The Tehran Initiative Read Free

brief window of friendliness. After Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had come to power in 1979, tensions between the two states had spiked. Khomeini had led an Islamic Revolution that was thoroughly Shia in all its complexions, and this had not sat well with the Pakistanis. Neither Farooq nor his closest advisors—nor anyone he had known growing up—had ever believed that the Twelfth Imam was coming to earth one day or that such a figure would actually be the Islamic messiah or that he would usher in the end of days, much less that Sunnis would end up joining a Caliphate led by him. Farooq’s teachers had all mocked and ridiculed such notions as the heresy of the Shias, and Farooq had rarely given the matter any thought.
    Now what was he to believe? The Twelfth Imam was no longer some fable or myth, like Santa Claus for the pagans and Christians or the tooth fairy for children everywhere. Now the Mahdi—or someone claiming to be the Mahdi—was here on the planet. Now this so-called Promised One was taking the Islamic world by storm, electrifying the masses and instigating insurrections wherever his voice was heard.
    More to the point, this “Mahdi” was now on the other end of this satellite phone call, requesting—or more accurately, insisting upon —Farooq’s fealty and that of his nation.
    * * *
    Syracuse, New York
    David Shirazi faced the most difficult decision of his life.
    On the one hand, despite being only twenty-five years old, he was one of only a handful of NOCs—nonofficial cover agents—in the Central Intelligence Agency who had an Iranian heritage. He was fluent in Farsi and had proven he could operate effectively and discreetly inside the Islamic Republic. He had no doubt, therefore, that he was about to be ordered to go back inside Iran within the next forty-eight to seventy-two hours, given how rapidly things were developing.
    On the other hand, David simply wasn’t convinced that the American administration was serious about stopping Iran from building an arsenal of nuclear weapons or stopping the Twelfth Imam from using them. In his view, President William Jackson was a foreign policy novice.
    Yes, Jackson had lived in the Muslim world. Yes, he’d studied and traveled extensively in the Muslim world. Yes, Jackson believed he was an expert on Islam, but David could see the man was in way over his head. Despite years of hard evidence to the contrary, Jackson still believed he could negotiate with Tehran, just as the US had done with the nuclear-armed Soviet Empire for decades. He still believed economic sanctions could prove effective. He still believed the US could contain or deter a nuclear Iran. But the president was dead wrong.
    The truth was chilling. David knew that Iran was being run by an apocalyptic, genocidal death cult. They believed the end of the world was at hand. They believed their Islamic messiah had come. They believed that Israel was the Little Satan, that the US was the Great Satan, and that both needed to be annihilated in order for the Twelfth Imam to build his Caliphate. David had done the research. He’d met with and extensively interviewed the most respected Iranian scholar on Shia Islamic eschatology. He’d read the most important books on the topic written by Shia mullahs. He had found Iran’s top nuclear scientist and smuggled him and his family out of the country. He had documented everything he had seen and heard and learned in detailed memos to his superiors at Langley. He had argued that they were severely underestimating the influence Shia End Times theology was having on the regime.
    He knew at least some of his work had made it to the Oval Office. Why else was he being asked to come to Washington for a meeting with President Jackson at noon tomorrow? But he wasn’t convinced he was getting through. Why should he risk his life and go back inside Iran if his superiors didn’t understand the gravity of the situation and weren’t willing to take decisive measures