The Tehran Initiative (22 page)

“You’re kidding, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“Roger, please tell me you’re kidding.”

“I’m not.”

“You think I need to know who tried to kill me to take the State of Israel to war? That would merely be the proverbial straw. Please tell me you’re not forgetting the nuclear weapons test in Hamadan. Please tell me you’re not forgetting the Twelfth Imam’s assertion in Mecca that Iran has nuclear weapons, and that command and control of those weapons are being transferred to his authority. Please tell me you didn’t miss the Mahdi’s press conference in Beirut in which he told the BBC, ‘The Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation’ whether I’m dead or not.”

“The president called me on my way to see you,” Allen said.

“How is he?”

“About the same as you, as it turns out.”

“I’d like to call him and tell him I’ve asked all the people of Israel to pray for his speedy recovery.”

“That’s very kind. I’ll let him know. In the meantime, he wanted me to pass on to you a very specific message, in person, face-to-face.”

“I’m listening.”

“You know the people of Israel have no greater friend than the American government.”

“But . . . ?”

“But under no circumstances can the president tolerate an Israeli first strike against Iran.”

The words just hung in the air, as incendiary as they were direct.

“I don’t want a war with Iran, Roger. I thought I had made that clear.”

“You don’t want one, Mr. Prime Minister, but you might be tempted to order one anyway. I am here as a personal representative of the president of the United States to make it unequivocally clear that our government wholly, completely, and utterly opposes a preemptive strike by the State of Israel on the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

“Under any circumstances?”

“The president opposes a preemptive strike under any circumstances.”

“He wants to dictate to a sovereign nation how to defend her people and prevent a second Holocaust?”

“The president is ready to make it worth your while.”

“Meaning what?”

Allen pulled out of his suit pocket a page of handwritten notes with a deal dictated by the president over the phone less than ninety minutes earlier. He offered it to Naphtali, but the PM couldn’t hold it in his hands, so Allen read it from beginning to end. It was an extraordinary deal, the most sweeping and lucrative ever offered by the US.

1. $250 billion in advanced new fighter jets, missile defense systems, and two Los Angeles–class submarines to help Israel maintain her “qualitative edge” over her enemies

2. A pledge of aggressive US support for Israel to join NATO as a full member in the next six months

3. A pledge for the US to sign a full alliance treaty with Israel should the NATO deal stall or be denied, promising to go to war alongside Israel if the Jewish State were ever attacked by Iran

4. A pledge for the US to build a new American embassy in Jerusalem within eighteen months of acceptance of this deal, and for the president to publicly declare Jerusalem the “eternal, undivided capital of the Jewish State of Israel”

There was, of course, a price: Israel had to forswear any preemptive strike against the Islamic Republic of Iran for at least the next five years.

“It is a very generous offer,” the prime minister said, “but it doesn’t solve the problem. Iran already has several nuclear warheads. Next month, it will have more. The month after that, it will have even more. This growing arsenal of annihilation is controlled by madmen who have specifically and repeatedly and publicly threatened to attack us—and you, I might add. Now the president is asking us to accept this American largesse on the hope—some in my government would say the false hope—that Iran or the Mahdi can be deterred or contained over the next five years. I’m not certain this is possible.”

“Well, that’s the president’s offer,” Allen said. “I’m afraid it’s not open for negotiation.”

“And if we decline?” Naphtali asked.

Allen had hoped he wouldn’t be asked. He was not comfortable with the answer, but he served at the pleasure of the president.

“Asher, as a friend, I cannot stress how strongly the president opposes an Israeli first strike.”

“I understand,” Naphtali replied. “But if we find ourselves with no other choice?”

“There is always another choice.”

“But if we get to a point where we don’t see it that way, what happens then?”

“Please don’t ask me that.”

“Roger, there’s an ultimatum here. I can feel it. Just tell me what it is.”

Allen looked away and took a deep breath, then looked back in his friend’s eyes. “Should the government of the State of Israel defy the wishes of the president and thereby endanger American national security and the security of the entire region by launching a preemptive strike or series of strikes against Iran, then my government would have no choice but to halt and rescind all foreign military assistance indefinitely.”

26

Tehran, Iran

David landed in Tehran late Tuesday night, local time.

He powered up his phone and found a rare e-mail from his brother Azad.

Hey, David—not sure where you are right now but thought you’d like to know you’re an uncle. Nora delivered a beautiful, healthy, strapping baby boy this morning. We’ve named him Peter Alexander Shirazi, after Nora’s grandfather. He’s seven pounds, six ounces, with thin little wisps of black hair. Nora’s labor was difficult, but overall she’s doing well. I’ll take her home tomorrow. Her mom came in from Ohio last night and will be here for as long as we need her to help out. I just talked to Dad to tell him the good news. I’m sure he’s glad to be a grandpa, but I don’t think he can focus so much right now. He said Mom’s condition seems to be worsening, and the doctors aren’t sure there is anything else they can do for her. Thought you’d want to know I’m driving up there tonight to be with him and to see Mom and bring them some pictures before coming back for Nora in the morning. Anyway, call me when you can. Thanks. —Azad

David smiled. He needed some good news. There had been far too little of it in the last few weeks. Part of him wished Azad had named his firstborn son after his own father or grandfather, but did the world really need another Mohammad Shirazi? As much as he loved his father, David couldn’t quite imagine naming his own son Mohammad, if he ever married and had a son, so he could hardly blame Azad for not doing so.

It was time to move. David grabbed his jacket and briefcase from the overhead compartment and followed the crowd off the plane to a long line for passport control. Just then, however, someone tapped him on the shoulder.

“Excuse me; are you Reza Tabrizi?” asked an airport official wearing a dark suit, starched white shirt, dark tie, and a security badge of some kind.

“Yes, I am. May I help you?”

“Please, Mr. Tabrizi, come with me.”

“What about passport control?”

“I will take care of that.”

“And my luggage?”

“One of my colleagues will collect your bags and bring them to me.”

“Where are we going?”

“We just have a few questions. It should only take a moment.”

David complied. He had no choice. But he did not have a good feeling about what was going to happen next. They stepped away from the crowd, turning many heads in the process, and proceeded through several locked doors, along several nondescript hallways, down a stairwell, and into a small, windowless, cinder-block room. There were no furnishings, save two wooden chairs on either side of a simple wooden table.

“Please, have a seat,” said the man, who, from his receding hairline and slight paunch, David guessed was in his midfifties. “May I have your passport?”

David handed it to him.

“You are twenty-five?”

“Yes.”

“You are a German citizen?”

“Yes.”

“But this says your city of birth was Edmonton, Canada.”

“My parents were both Iranians, born in Tehran. They immigrated to Germany, where they became citizens. My father worked for an oil company. He was assigned to work in the oil sands industry in Canada. That’s where I was born.”

“In Edmonton?”

“Yes.”

“So you grew up there?”

“Mostly, yes. But just before I graduated from high school, my parents were killed in a plane crash. After that, I moved back to Germany to go to college.”

They were simple questions, but David wondered why they were being asked and where they were leading.

“And whom do you work for now?”

“Munich Digital Systems.”

“What is that?”

“We develop and install software for mobile phone and satellite phone companies.”

“And what do you do for them?”

“A little bit of everything. I’m a technical advisor, but right now I’m the project manager on a new deal signed recently with Iran Telecom. I have a letter in my briefcase, if you need it, describing—”

The security official cut him off. “That won’t be necessary. Just tell me what you do.”

“That’s actually a long story, but basically we’re helping your country dramatically expand its telecommunications capacity.”

“Meaning what?”

David did not detect any hostility or suspicion in the man’s voice. Not yet, anyway. He reminded himself that spot checks like these happened all the time, not just coming into Iran but into many countries he had traveled to over the years. It was hard to believe that he, of all people, had been chosen randomly out of more than 250 people on that plane. But it was possible, he told himself and tried to stay calm.

“Well, you see, the telecom sector in your country is exploding. For example, in 2000, Iran only had 5,000 miles of fiber-optic cable networks. Today there are more than 48,000 miles of fiber-optic cables crisscrossing Iran. In 2000, there were fewer than four million mobile phones in Iran. Now there are fifty-four million. Your systems aren’t designed to handle that much traffic. Your government is now investing heavily in modernizing and expanding its civilian communications networks. That’s why I’m here.”

This didn’t seem the appropriate time to add that the Iranian regime was also spending aggressively on a parallel track to create a secure and far more robust military communications system. Nor did it seem wise to mention that the regime wanted to create a high-tech operations center that would allow their intelligence services to monitor calls and text messages using certain keywords. Hosseini wanted to maintain an iron grip on his people and crush any dissent with speed and lethality, and for the right price, European technology companies like MDS were apparently happy to oblige.

“How many people are working on your project?” the official asked.

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“On how broadly you define my ‘project.’”

The two men just stared at each other for a moment.

“Let me put it this way,” David explained. “Iran Telecom recently awarded a huge contract to Nokia Siemens Networks, which is a joint venture between the Finnish cell phone giant and the German engineering conglomerate. The contract supports several hundred Nokia technical staff members to come here—live here, really—for the next year to eighteen months to make specific telecommunications upgrades and train their Iranian counterparts. Two months ago, my company, MDS, won a subcontract from NSN. At this point, we have forty-two technicians in Tehran whom I oversee.”

“Why, then, do you keep leaving Iran and coming back a few days later?”

“The execs at Iran Telecom keep expanding the scope of the work,” David replied. “I keep going back to talk to my superiors to see if we can meet the demands and to see how quickly we can get more technical staff here.”

Fortunately, David thought, all that he had said so far was true. It wasn’t the whole truth, of course, but it didn’t have to be. The best cover story, he knew, was one that contained the fewest lies.

Just then, however, the tone of the conversation began to change.

* * *

Jerusalem, Israel

Asher Naphtali stood alone in his office.

The CIA director had just departed. Now he needed time alone, time to think, time to process this unprecedented turn of events. He ordered his secretary to hold all his calls and not allow anyone in to see him.

With Israel facing an imminent second Holocaust, in light of a fresh terrorist attack, in light of all the instability and turmoil metastasizing throughout North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia, was the president of the United States actually threatening to cut off $3.09 billion in annual military aid to America’s only truly democratic and secure ally in the entire region? How was that possible?

Naphtali’s first instinct was to call the Speaker of the House and the Senate majority leader. Surely Congress would stand with Israel in a war with Iran. Surely the American people would as well. The latest poll the prime minister had seen, just two months before, showed that 58 percent of Americans would approve an Israeli military strike against Iran if sanctions and diplomacy failed. Only 27 percent disapproved.

What’s more, the poll found that a stunning eight out of ten American voters said they did not believe President Jackson’s policies of economic sanctions and repeated attempts to engage the mullahs diplomatically would stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. They’d been right. The exact same number of American voters said they believed that once Iran got nuclear weapons, Tehran would launch annihilating nuclear missile attacks against the State of Israel. Fully 85 percent of American voters said they were also concerned that Iran would give nuclear weapons to terrorist groups once they got the Bomb.

Naphtali hadn’t seen new polling numbers since Iran had tested its first nuclear warhead. However, he suspected American support for an Israeli first strike in light of all that was happening would go up, not down. Still, even if Congress continued voting for substantive military aid packages for Israel, if the president chose to veto such aid, the question was whether congressional leaders had the muscle to override the veto—and continue to do it year after year. Would they do so if the Middle East went up in flames and a new wave of terrorism broke out around the world? Would they do so if oil prices hit one record high after another and the American economy was further damaged by spiking gasoline and home heating oil prices?