by Rawlin Cash
It was difficult to overstate the severity of the conflict. It rarely made headlines in the West, but was rapidly amassing more casualties and more serious humanitarian crises than any other conflict since the Cold War.
The roots of the conflict were as much religious as political.
In 1979, the Nixon Doctrine in the Middle East called for the Twin Pillars of two powerful monarchies to maintain stability and US interests in the region. Given the geopolitical importance of the region and its oil reserves, both America and the Soviet Union regarded it as vital to the global power balance.
The first of Nixon’s pillars was the Iranian monarchy of the Pahlavi dynasty, which came to power in 1925 when it replaced the Qajar Dynasty that had ruled Persia since 1789. The second was the House of Saud, founded in 1744 by Muhammad bin Saud, a desert warrior from an agricultural settlement close to modern-day Riyadh.
In 1979, the Iranian pillar of the strategy collapsed when the Islamic Revolution replaced the Pahlavi monarchy with a fundamentalist Islamist theocracy.
Islam itself had long been divided into two main groups, Shia and Sunni. The Iranian theocracy, and the Iranian population in general, was Shia.
The new theocratic, Islamist, Shia government in Iran began immediately calling for the overthrow of the Middle East’s other monarchies. These monarchies, who were generally Sunni but had sizable Shia populations inside their territories, were scared.
A wave of revolutionary insurgencies began with the aim of overthrowing the monarchies in Saudi Arabia in 1979, Egypt and Bahrain in 1981, Syria in 1982, and Lebanon in 1983.
The monarchies, with the support of the United States, closed ranks.
Saudi Arabia had long been styling itself as the legitimate heart of the Islamic world. Inside its territory were the twin holy cities of Mecca and Medina, which made Saudi Arabia host of the annual pilgrimage for all Muslims, and meant that when they prayed, they bowed toward Saudi territory. The Saudi royals were also members of a particularly conservative branch of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism.
The sect was founded by an austere preacher from the remote Saudi region of Najd at the same time that the House of Saud was cementing its military control of the peninsula. The founder of the sect, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, made a pact with the House of Saud. In exchange for his acceptance of Wahhabism as the only valid interpretation of Islam, he would receive power and glory directly from Allah and would rule over all the lands of men.
The pact gave the House of Saud a religious basis to its power, but also meant it had adopted an extremely strict interpretation of Sunnism that made it incompatible with most Shia populations in the region.
The Iranian Revolution was based on an interpretation of Islam that was as close to being the diametric opposite of Wahhabism as was possible.
Sayyid Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, born in September 1902 in Khomeyn, Persia, and known across the world as Ayatollah Khomeini, was the man who brought to end over 2,500 years of Persian monarchy. This was the longest single recorded strand of political rule in history, stretching back to the Achaemenid Empire of Cyrus the Great. Khomeini spent the first years of his life studying the Persian language and the Quran. His father was murdered in 1903 when Khomeini was just five months old. Khomeini became a marja, or source of emulation, and a Mujtahid, authorized to interpret Sharia law. He was firmly routed in the mainstream branch of Shia Islam that believed that the Twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, would reappear as the Savior, coinciding with the Second Coming of Jesus Christ on the Day of Judgement to defeat the Antichrist.
The Middle East could not have come up with two more perfectly opposed rivals if it tried. One was a US-supported monarchy that identified itself as a guardian of Islam according to a strict and puritanical interpretation of Sunnism. The other was an anti-American revolutionary theocracy committed to the overthrow of western-backed monarchies and based on a fundamentalist interpretation of Shiaism.
President Meredith Brooks, by aligning herself with Saudi Arabia and declaring war on Iran, was bringing the United States right into the center of this ancient conflict. To an American military commander, the decision might look like a reasonable strategy for securing American oil supplies while keeping Russian-allied Iran from getting too powerful. To a Muslim, it was a far more complicated religious position that supported Wahhabism’s austere interpretation of the Quran over the belief of two-hundred million Shia Muslims.
It was a decision that brought American policy into a minefield of conflict that stretched back as far as all of recorded human history.
There was no chance of it turning out well.
“So we’re at war with Iran?” Fawn said.
“We’re at war with Iran,” Hunter said, “because the Saudis are controlling the president.”
Fawn hung up the phone. She looked at Hale. He’d hung up also. He lifted his cup of coffee and took a sip.
“We need to confront the president,” Fawn said.
Hale smiled. “That’s my girl,” he said, getting up from his seat. “Right back at it.”
Forty-Eight
Soldiers were at the chopper waiting to escort whoever was on board into the embassy. Security was on full alert and there were over a dozen drones in the air. Hunter was in a concealed position and he wasn’t taking any chances. If one of the drones got eyes on him, it would be game over.
Through his scope he saw that the first man out of the chopper was the new Saudi ambassador, Prince Khalid bin Farhan al Saud. His appointment had been announced just a few hours earlier. He was one of the highest ranking members of the royal family and his appointment was seen as a sign that Saudi Arabia was stepping up diplomatic efforts in anticipation of Meredith’s presidency.
The ambassador was standing by the chopper. Security personnel were scurrying around. Something was causing a delay. There was another person getting out of the chopper and Hunter had been expecting it to be Jamal Al-Wahad. He had his finger on the trigger, ready to put a bullet in his chest. Now he wasn’t so sure.
Everyone was waiting for whoever was still on board.
Some men in butler’s uniforms came running out of the embassy carrying a rolled up red carpet and a small set of steps. The steps were heavy, possibly made of silver, and they were set up at the foot of the chopper. The carpet was rolled out to meet them.
And then the servants helped a man out of the chopper and onto the steps.
Hunter blinked. It was the Crown Prince.
That was a surprise. It was definitely a bold political statement. A new ambassador and the Crown Prince both in town for Meredith’s ascendency.
It was also a problem. If Jamal wasn’t on the chopper, then he could be actively operating the sniper system.
Hunter double checked that his position was secure, that he wasn’t exposed to the drones from any angle, then pulled his phone from his pocket and called Fawn.
“It’s me again.”
“Is everything all right?”
“Is there any chance Jamal al-Wahad is inside the Saudi embassy right now?”
“I can check. I doubt we have an exact read on him though.”
“A phone trace?”
“If he’s in the system.”
“What about the NSA?”
“I could check. If he’s known to work for a foreign government he’ll be a person of interest.”
“Find out and let me know,” Hunter said, hanging up.
Hunter hadn’t been expecting to see the Crown Prince. Now that he was looking at him through his rifle scope, he felt a sudden desire to pull the trigger.
Mohammad bin Faisal bin Nayef al Saud, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, the heir apparent to the Saudi throne and one of the youngest and most powerful world leaders alive, was there on the lawn, in Hunter’s crosshairs, just asking to be shot.
A simple touch of the trigger and he would be dead.
Mohammad bin Faisal was one of the richest and most powerful men on the planet. The oi
l company his family owned, valued in leaked financial documents at between 1.2 and 2 trillion dollars, produced twelve million barrels of oil per day. A barrel of oil generally traded between fifty and one hundred dollars. It was a cash stream worth one to two billion dollars per day, making it the largest individually controlled cash stream on the planet.
Internationally, bin Faisal was seen as the true power behind the Saudi throne, and while his economic and political liberalization measures had given him strong support among Saudi elites, his brutal repression of dissent threatened to destabilize the region.
No top-level member of the Saudi royal family had set foot on US soil, as far as Hunter was aware, since the 2017 execution by hanging of fourteen anti-monarchy activists. The Saudi government had classified the men as terrorists and the event was broadcast live on national television. It showed the fourteen men drop from a wooden gallows in a public square in the Saudi capital. The footage was intended as a warning to domestic opposition groups but went viral globally, making it incredibly difficult for western governments to maintain their close cooperation with the Saudi regime. It was the main reason president Jackson had halted arms sales to Saudi Arabia in the weeks prior to his assassination.
As well as the massacre, bin Faisal had taken steps to cause a famine in Yemen that threatened thirteen million civilians. He’d also made aggressive diplomatic moves in Syria, Qatar, and Lebanon, and was investing so heavily in armaments that it was threatening regional stability.
The thought going through Hunter’s mind as he trained his sights on bin Faisal was that this was a man who had his foot on the neck of thirteen million starving people. Whether they lived or died depended on him.
If anyone deserved to die, he did.
Another chopper was approaching and Hunter directed his aim from bin Faisal to the chopper. The drones spread out to make room for it.
When he got the chopper in his sights, he saw the distinctive white livery that marked the craft as Marine One, the helicopter that transported the president.
He let out a quick laugh. He couldn’t believe it.
The president of the United States was coming there, to a foreign embassy, to their turf. That wasn’t right. This wasn’t some foreign capital, it was Washington DC.
The fact she was arriving by chopper told him there was nothing secret about the meeting. It wasn’t a private tête-à-tête. It was official.
And it was humiliating.
To allow the Saudi Crown Prince, after such an overwhelmingly shocking string of events, to force the president to come to him, it didn’t make sense.
Hunter wasn’t a blind patriot. He didn’t see eye to eye with the government on a lot of things. He didn’t believe everything he was told, and knew better than most people the lies the government told the people. He hated most of the politicians and military leaders he’d met. He knew the country’s foreign policy was hypocritical.
But overall, in the grand balance of things, he did love his country.
He knew it wasn’t perfect, but he was of the opinion that if a man came from France, he should love France. If he came from Spain, he should love Spain. If he was an American, then he might as well just go ahead and love America. It didn’t mean he had to hate other nations, but his fellow countrymen deserved to be able to count on him.
America might not be a land of unicorns and rainbows and candy canes, it was a nation of over three hundred million people that in just the span of Hunter’s own lifetime had engaged in military aggression in Zaire, the Gulf of Sidra, Lebanon, Grenada, Libya, the Persian Gulf, the Mediterranean Sea, Panama, Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Haiti, Kosovo, Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Northeastern Kenya, the Indian Ocean, Libya, Uganda, Syria and Yemen. Hunter had personally tortured American enemies or suspected enemies at CIA black sites in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and on ships and aircraft in international territory. In just the past twenty-four hours, they’d declared war on Iran, a country that would easily absorb a ground invasion in excess of a million troops, more troops than the US had at its disposal and which would require a massive recruitment drive of teenaged men from minorities and in the lowest income bracket to fill the ranks.
America had worse healthcare, lower life expectancy, and higher infant mortality than dozes of other developed countries.
It had the highest wealth gap between the top one percent and the bottom fifty percent of any major nation on earth. He knew that if the household wealth of the entire US population was spread evenly, it would amount to seven-hundred-sixty thousand dollars per household. That meant there was enough wealth in the country to make every family in the nation financially secure. He also knew that the way the economy was currently designed, half of US households had a net-worth below eleven thousand dollars. He knew that the richest one percent of the population owned more than the bottom ninety percent. He knew that six American citizens currently owned as much wealth as half the human race.
He knew his country wasn’t perfect.
He knew that it was so fucked up it was probably beyond repair.
But this?
This disrespect?
This blatant violation of the dignity of the nation in which he was born?
This pissed him off.
The president of the United States, coming here, to see this asshole, like she was his lapdog?
Fuck off.
He was an American. He loved his country. It was as simple as that.
He placed his crosshairs on the Crown Prince’s head.
He knew more about Saudi Arabia than most people. He’d been required by the CIA to study every country in the Middle East. It was public knowledge that fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were Saudi nationals. Everyone knew that Osama bin Laden was a member of one of Saudi Arabia’s wealthiest and most politically connected families. It was known to the CIA for years that the 9/11 hijackers also had direct ties to the Saudi government and the Saudi ambassador in Washington. The FBI had uncovered documents showing that the Saudi embassy had purchased tickets for a 9/11 dry run in 1999.
Everyone in the government knew what was going on.
Ronald Reagan’s Navy Secretary went public decades ago saying it was an open secret in intelligence circles that the Saudis supported Muslim extremists around the world in direct opposition to US interests. Former high-ranking al-Qaeda members in US detention centers revealed that the Saudi royal family had funded al-Qaeda for years. When Robert Mueller was FBI director, he personally stepped in to stop investigators in the 9/11 Commission from examining the ties between the hijackers and the Saudi government. In 2001, when a journalist asked Henry Kissinger if his client list included any Saudis or anyone named bin Laden, he spilled his coffee on his eight hundred dollar shirt. When the 9/11 Commission published its report, the Bush administration redacted twenty-eight pages dealing with the Saudi royal family’s involvement. Obama promised to publish them but never did.
The first business George W. Bush ever owned was a company called Arbusto Energy. The financing came from the Houston representative of a man named Salem bin Laden. Salem was Osama’s half-brother, and he also financed the purchase of surface-to-air missiles for mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Another Bush business partner, Prince Bandar, who acted as Saudi ambassador to the United States from 1983 to 2005, bragged about giving money to al-Qaeda for the 9/11 attacks. The CIA had in its possession a letter from Prince Bandar to George Bush senior, written in 1992, that said, “I feel like one of your family, you are like one of ours.” When Bush Junior was considering his presidential run, he spoke to Prince Bandar first. In 1995, Prince Bandar gave Colin Powell a Jaguar sports car for his birthday. The CIA also had photographs of President Bush and Prince Bandar smoking cigars together on the Truman Balcony of the White House. The date of the photos was September thirteenth, 2001. Hours later, while all air traffic in America was still grounded, 160 Saudi nationals including Saudi royals and members of the bin Laden fam
ily were flown out of Washington on a special jet, escorted by FBI agents. The government never released details on who approved that flight or how it was permitted when organ donor flights weren’t being flown to save the lives of victims of the 9/11 attacks. One of the passengers on the flight was Prince Ahmed bin Salman, who had a penchant for racehorses, and who’s personal phone number was found on the burner cells of numerous al-Qaeda detainees.
And Bush wasn’t the only president with strange connections to Saudi Arabia. Before being elected president, Barack Obama called the Saudis a false ally who couldn’t be trusted. He said the Saudi government’s brutal repression, misogyny, and religious fundamentalism was a threat to US values. Within days of being elected, he was briefed by the top ranking security analysts in the NSA and CIA and rapidly changed his tune. He adamantly went on the defense of the Saudi alliance. He vetoed legislation that would allow 9/11 victims’ families to sue the Saudi government. He raised US arms sales to Saudi Arabia to unprecedented levels, allowing them to build the third strongest army on the planet. And like every president after him, he supported the Saudi War in Yemen, even as congress sought to condemn its massive humanitarian cost.
The House of Saud donated over ten million dollars to George Bush Senior’s presidential library, over ten million to the Clinton presidential library, and an estimated twenty-five million to the Clinton Foundation.
In Washington, the Saudis had lucrative contracts not just with Dayton MacGregor, but with fully fifteen of the most powerful and well connected lobbyists in the city.
It went back decades. Hunter had read every page of the report. He knew that the head of the Saudi intelligence service had attended Georgetown with Bill Clinton, and on the eve of Clinton’s first election victory in 1992, donated 3.5 million dollars to the Middle Eastern studies program at the University of Arkansas. Hunter had watched the tape of the interview with the Dean of Fulbright College. The man said they were flabbergasted when the donation came through. They hadn’t even been fundraising. The donation was handled by an Arkansas investment banker whose companies aided Clinton in his bid to take the White House and who maintained close ties to Prince Bandar and Prince Turki bin Feisal. A week after Clinton’s inauguration, the donation was followed up with a further twenty million dollars. From the day that twenty million dollar wire was transmitted, the Saudis owned Bill and Hillary Clinton.