Tehran Decree (3 page)

He sighed for the second time...gone were the days
when one could simply swat ones enemy with a few good bombing runs,
or a quick nuclear strike banishing them forever. The world was
always watching -- such were today’s communicative capabilities --
one could not give little Mohammed a black eye on the sly, without
the whole country knowing about it, and if it were two black eyes,
then the whole world would know.

He continued scrolling down the reports trying to
push away his extraneous thoughts which came charging in each time
he picked up a major point from the screen. Iran once again reared
its ugly head.

Another significant aspect of the Iranian situation
was the discovery by allied vessels of ships heading for Iran which
contained an assortment of parts for huge guns, this in itself was
of great concern, but even more worrying were the number of vessels
running the sanctions gauntlet which had not been detected. The
middle east was awash with armaments and the whole world was in
danger of drifting into anarchy.

It was a new cold war scenario and one that America
didn’t want. It was becoming clear that as long as there were
different political ideologies in the world and countries with
weapons to pursue them, the USA would always be the standing
target. She was the natural leader of the free world, and thus,
also the natural enemy of all tyrannical states. Aggression was
part of human nature even in the mildest person it was a normal
defence mechanism -- violence was a here to stay unless human
nature itself were changed. This brought up even more drastic
scenarios which bordered on the destruction of homo Sapiens as a
species.

Chapter Three

Iran / Iraq Border

It was as thick as cotton wool and as gray as
Portland cement in every direction; a wall of impenetrable mist
obscured everything.

Major Born had been given strict orders to keep a
rigid ten metres from the Iraq / Iran border and to recce the area
for insurgent Iranian forces, but never to cross the border into
Iran under any circumstances. So far it had been an absolute
nightmare, they had started off their ten man patrol along the
border in crystal clear weather, and this insidious haze had
gradually enveloped them.

Initially, Major Born had not worried too much, after
all he had a good compass and a state of the art military GPS
device, which informed them of their position within a few metres.
In spite of this wonderful piece of technology it was still
possible to get lost, and even end up arguing with the directions
given by the actual GPS device, especially when all visual senses
were cut off by a dense fog. There was a tendency for human
intelligence, gained through ones senses to argue with, and even
usurp accurate readings from an electronic or a mechanical device.
Born yelled back at his second in command.

‘What the hell do you make of this bloody fog
lieutenant,’

‘Don’t know sir...I didn’t know they had fogs in
Iraq.'

'Neither did I...you don’t suppose it could be
artificially induced?’ said Born.

‘You never know sir...could be a new weapon of mass
confusion,’ it looked too ethereal to be a sandstorm and yet there
seemed to be definite particles flying around, and the men had to
cover their mouths to protect their lungs from the fine dust.

‘Could this be a mixture of water vapour and sand?
the major queried'

‘I suppose it’s possible sir...beats the shit out of
me.’ The more the patrol edged its way along the border the greater
the murkiness became.

Major Born was now disorientated and experiencing
great difficulty in interpreting the GPS device even though
directional parameters were plainly in front of him, his brain
would simply not accept them. His mind knew that he had been this
way and that, and the right direction was now directly to his left.
Mankind was now at odds with one of his most recent technological
marvels. Lieutenant Harrison, the second in command, continued
straight on following his GPS device.

‘Not that way lieutenant, we need to keep closer to
the border line,’ yelled Born tapping his subordinate hard on the
shoulder.

‘But the GPS sir?’

‘Fuck the GPS...this is the right way.’

‘But sir, we're going the wrong way,’ Harrison
blurted desperately, brandishing his GPS device and pushing it in
the Major’s face. Older officers sometimes didn’t take too kindly
to new technological kids on the block and Born looked skeptically
at his second in command.

‘What was one of the first things you learned in
basic training Lieutenant?' Harrison squinted at the Major in
disbelief...had this big strapping man started to lose his grip on
reality?

‘In case you have forgotten Lieutenant, it was how to
follow orders...so shut the fuck-up, and do as you’re told,’ the
body of men continued in obedient silence.

An hour elapsed before the fog began to clear and
Major Born halted the patrol and retrieved a pair of high power
service binoculars. He scanned the horizon in a slow 180 degree
sweep before settling on an old farm house some fifty metres
away.

Harrison hand-signaled the rest of the platoon to get
down and take cover.

The cause of the strange mist then gradually became
apparent; piles of fine sand dunes dotted the landscape, Born
grabbed a handful of the material and sifted it through his
hand.

‘Here’s the culprit lieutenant...this stuffs finer
than talcum powder...a moderate wind could soon whip it up’

‘Could be a kieselguhr deposit sir, there’s lots of
it around here,’ the fine sand wafted from the Majors grasp as he
looked ahead.

‘Never mind the kieselguhr lets check out that farm
house up ahead.’ The major circled his arm over his head and the
patrol slowly spread out forming a large circle surrounding the
house. Harrison gave the hand signal indicating a slow closure on
the building.

Major Born refocused the binoculars on the roof of
the farmhouse, and stopped abruptly, crouching low, he pointed at
the building.

‘What the hell is that?’ Harrison squinted hard at he
top of the house trying to follow his commander’s extended finger.
A gabel window on the roof seemed to frame a large circular object
--
parts of which glinted in the sun.

‘It’s the business end of a large artillery gun
sir.’

‘Thanks for confirming that Lieutenant ...I thought I
might be hallucinating.'

‘No sir, I concur, but I thought big guns went out
with Hitler and his cronies.’

‘No lieutenant, they never did go out of fashion
--
in fact, they graduated to firing monster shells, as a
matter fact, I recall the US Navy stopping an Iranian ship carrying
big gun parts some months ago. That was probably a lucky
incident...God knows how many other vessels got through since then.
The major’s blue tooth earpiece buzzed.

‘Yeah...’

‘Tale end sir...there’s a supply wagon at the rear of
the house sir...its stacked with shells, and the vehicle has the
international radiation sign stenciled on it,’ Born looked sharply
at Harrison.

‘The radiation sign on a military vehicle
--
you know what that means lieutenant?'

‘The trucks radioactive sir!’

‘No, the bloody shells are...looks like we might have
stumbled onto a strategic nuclear emplacement.’

‘You mean the gun’s set for firing nuclear
shells?’

‘Exactly...know what I think lieutenant?'

‘No...what sir?’

‘We’re standing on hot coals...lets get out the hell
out of here pronto!’ Harrison turned round and signaled for the men
to retreat, then realised they were surrounded by a rag tag bunch
of what seemed to be Iranian paramilitaries.

Major Born pressed an emergency button on his
satellite phone. It was then he noticed the reading on the GPS
digital display
--
they were three kilometers inside the
Iranian border

‘Hells fucking bells lieutenant ...we’ve gotta get
out of here,’ Born continued to press his communication button
finally receiving a distorted reply.

‘HQ...CCB...go ahead Major.’

‘We’re surrounded by Iranian Para’s...they’ve got
nuclear shells here and a bloody great gun to fire them...were
going to fight our way out,’ Harrison gazed alarmingly at the Major
--
Born smiled back, then emptied his carbine in the
direction of the Iranians.

Chapter Four

Brigadier Arash Al Zandi responsible for the security
of the Iran-Iraque border area sat at his desk massaging his
forehead. Born in Tabriz out of the poisoned Tehran limelight, with
a cultured upbringing, he was more worldly wise then most of his
military contemporaries. He had a deep sense of morality, and could
think beyond the obvious with a clear consciousness, which made him
special within the Iranian officer cadre.

However, an open minded person tended to be a rare
quality in the Iranian Army, but Al Zandi was grateful for it.
Unfortunately on this occasion, it had provided him with a strong
sense of foreboding as he struggled to understand the message he
had just read. He reappraised it for the third time, staring at the
heading and trying to make sure it wasn’t some sort of sad joke --
even in Arab countries jokes were sometimes perpetrated, but they
were rarely practical jokes.

It had come from the his superior General Hakem
Gamela and had been passed down the chain of command via the
Supreme Leader’s office in the form of a decree enacted by the
Supreme Leader himself.

From the attached preamble it was clear that the
supreme number one Muslim of Iran, had finally decided to act. The
Americans had not only continuously enacted heavy sanctions over
many years, but were now dictating how Iran should run its own
country. Not satisfied with this, they were now massing on the Iraq
border with the obvious intention of invading Iran.

A preliminary head count indicated that an advanced
force of approximately four thousand US armed infidels were in
position, just rearing to cross the border. The festering hellhole
that was Iraq, would now be perpetuated in Iran, unless drastic and
immediate action was undertaken.

Enough was enough, the American aggressors were
merely upstarts in a very ancient world
--
in their own
parlance
--
they were green to their gills. Brawling infants
in fact, and needed to be taught a severe lesson in world
etiquette. One does not harass and destroy ancient civilisations
whose great accomplishments were commonplace long before the United
States of America was a mere twinkle in the Anglo Saxon’s eye.

The body of US troops would be eliminated the instant
they crossed the border using newly acquired nuclear technology,
and Iraq would be freed from the imperialist aggressors.

All of this Brigadier Al Zandi could readily relate
too, but it was the last part of the decree that he could not come
to terms with. He stroked his small mustache and his steel gray
eyes twitched in their Persian sockets as the crisis in his mind
started to escalate. The furrows in his olive dappled forehead
deepened as his brain grappled with the flawed military
thinking.

He’d had a few strange orders in his time but this
was truly maniacal, he cursed the supreme leader under his breath
-- clerics, politicians, whatever their persuasion, should leave
the militarily thinking to those most qualified to do so -- didn’t
these buggers ever learn. The ample lessons of history were there
for all to see; Stalin’s military purges, Hitler's gross
interference in strategy; all lead to terrible disasters. They
never learned to let the military top brass make the military
decisions, particularly on the ground, because ultimately that was
where wars were won and lost.

With this in mind Al Zandi continued to peruse the
official document.

The majority of terrorist groups who supported and
were assisted by the Iranian government were to go onto a special
war footing, aimed at abducting the American president, if and
when, he set foot on foreign soil. Alternatively, if this could be
achieved on US soil by covert insurrectionists, so much the
better.

The sole purpose of the exercise was to put the US
president on trial for his life in a major Tehran court in front of
the whole world. Foreign corespondents would be invited and the
trial would be relayed over the Internet in agonising detail
designed to make the Americans squirm. The actual execution, also
over the Internet, no doubt, didn’t bear thinking about.

Al Zandi swept his eyes over the typed sheet for the
forth time just to make sure he grasped its true meaning. Strange
orders sometimes did strange things to ones perceptions. The
American president was to be seized, preferably alive, and brought
back to Iran, regardless of his location at the time of the
abduction. He would then be tried in front of a Muslim court for
crimes against Islam and the people of Iran. Sentencing would then
be carried out in full view of the world media. The propaganda
created by this act alone, would be worth many victorious physical
battles fought against the American imperialists.

Al Zandi realised it had been proven beyond any doubt
in the minds of all Iranians, that the American president had
humiliated Allah without the need for a public trail -- which meant
only one thing -- the whole process was a gross political sham
aimed at ridiculing the US president in the eyes of the world.

To humiliate Allah was to forfeit one’s life. The
trail would therefore inevitably culminate in the execution of the
US president. Since the execution would be shown live on the
Internet it would also give the whole specter a new dimension and
create maximum propaganda in the eyes of the world.

The decree preamble pointed out that the whole
operation was entirely justified, since it drew direct parallels
with the American practice of
Rendition
; whereby so called
Muslim dissidents were secretly removed to another country to be
interrogated because the chosen country had no laws against
torture. Many of the so called dissidents were considered
expendable and tortured to death behind locked doors.