5) The IR would have an Israeli and American military occupation and observers for a period of fifteen-years to ensure our compliance with the terms of the surrender
6) An occupation force of 250,000 soldiers, which would be phased out over the fifteen-year period would be spread throughout the country to ensure our compliance. They would establish several permanent military bases, which would be handed over to us at the end of the occupation.”
“Hmm… so these are their demands,” said the Caliph, who definitely did not seem at all excited by the idea. “What are their incentives?”
“They are actually quite generous. They would provide the IR with 100 million tons of food products of our choice each month for three years, and then 50 million tons of food products for another twelve years. Their military engineers and contractors would also work with ours to reestablish power throughout the country. However, they also insist on our full support to protect their facilities and occupation forces. They said this would limit the need for them to intervene and find insurgent forces on their own” explained Talal, waiting to hear the overwhelmingly negative response that he believed was coming.
The room remained silent for a few seconds while everyone digested what Talal had just told them. General Hamza was the first to speak. “Caliph, the Chinese and Russians are limited in the assistance they can provide us. Our army is in tatters and our people are starving and dying of thirst. We are coming into the height of summer; things are only going to get worse. This is honestly not that bad of a deal.”
Muhammed bin Aziz, the Minister of Industry, added, “If they are willing to provide us engineers and personnel who can help get power reestablished throughout the country, then we should take their offer. The war is lost, let’s not lose the country too.”
“Enough of this talk of surrender! We have fought too hard to give up now. You all are traitors for even thinking of surrendering!” screamed General Omar Rafi, the Special Operations Commander. He looked to his Caliph for support.
Admiral Jaffa Mustafa slammed his fist on the table, spilling a glass of water, “General Rafi is right. I have sacrificed my entire naval force, over one hundred and fifty thousand sailors. We have nearly destroyed Israel and cost the Americans dearly. I say we continue to fight and bleed them dry.”
Talal knew if he wanted this deal to succeed then he needed to intervene quickly. “Caliph, Israel has been virtually destroyed. More than half of their population has been killed. The Americans lost two aircraft carriers and their entire 5th Fleet. We have killed over one hundred thousand American soldiers. We need to look at the long picture and know that this fight, this battle may be over, but the war is not. If the Chinese and Russians do defeat the Americans, then we can restart the war. If the Communists are defeated, then we abide by the terms of the surrender and we rebuild our economy. We restart our military after the occupation ends. Right now we need to focus on saving the country and remaining in power.” Talal was very calm and matter-of-fact, contrasting greatly with his screaming counterparts.
The Caliph thought about what Talal said, realizing he was right. He still did not want to surrender though. It just went against everything he had worked towards and every fiber of his being. He turned to Zaheer Akhatar, his personal advisor, and asked, “What are your thoughts?”
Zaheer sighed deeply before responding, “The thought of surrendering churns my stomach, but Talal brings up some good points. We have to be pragmatic at this point my Caliph. We have control of a unified Middle East right now. We need to maintain that control and if we wait until the Americans invade, then chances are we will not only lose, we will lose control of the country and the power we now hold. We have all sacrificed too much to lose the nation we worked so hard to create. I recommend we accept the agreement and rebuild our country.” Zaheer and Caliph Abbas had been friends for decades; they had been the ones that developed and executed the plans to unite the Islamic world. His advisor’s words carried weight with the Caliph.
Abbas mulled over his thoughts, “Zaheer is right. We may have lost this war, but we can still win the ideological war as long as the Americans do not break our country up.”
The Caliph announced his choice to the group. “Everyone, you all have provided sound counsel. We have forever changed America and brought the war to their own streets. We have also thoroughly destroyed Israel, and it will be decades before they recover, if they ever do.” Turning to Talal, he said, “Talal, I want you to respond to the Americans. let them know we would like to discuss the terms in greater detail, but in general, we are going to agree to them.”
The meeting ended, with some members of the counsel incensed beyond words, and Talal shocked at how he had managed to survive this briefing almost entirely unscathed.
Unintended Consequences
Secretary of State Jim Wise was elated. It was a longshot trying to persuade the Islamic Republic to surrender. The military, of course, would rather keep the war going and thoroughly crush them. Jim, however, wanted to end this war so all of America’s effort could be shifted to fighting the Russians in Europe and repulsing the Chinese invasion in Alaska.
As Jim walked into the Situation Room, he saw the various generals and national security advisors discussing the surrender. All eyes turned towards him. “You really did it this time,” Mike Williams, the National Security Advisor, said in a jovial voice.
Smiling, Jim sat down. “It’s not signed just yet, but you have to admit Mike-being able to shift those forces to Europe and Alaska is going to greatly aid our cause.”
“I’m still against this agreement. They are just going to rebuild and we’ll be stuck dealing with this again in 15 or 20 years,” General Branson said in a not-too-congenial tone.
Just as the groups with differing points of view were about to start arguing the merits of the plan, the President and his Chief of Staff walked into the room.
“I can see that not everyone is happy about the news,” the President said after quickly assessing the facial expressions of everyone in the room as he sat down.
General Branson spoke up first, saying, “It’s not that we are not happy about the surrender; we just feel we will end up fighting this same war again later. The surrender leaves their government intact; the Caliph will use the time to rebuild, and we will end up repeating this conflict all over again.”
Secretary Wise jumped in, “Not necessarily. First, we will have an occupation force in the country, as well as observers. As long as we do a good job of monitoring them, they will still take several decades to rebuild after the occupation. In the meantime, we have 15 years to help mold and change the IR from the inside out.”
“Gentlemen, I asked everyone to pursue their specific courses of actions. The military was ready to invade, and the State Department secured the IR’s surrender.” The President signaled for one of his aides to bring him a Red Bull; he was still living on caffeine to get through the 20 hour days. Despite the President’s own time in the military as a young man, he had never developed the habit of drinking coffee; he just didn’t care for the taste of it.
“We are going to move forward with the surrender. The IR has agreed to our terms, terms that everyone in this room came up with and agreed to. General Branson, I want you to have General Gardner determine what units he wants to leave behind for occupation duty and a garrison for Israel. I want the rest of his force made ready for combat operations against the Russians and Chinese.”