt to Eastern Europe, surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. Not since the days of the Eranshahr have Persians controlled the Levant. And now it is again possible.” Raman pointed in Al-Qahtani’s direction. “We must make it possible.”
Robes sailing in his wake, Raman was off again, fast-stepping around the room as if only motion could satisfy his passion. Al-Qahtani stifled a disparaging chuckle at Raman’s histrionics because the Iranian’s words were stirring a passion he harbored in his own heart. “First we wipe out the stain of ISIS and make Iraq secure. We continue to increase our influence in the Gulf to frustrate the Saud—perhaps instigate some instability on his border to get his attention. But the second step is to lure the American president and his sycophantic allies into a binding agreement that would preserve much of our nuclear capability while lifting the murderous Western sanctions from the necks of our people. Then, released from the bondage of those sanctions, we can use our oil—Iraqi and Iranian oil—as a weapon.”
Raman came to a jolting halt, his shoulders thrown back as if he had collided with an invisible wall. He turned toward Al-Qahtani.
“That is when the trap is sprung.” He moved to the divan where the deputy prime minister was seated and perched on its edge, his voice as smooth, quiet, and deadly as a razor-thin stiletto. “Our Syrian friend and ally in Damascus—whom we’ve barely been able to keep enthroned—will have no warning and no place to hide when Hezbollah turns against him, and our combined forc
es, triumphant over ISIS, establish protectorates that surround Damascus. Within a year, all of Syria will be annexed into the New Persian Empire.”
A smile hinted at the corners of Al-Qahtani’s lips. This man might be slight in stature, but his passion was contagious.
With a wave of his hand, Raman regained Al-Qahtani’s attention. “And you and I, my brother Samir, will be at the center of the empire’s power. Perhaps we will be the ones honored to push the button that will annihilate Israel once and for all time. Yes”—Raman put his hand on Al-Qahtani’s shoulder, and his gaze bored into the Iraqi’s soul—“our time is almost here. Destroy ISIS. Destroy the Arab economy. Destroy the Assyrian. And then wipe the Jew from the face of the earth.”
Al-Qahtani was thirty years old in 1980 when Saddam Hussein sent his troops into Iran and started the eight-year bloodletting that took half a million lives on each side of the Iran-Iraq War. But that war was birthed from the heart of a Sunni madman who ruthlessly wielded power over a Shia-majority nation. On this day, Shia brothers with Persian blood were finally standing in unity against their common enemies.
Tomorrow—or one day soon—there would be no more Iraq or Iran. No more Syria. Certainly no more Israel. Only one all-encompassing Persia. And their mortal enemies, the Arabs, would be ground into the sand.
Eilat, Israel
June 23, 3:13 p.m.
Moshe Litzman and Benjamin Erdad, Likud Party loyalists and trusted advisers to Israel’s prime minister David Meir, sat side by side on one side of the table in the Crowne Plaza Hotel. The hotel sat directly on the beach of Eilat, the year-round resort city at the southern tip of Israel. The view from Eilat’s beach across the Red Sea was stunning. To the right the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt, to the left, the shoreland of Jordan leading to the highlands of the western coast of Saudi Arabia. Perhaps the heavily armed agents of Shin Bet surrounding the hotel would have a moment to enjoy the view. But not Litzman and Erdad. They were not in Eilat to vacation. They were in Eilat to receive a miracle.
Erdad, minister of internal security, couldn’t see Litzman’s face and wondered if it revealed the same depth of conflicting emotions—doubt and hope—that surged through his thinking.
“I can see that you find this hard to believe. I can understand your doubt completely. It is the same emotion I felt not so many hours ago. Doubt, but hope as well.” Prince Faisal ibn Farouk Al-Saud, defense minister for the Royal Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, spread his hands wide above the table. “But my father is confident it is time to put doubt aside, to put mistrust and enmity aside. He believes, and he has convinced me, that hope and courage will ensure our future. Mistrust and enmity will lead to the utter ruin of us all.”
Benjamin Erdad was fifty-four, a career officer in the IDF—Israel Defense Force—rock-solid in body and commitment to his nation. Transferred to Shin Bet for a temporary assignment at the outbreak of the first intifada in 1988, Erdad remained with Israel’s domestic security agency, rising in rank and influence. Colonel Erdad laid aside his uniform for a time to join David Meir’s cabinet. With a fragile ruling coalition to keep in check, Meir was desperate for the help of those he could trust. Now that trust was in even greater demand. If what the prince shared with them was true …
Israel had been at war off and on with its Arab neighbors since the nation was first established in 1948. Sometimes the war was violent, military conflict, as in 1948 and 1967. At other times it was a bitter conflict about land or refugees or housing or freedom. Sometimes only a war of words but, Erdad was fully aware, always a war, nonetheless. Egypt was the only Arab nation to sign a peace treaty with Israel, acknowledging its right to exist. In theory, and often in practice, Israel’s other Arab neighbors refused to accept the legitimacy of the Israeli state.
It was an enmity that stretched back thousands of years to the first two sons of the biblical patriarch Abraham—Ishmael and Isaac.
In a story recorded in the Jewish Tanakh, the Islamic Koran, and the Christian Bible, God promised Abram he would be the father of a chosen people but also the father of many nations. Even though Abram was ninety-nine years old, and his wife, Sarah, was barren, God had promised that Abram would be the father of a great nation and that Sarah would bear him a son. But after many years of waiting, Sarah was frustrated enough to arrange for Abram to sleep with her maidservant Hagar. Hagar birthed a son, named Ishmael, who was Abram’s firstborn son, thus heir of all he possessed. But Ishmael was not the result of God’s sovereign plan for Abram—to birth a people of promise who would enter into covenant with God as his people.
For fourteen years, Ishmael was honored and recognized as Abram’s heir. One day after Abram experienced a visitation of angels, he slept with his wife, Sarah. She became pregnant, as God had promised. It was through Sarah’s son, Isaac, that Abraham—whose name was changed by God—was told he would father a great nation which would occupy the promised land. Isaac was the son of promise—God’s chosen line to bring forth God’s chosen people from whom would spring Messiah, the redeemer, through whom everyone’s sins would be forgiven.
When conflict arose between Sarah and Hagar over which son would be considered Abraham’s firstborn, Sarah convinced Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael away into the desert.
Hagar and Ishmael were cast out of Abraham’s household—divorced—and sent into the desert. There God spoke to Hagar’s distress and told her Ishmael would also become the father of a great nation, but that “he will be a wild donkey of a man, his hand will be against everyone, and everyone’s hand will be against him; and he will live to the east of all his brothers.” From Ishmael sprang the Ishmaelites, the men of the desert … all the Arab tribes.
During the thousands of years since the day Hagar and Ishmael were abandoned, the sons of Isaac and the sons of Ishmael had been in constant conflict. Now, Prince Faisal announced, the nations of the Arab world were offering Israel a peace treaty. The end of war.
Erdad had known Prince Faisal for nearly twenty years. Their paths crossed several times by necessity, twice in crisis. The man had proven himself honest and trustworthy, willing to engage in spirited debate about the geopolitical realities of an area they both called home. His arguments were passionate but never aggressively belligerent. Today he presented a proposal that would change both of their futures.
“What about the Palestinians?” Erdad asked. “What about Jerusalem?”
Faisal nodded in acknowledgment. Dressed in a black business suit more appropriate than his royal Saudi robes, Faisal was no less regal in bearing and presence. “Yes, Benjamin, you come straight to the crux of the problem as you always do. My father, the king, has a simple remedy—though it may not be so simple to implement.”
He held up his right hand. “Pen … paper.” An aide stepped from the side of the room and placed a pad and pen in front of the prince, who drew a straight, vertical line down the middle of the page (“The Jordan River,” Faisal explained) ending in an elongated oval (“Dead Sea”). He then drew a circle, about three-quarters of the way up the vertical line. To the left of the line, a shape that looked like a kidney bean—the land occupied by Israel after its 1967 war with the Arab states.
“The solution is this. We will not insist on the boundaries from before 1967. You can have the Jordanian territory you captured during the war. We will recognize Israel as a nation and recognize your right to exist. In fact, we will ask you to consider a mutual defense pact with the other signatories as part of the treaty. But …”
Erdad knew there was a “but” coming.
“Jordan is willing to contribute the land you, shall we say, liberated in sixty-seven. So we believe Israel must also provide land for a free, sovereign Palestinian state. The Palestinian issue is an obstacle to lasting peace, and it must be addressed.
“So this is what we propose in general terms. Establishment of a Palestinian state from Abu Dis south, for the most part south of Highway One and east of Highway Sixty, to the Dead Sea. This way the Palestinian
state can claim East Jerusalem as its capital—but Jerusalem itself remains as it is, unified under Israel. We think it essential that Bethlehem and Hebron be included within the boundaries of the Palestinian state.”
Faisal looked up from his rough sketch. There was no defiance in his glance, only a question.
“You are asking a lot, Your Highness,” said Moshe Litzman, minister of the interior. He leaned into the table and jabbed his finger into the middle of the Palestinian state drawn by Prince Faisal as if he were trying to slay the idea. “Do you know how many Israeli families will have to be moved to create this state?”
Erdad took a deep breath. Prince Faizal silently stared at Litzman, refusing to take the bait. Likewise, Erdad was determined not to respond out of emotion.
“If we were to announce this agreement, Your Highness,” said Litzman, “our hard-liners would be up in arms over the issue of settlements alone. The government would fall within hours. I don’t believe your suggestion is viable.”
Faisal sat back in his chair. “I agree. The questions of who will live where, of citizenship and ownership—these are thorny problems that will require careful consideration and compromise from both sides. Yes, a threat to an agreement, if that was all the treaty contained. But there are two additional points that I would ask you to consider. First, the mutual defense pact would require all parties to guarantee Israel’s security. Which means the signatories to this agreement will commit to fight alongside you and to squeeze Hamas out of Gaza and remove Hezbollah as a threat from your northern border. We will stand with you if ISIS dared an incursion through the Golan Heights. Perhaps even more important, we would be united and determined in our opposition to Iran.”
Erdad desperately wanted to light up one of the cigarettes in his pocket. He fought to keep his legs from bouncing. “Prince Faisal,” said Erdad, “just who is the ‘we’ you speak of?”
Ishmael Covenant Page 7