“Yes, among a few other things, Mr. President,” said Branson, all “business as usual.”
“General, before we talk about this uprising, I think Monty and I should bring you up to speed on some very secretive talks that PM Peck and I have been having. Monty, if you would explain the situation.”
“Yes, Mr. President. General, we all know that Canada has been in some great turmoil for the last five years. Shoot, they’ve had three different PMs and their government has all but collapsed several times. This recent uprising by their Muslim populations is the straw that looks to be breaking the Canadians’ back,” said Monty while taking a sip of coffee.
“We’ve been in secret talks with PM Peck and Speaker of the House Fultz since our April meeting in Paris. The Canadians are going to hold a national referendum in three months; the United States is also going to hold a national referendum alongside the Canadian referendum. This referendum will allow both countries’ people to put to a vote the unification of Canada with the United States. Their individual provinces would become States in the Union with Senators and Congressman just like any other state,” Monty said with a smile on his face.
“…Wow, I must say, I never saw this coming Mr. President,” a flummoxed Branson managed to spit out.
“There has been some talk about this in the press, but nothing serious yet; we’ve been working to keep it a secret for as long as possible, particularly since we have 26,000 US troops in Canada right now to help provide security,” said the President.
“Our intent is to bring this public on Wednesday night during a prime time speech that both PM Peck and I will be making at the same time. Our hope is that people will welcome this unification; it would certainly help both of our economies and bring additional stability to our borders.”
“Well, with Mexico slowly slipping into a failed state, it would be good to know that our Northern border is at least secure,” said Branson, still in a bit of shock that Canada might become part of the Union.
“Yes, thank you for bringing up Mexico, General. We need to talk about possible scenarios should the Mexican government completely collapse. We cannot have a failed state on our southern border, nor can we allow a drug cartel to take over the country. We may need to intervene militarily.”
“Our planners have also been thinking about this as well Mr. President. We have been working on several military contingencies, but things would go a little faster if we had a clear vision of what you would like to see done in Mexico should things fall apart,” Branson said, clearly looking for the President to give more guidance rather than just a broad picture.
“A clear vision, such as us installing a new government?”
“Or taking over Mexico and just annexing it into the Union,” said Branson, going out on a limb.
“Annexing Mexico might pay off in the long-run, but I fear it would be costly in the short run, General. I think we would need to use the military to eradicate these cartels that currently have an almost free reign in the country,” said Monty, looking to the President to make sure he had not overstepped his bounds.
“No, I like this idea Monty. If Mexico becomes a failed state and we intervene, we are going to have a military presence there for a long time to put the new state governments and law enforcement in place and ensure it survives. This is going to require a massive commitment on the part of the US,” said the President.
“General, inform your planners that if Mexico’s government does collapse, we should plan a military operation to eradicate the cartels and to bring Mexico into the fold of the Union. We’ll annex them as a US Territory until the cartels are wiped out and we can hold formal elections to begin building an internal state government and then integrate them into the Union like the proposal with Canada. I also think that if we are going to invest resources into Mexico, then America should be the one to reap the benefits from it.”
“As you wish, Mr. President. I also think we should look at the size of the military again; if we are going to annex Mexico, then we are going to need a solid military presence down there for some years to come,” said Branson.
“How many additional troops do you believe you will need?” asked Monty.
“At least another 120,000 troops; we’ll need that many deployed into Mexico to clear out the cartels and to establish law and order while we build up the police force and local law enforcement,” said Branson.
“Agreed. We’ll speak with Speaker Fultz about pushing that increase through Congress. I believe we should go ahead and increase the size of the military by another 200,000 instead of 120,000, and add an additional 300,000 troops to the National Guard and Reserves. A storm is coming gentlemen, and we are going to be prepared to meet it, head on.”
“Caliph, the Americans and Canadians are going to hold a referendum in three months on a possible unification of North America,” said Muhammad.
“A unification of North America? Do you believe this will complicate our plans?”
“No Caliph, it should not interfere with our plans; however, it does mean that the situation for our Muslim brothers in Canada may get worse if this unification does happen. Currently Canadian law is a lot more lax than American law, especially as of recent.”
“This new political party, the Freedom Party, has really been pushing through a lot of very tough domestic legislation aimed at giving the government and states a lot more power and policing capabilities. This whole biometric enabled National Identity Card (or NICs as they call them) is making it so that everyone has to carry and use them to purchase everything. It is making things hard for our sleeper cells to procure items and go unnoticed,” said Muhammad.
“As long as nothing interferes with our end goal, then I am not concerned with what their government does. How many agents have we been able to get into the US?”
“We have a total of 2,000 special operations and insurgent specialists in the US so far. They were all hand selected to ensure they had never been biometrically enrolled in Europe or anywhere else, so when they get their NICs, there will be no record of them being associated with the IR.”
“Now that they are in, they have begun to develop their cells and direct action units. Fortunately for us, the Americans have pretty lax gun laws, so they are acquiring a lot of their weapons (both legally and illegally) with little problem,” Muhammad said while sipping his tea.
“We have a little over a year to get things ready. Ensure everyone is in place and ready to execute their missions when the time comes.”
The Islamic Republic had been moving select members of their Special Forces and other military and intelligence specialties into the US and Mexico for the past few years. The IR had named the North American operation “Allah’s Judgement.” Their goal was twofold: 1) Destabilize the government of Mexico and work with the Mexican Army to conduct a coup and then let the cartels run wild 2) Cause as much panic and chaos as possible inside the US. This would force the Americans to get involved in Mexico, which would result in a significant portion of the American military becoming committed to that theatre of operation. This, in turn, would make them less able to handle any other attacks on their soil. A large portion of the domestic assaults were slated to be conducted against the American power grid. This would involve attacking transformers, towers, power plants, dams etc. Some of the other cells would focus on mass killing events, attacking malls, schools, subway and train terminals, movie theaters, etc. Then, while the US would be reeling from these violent acts, the last wave would attack law enforcement and first responders.