First Strike (36 page)

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The world’s most powerful man went to the window of the Oval Office, gazed out across the rose garden at the blue and white October sky and pondered his electoral position. The pundits said he was a shoe-in for a second term. But Michael Santos knew political capital could not be set aside for later. You had to spend it while you had it. Sooner or later the polls were going to evaporate. It was only a matter of when and where they stabilised and what the President could accomplish while they were still briefly in the stratosphere. President Santos could already glimpse on the horizon the dangers that imperilled his position. The economy was heading for recession. The dollar was in free-fall. Unemployment was soaring to record levels. The President’s approval rating had plummeted to a high but assailable sixty-eight percentage points. What President Santos needed was an issue. Something big. Something behind which the American people could unite…and if Regime Change had worked in Iraq.

So might it work in …?