"Those also are wise words," interjected the elderly hojjat from Tehran. "But is there anyone who can explain to me how we can avoid the monstrous anger of the Great Satan upon our people? Perhaps I have been here too long. But I have seen much suffering and much heartbreak. I do not think I could bear to see more death and destruction rained down upon us. Particularly if, in the end, we had brought it upon ourselves."
The senior Ayatollah placed his left hand on the right forearm of the old cleric. "You are right to make us aware of the consequences," he said. "And I too have many concerns about future attacks on the West. I also observe that the United States is beginning a withdrawal of its own from the Gulf. Perhaps not totally, but partially."
Admiral Badr looked up, saw the nod of recognition from the Ayatollah, and said, "Your Holiness refers, I believe, to the determination of the White House to cease its reliance on Arab oil, and to tap into their own reserves on the Alaskan North Slope."
"Precisely, Admiral," replied the Chairman of the meeting. "You will have noticed a few of the old U.S. contracts with Arab Gulf States have not been renewed, and indeed some of them have been taken up by China. The United States is already intending to become less reliant on oil from our region. His Holiness Grand Ayatollah in Tehran believes the day will come in the next one hundred years when the entire American continent, north, central, and south, will become one entity, isolationist, and completely self-sufficient in resources."
"When we have eliminated the State of Israel, that will leave the Middle East, North Africa, and perhaps Muslim Central Asia to us," said Admiral Badr. "With, of course, cooperation from the Chinese. Perhaps along the lines of the old Ottoman Empire. Such a dream, a vast Islamic State, free to rule itself, free of the arrogance of the Jews . . . at last."
He paused, and Commander Ben Badr looked up and caught the eye of the Ayatollah, who nodded his assent for the frigate CO to speak.
"I do not think the Americans will find it quite so simple as some people think to become reliant on Alaskan oil," he said. "This is a strong and forward-looking Administration, but America is packed with left-wing conservationists. They call them the tree huggers. And that Alaskan North Slope around Prudhoe Bay runs into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which has a protected status. Has been for twenty years or more. There is a lot of opposition and no guarantee the President will win."
"Nonetheless," replied Ben's father, "they have already laid a major pipeline, running south from an area just beyond Prince William Sound, underwater I think, right into the northwest coast of the United States."
Like all Naval officers, both Admiral Badr and his son talked of far-flung places as if everyone in the world spent as much time as they did staring at maps and charts. But the drift of the discussion remained on course: Should we continue to discourage the American Fleets from plying their trade in the Middle East, or should we sit back and allow them to drift away in their own good time?
"The fact is, they are never going to drift away," said the Admiral. "The United States is a strategic global giant. It sees its own interest in every corner of the world. The Americans see advantages for themselves everywhere. They like to keep an eye on Russia, India, and China. It suits them to have Carrier Battle Groups in our seas. They will never do what we want, and just leave."
"And we, in turn, cannot drive them out," said the Ayatollah, "because of their Military and Naval power. . . and now perhaps would be a good time to hear from the Hamas Commander who has been kind enough to answer our call for help and direction."
Everyone was in agreement, and General Ravi rose to his feet in the manner of one who had much to impart.
"I have listened carefully to the impressive and thoughtful opinions expressed here this morning," he said. "And I do not disagree with any of them. The West is more powerful than we are, and they have the capacity for ruthlessness on a scale we cannot match. However, we ought not to dwell upon that.
"If the objective is too difficult, then it is folly to pursue it. As the Americans might say, get yourself a brand-new set of objectives. Crude, perhaps, but perfect logic. In my opinion, there are only two things that unfailingly cause an enemy to back down, and the first one of those is sheer exasperation. Not anger, fury, and 'we'll get the bastards for this.' But careful studied exasperation. Like Gorbachev displayed when President Reagan threatened to wipe his nation out, from outer space if he had to.
"Gorbachev was not angry. He was not even frightened. He was just at the end of his tether, exasperated, frustrated, and running out of options. In the end he just threw up his hands, said 'screw this,' and gave in. I'm not sure he meant to take down the Berlin Wall and completely dismantle the old Soviet Empire. But that's what happened, so he just advised his nation to get on with living and trading. And he was right.
"And I believe that is what we need to do to the Great Satan. And here we have an even greater advantage than Reagan had over Gorbachev. The Satan has an Achilles' heel—it's called dollars. No nation in the history of the world has ever been more conscious of cost, profit, and wealth.
"Which makes our task doubly simple. We have to cause the United States to grow totally exasperated with us, fed up with the inconvenience, tired of endless rebuilding, and, above all, fed up with the cost. I do not believe in killing masses of innocent civilians. Instead, I suggest attack after attack on high-tech systems, machinery, and institutions. Things, gentlemen, things. And everything unattributable, done with absolute secrecy.
"That's the only way. Stretch them, stretch them far and wide. Stretch their resources until they break. Make them think they have to protect this, guard that, send aircraft carriers here, submarines there, troops somewhere else. Make them think the only way they can retain their global empire and trade routes is to guard the whole damn world from attack.
"That way they'll get good and fed up. They'll have those fourth-rate little Democrat Congressmen up and whining about the cost, complaining about the effect on the American way of life. They'll bleat themselves to death. But only if no one gets killed. If that happens they'll smash some nation to pieces again.
"We can get rid of the Americans. We just need to be more clever than we've been before. Or we'll end up like Afghanistan."
General Ravi's words had literally slammed around the room because he was casting aside all of their preconceived ideas. Worse, really. He was standing everything on its head, trying to change the culture of decades of terrorism, making everything that had gone before somehow outdated, old-fashioned, improperly thought out.
Two of the Hezbollah representatives were talking quite animatedly, and it was obvious they agreed with not one sentence of his speech. Indeed one of them climbed to his feet and said, "General, we do not think you should come here and decry everything we have done, risked our lives for."
Ravi did not stand up. He just said quietly, "I was not asked here to sit in judgment upon the past. I was asked to come here to talk about the future. The past is of no concern to me, save for its lessons. Certainly, I had no intention of criticizing your achievements. I do not know what they are. I only know that things that were applicable a few years ago, are no longer relevant today. And if you don't change, you will almost certainly perish."
He paused for a moment and then asked which of the Hezbollah members had seen firsthand the American bombing in the mountains around Kabul. Two of them raised their hands.
"How far from the explosion were you?"
"Possibly ten miles."
"Well, let me say something about that. A few years ago I commanded a patrol in Northern Ireland and I know, from very close range, what a fifteen-pound hunk of Semtex explosive can do to a street—like knock most of it down. Those American bombs contain fifteen thousand pounds' worth of explosive. And I once asked an American Colonel how accurate they were these days. His reply was succinct: 'Which window do you want it through'?"
There was silence in the room. "They not only have an endless supply of s
uch weapons," said the General, "they can deliver them when and where they want to deliver them. And no one can withstand that. Trust me. When we strike at them in future, we must be absolutely discreet."
"Are you suggesting we can, and should still, strike against them?" asked the Ayatollah.
"Only if we want them the hell out of the Middle East on a permanent basis."
"I think this would be an excellent time to break for some tea," replied the Holy Man. "Then perhaps, General, you will give us an idea of the military way forward."
"I believe that is why I am here," replied Ravi. "And I will certainly do my best."
Everyone stood, and Commander Badr, the junior ranking officer in the room, walked to a telephone on the wall and ordered tea for ten immediately. Whoever was at the end of the line jumped to it because four minutes later three white-coated Naval orderlies appeared with two large silver teapots, trays of glass cups set in silver holders, sugar bowls, milk, and lemon.
Iranian tea is without question the national drink. It is served constantly, scalding hot, strong, and, usually, with lemon. It is so bitter practically everyone takes it with sugar. The milk was a concession to Ravi, who everyone knew was English. In a way.
They spent fifteen minutes talking among themselves, but the Ayatollah had ears only for General Rashood. He made his way across the room, and inquired, "Would you be prepared to come to Tehran if His Holiness so wished? I simply have a feeling you are about to propose something rather out of the ordinary."
Ravi smiled and he looked at the fierce but highly intelligent face of the cleric. The high forehead beneath the black turban, the calm, penetrating dark eyes, the slightly cynical turn of the mouth. This was not a man to fool with, Ravi thought. Not a man with whom to take any liberties whatsoever or indeed to underestimate.
He said, "I anticipate we are about to become brothers in arms. I would not disrespect our leader. And, of course, I would attend his wishes in Tehran. Especially if we decide to embark on a great adventure together."
The Ayatollah smiled. "General, we may appear to Western eyes to have deep-seated problems among the nonbelievers and moderates in this country. But in the end, the hard-line clerics hold sway here. The disciples of Grand Ayatollah Khomeini still control the country.
"We pay lip service to the West when it suits us. But we are always guided by the Koran, and our desire for an Islamic State, stretching along the north coast of Africa, right through the Middle East, and into Asia. This will one day be achieved. And neither the Great Satan nor its vicious little puppets in Israel will stop us."
General Rashood stood motionless. "I think I can assist you in achieving those objectives and I have confidence that we will succeed."
"Then we will be seated again, and I will call upon you to outline your grand strategy." The Ayatollah held out both hands and said, "May Allah go with you and with us, General."
"Peace be upon you," said Ravi, paradoxically.
Two minutes later, he was standing again. And he began with a truly bludgeoning sentence. "I think we should aim to begin work in two years, by taking out the entire electrical-power supply on the West Coast of the United States."
Even the battle-hardened Admiral Badr, who had undergone more scrapes with the U.S. Navy than most Gulf Commanding Officers, looked up, startled.
"They've already had some quite serious power cuts in California," continued Ravi. "And in the next two years there will be millions of barrels of oil traveling down the new pipeline from Alaska, new refineries, new power stations, probably a grid system linking certainly the two biggest cities, Los Angeles and San Francisco, to the same electricity source."
What are you proposing, a suicide-bombing raid? Everyone had the same question.
"No. I am proposing we begin to work on a plan to exact our revenge on them for everything they have done to us. We will start by crippling the new West Coast electricity supply right from the source, at the big refinery in Prince William Sound. Hit the storage tanks, then the actual refinery, then the pipeline itself, then the pipeline underwater along the Washington State coast, maybe three times, then the new refinery they're building in Grays Harbor, then the main power station, which serves the two cities."
You mean all at once?
"Well, in the course of a few days, we'll be trying to show no connection between a series of accidents."
Accidents! This sounds like World Wars III and IV.
"Absolutely not. We have a fire caused by an unknown source at the main storage and pumping station. The breaches in the underwater pipe will be a source of total confusion. Another fire in the refinery at Grays Harbor would also be unattributable. Certainly not to us, fifteen thousand miles away."
You're talking over land and underwater—How?
"Gentlemen. We need a submarine. Actually, we probably need two."
"General, we already have three," said the Admiral. "Excellent diesel-electric-powered, silent under five knots. Perfect inshore attack boats. But I simply cannot imagine them creeping undetected down the West Coast of the United States, 15,000 miles from home. The U.S. Navy would catch us, for certain. And then it would not have been worth it. Because they could repair their stupid crude oil system. But we would not be allowed to replace the Kilos, nor could we replace the men who drove them."
"Admiral," said the General, "your Kilos would be useless on such a mission. We need a large, fast nuclear submarine, which could neither be detected nor caught."
"Nuclear!" The Admiral was genuinely astonished.
"You mean nuclear-powered, not an ICBM submarine, carrying nuclear weapons."
"No. Not nuclear weapons. Nuclear-powered."
"Well, before I ask how, let me ask why."
"Mostly because a nuclear submarine does not need to be refueled. It has an infinite capacity to run on its reactor, right around the world if necessary, no rendezvous with tankers. A big nuclear submarine can commit an attack in the Pacific and then head at high speed straight for the Indian Ocean, or the Atlantic, or even the Antarctic. The fact remains, no one knows where it is. Its range is so vast it just gets lost in literally millions of square miles of water, running quietly, running fast and deep. Invisible to any pursuer."
"Well, I do see that. We could not get a Kilo to the West Coast of the United States and back without refueling five or even six times, and of course she has to snorkel frequently to keep her batteries charged."
"Absolutely," replied the General. "She has to stay at low speeds to remain silent. She's vulnerable in many ways. And in my line of business, vulnerable is bad. In my opinion, the nuclear attack submarine is the finest weapon this world has ever seen. Her speed and mobility are unmatched. Her reactor provides everything—heat, light, power, fresh water— and it gives her the capacity to run deep, almost indefinitely.
"A good one can fire guided missiles from beneath the surface, hitting targets hundreds of miles away with a weapon that appears to have been fired from nowhere. To return to the mundane little objective I just mentioned, a nuclear submarine could fire and hit those American fuel storage tanks in Prince William Sound in total secrecy.
"No one would know why they had exploded, nor whether it was an act of war. And even if they did, they could never know who had committed it. There would be suspicion, but little else. We would not be among the suspects because we have no obvious access to such a submarine."
The General glanced around the table, assessing the reaction of his audience. The four men from Hezbollah sat enraptured. The clerics betrayed nothing, but the Ayatollah was leaning forward on his elbows, his head resting on his upraised fingers. He had not been sitting like that before.
Commander Badr, leaning back in his chair, right next to Ravi, had a thin smile on his face as he listened to the Hamas Commander delve into the future.
The General spoke again. "I am drawn to the conclusion that we must have a nuclear ship. Without it we are almost powerless. We cannot attack anything from the s
urface because that will result in instant identification. We cannot use Special Forces beyond the Middle East because we have no way of delivering them or retrieving them after a mission.
"And we certainly cannot attack anything or anyone from the air, because again that represents instant detection. We could, I suppose, copy the methods of Bin Laden and infiltrate Western countries, but that is very clumsy, and if our operatives get caught, the United States will not hesitate to lambast the country they think is the country of origin. And they wouldn't even care if they were wrong! They'd still do it.
"The acquisition of a nuclear submarine, gentlemen, changes everything. We can strike in deadly silence, unseen and unknown. And if we can be quick and decisive, the chances of anyone catching us are close to zero. No modern nation with an agenda such as ours has ever had a nuclear submarine. And it is my opinion that we should make all efforts either to buy or lease one, under whatever deceptive means we can."
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