Aurelian
Aurelian
Excerpt from ‘Broken Dreams: How the War on Terror Changed America’ by Linda Reins
Excerpt from ‘Broken Dreams: How the War on Terror Changed America’ by Linda Reins
The Wellstone Administration was faced with immense economic challenges at home and challenges abroad in its first term, but the population was demanding its focus at home and Wellstone was happy to oblige. The easiest bill to pass was the Second GI Bill, which became a lifeline for many soldiers to go into higher education and get well-paying jobs. Wellstone also passed critical reforms to the Department of Veterans Affairs, ensuring it was more responsive, better funded and more open. The Selective Service was abolished and anyone who had dodged the draft was given a full pardon. He also succeeded in bringing his old friend in Minnesotan politics, Jesse Ventura, into the White House as Health Secretary. This was in order to help tackle the obesity crisis which had been given extreme thought owing to the issues that were presented with the draft. Ventura would star as himself on Saturday Night Live in parody of the news, becoming a popular figure albeit one who would leave on good terms with Wellstone in 2007. One of the main things that had been identified was subsidies to high-fructose corn syrup, which was cut and has led to Iowa voting Red in every election ever since. The Seven Dollar Fifty minimum wage was a particularly hard-fought win as well, though it was much criticised by Republicans under the belief it would make it harder for firms to hire with increased costs. Lastly, in the lame duck session of the 2006 Congress, federal paid maternity leave was achieved, which while unimpressive in its actual allowance at least brought the United States somewhere into the same ballpark as the rest of the planet.
But healthcare once again proved to be the bridge too far for Democrats - while some reverses to cuts made to medicare and medicaid were granted, as well as improved care for veterans, the white whale of universal healthcare once more crashed against the rocks of determined Republican opposition, with a confused strategy from the Administration and general scepticism from the public ultimately leading to healthcare being one of Wellstone’s biggest regrets. Wellstone’s attempts to end Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (something he initially supported) also came to naught, although it would eventually be declared unconstitutional by SCOTUS anyway alongside restrictions on Gay Marriage in 2014. Wellstone’s focus on Climate Change was also greeted unenthusiastically by a population suffering economically, and his anti-nuclear stance (albeit not an aggressive one) has since been much criticised. Wellstone’s ambitious Green New Deal became a white elephant, with a series of solar and wind companies being invested in whose numbers were actually based on hot air, leading to subsequent bankruptcy for the companies and egg on the face of the administration. Despite billions being spent on wind and solar, the overall reliance on oil in the United States was mostly unchanged until the surge in natural gas as a result of the Shale Revolution.
But, of course, the main criticism that Wellstone gets today is his foreign policy. The argument, successfully painted by Conservative commentators and pundits, is that Wellstone was a fool who wildly cut the army, let everyone else do whatever they wanted and ended up getting us into the current situation we’re in now, hence the subsequent revival of Bush’s popularity. This is uncharitable. In the aftermath of the War on Terror, especially due to the ongoing insurgencies in Iran and Iraq, the average American just wanted to get the hell out of foreign conflicts. The death count was unimaginable on September 10th 2001, but had become a near death experience that no one wanted to repeat. Even 65% of Republicans in a poll in March 2005 agreed with the statement that ‘The United States is acting like a world policeman and needs to stop’. The last thing the average American wanted was another war, and Wellstone had to structure his policy around that. The Air Force would still be used in Wellstone’s tenure, being employed haphazardly in 2005 against the JTJ in Iraq before missions radically increased in the coming years, in addition to helping protect the Red Sea from Somali Pirates. While it was true that the world was in some ways less safe before Wellstone’s Presidency than after it, one would have to ask what Huckabee would have done if he won in 2004. The answer is probably something quite similar if he wanted to be re-elected.
In terms of the other major criticism Wellstone got, John Edwards was not exactly his first choice as Vice-President.
Excerpt from ‘The Family: How the Assads Plundered Syria’ by Abdul Malik
Upon Wellstone’s election, the drawdown of troops from Iraq accelerated, until by the end of 2005 the US army had essentially vanished from the country in all but a token role. While this had been approved by many Iraqis, many also had to admit that the new Iraq state was not in great health. There was a gigantic insurgency biding its time in the western Iraqi desert while the Iraqi federal government was so riddled with corruption that the Iraqi army was starved of the funds required to keep a trained and motivated force ready to deal with the JTJ. The JTJ augmented their forces with Chechen Jihadists fleeing from the carnage in the Second Chechen War, which helped balance out some of the support they lost in Sunni Iraq for killing Saddam and depriving them of what some saw a bulwark against Shia extremism. While they had attempted an earlier uprising in 2004, American troops had stamped them back down hard at the Battle of Ramadi in that August in brutal street-fighting. The JTJ learned its lessons and waited for the Americans and their few Coalition allies to leave. With al-Zarqawi (the man whom even Bin Laden felt was too extreme) laying in wait in the deserts of far to the north and west, the JTJ began a wave of sectarian bombings in 2005 in Baghdad, with Sunnis often caught up in reprisals both by independent Shia militias who had never truly been integrated into the Iraqi army and often receiving brutal treatment at the hands of the police force as well.
Ultimately, it was not so much support of the JTJ that would lead to its major breakthroughs in December 2005 with the taking of Mosul, but simply the indifference of the population and even the security forces. Lenin had recalled that the Bolsheviks had not so much seized power as found it lying in a gutter, and so did the JTJ, establishing a budding de facto state with regional aspirations. While Christians were persecuted under their rule, having to pay the dhimmitude tax, it was the Shia who suffered the worst, with those unable to recite Sunni prayers very often simply being murdered. The incapability and low morale of the Iraqi army, whose soldiers in some cases went six months without being paid while their generals were dining in the Gulf States, utterly weakened the effective fighting potential to contain the JTJ. Ironically, it was Tikrit in January 2006 that proved the toughest resistance, as the locals were furious at the JTJ for killing Saddam and fought the JTJ to a bloody standstill - the Iraqi government controversially refused to acknowledge the event owing to its Pro-Saddam connotations.
[...]
The rewrite of the regional forces inside the Middle East greatly encouraged unexpected events in the Israel/Palestine region. After the Second Intifada, the Wellstone Administration scored a PR win by hosting a conference between Israeli Prime Minister Sharon and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Egypt. This would pave the way for Palestinian elections on January 25th 2006. It was widely expected that Fatah, seen as the inheritor of the PLO and Arafat’s legacy, would easily secure the victory. To the shock of most observers, the heavy-handed Israeli response during the Second Intifada (many arguing brought about by laxer civilian casualty reduction measures brought about by minimised media coverage during the War on Terror) and growing crescendo of Sunni Islamism that had flourished in the wake of Shia Islamism’s retreat led to a shock majority victory for Hamas. In a panic, the ruling Fatah party accused Hamas of ‘rigging the election’, something quite impossible given Fatah’s dictatorial control of Palestine but necessary to avoid what would tragically indeed happen. On January 27th, widespread protests broke out around the West Bank and Gaza against Fatah, culminating with the Presidential Palace in Ramallah being stormed by protestors. These scenes would repeat themselves all across Palestine, with Fatah members killed by Hamas fighters in the chaos. President Abbas would escape to Jordan in an Israeli helicopter, though he would always insist that it was actually Jordanian, a fact which would permanently poison him in the minds of Palestinians. In Israel, the strategic decision was taken to allow the densely populated Gaza region where Hamas was stronger to continue being under Hamas while the West Bank was considered too important from every standpoint to allow a change of regimes. The IDF and Palestinian Authority would mutually fight together to crush Hamas in a move that permanently killed Fatah and the PA’s credibility with average Palestinians. The Israelis and PA would collectively work together to storm and extinguish the last piece of armed resistance in Jenin on February 20th 2006.
The event is alternately known as the ‘Third Intifada’, the ‘Great Betrayal’, or in West and Israel as ‘The Hamas Uprising’. Thousands would die in the violence, a large contingent being civilians. The crushing of the uprising was met with large levels of discontent inside the West. The PFLP would leave the Palestinian Authority and announce their opposition to Abbas, quickly becoming the preferred party of the Left in the conflict and seeing a resurgence in popularity. The event is seen as a turning point in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, as the moment it perhaps became unsalvageable. This remains the status-quo today, though in 2009 new Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would unilaterally annex the Jordan Valley in a move that brought international outrage - a move that, despite at least giving the Palestinian residents opt-in citizenship, ever since has had not one country recognise the move. The PA complained but by now they were considered little more than cat paws of the IDF by Palestinians that would be the first ones to go if the IDF ever pulled out of Palestine, with Hamas and the PFLP enjoying far more support. It is often joked that Netanyahu would beat Abbas in a free election in Palestine on the basis that, “He’s more honest”. Whether that’s true or not, the PA will almost certainly never allow free elections in Palestine again. The indefinite occupation of the West Bank continues to this day.
[...]
While the JTJ was known in the Middle East and renounced by virtually every respectable scholar of Islam, al-Zarqawi yearned for greater notoriety, and felt that taking on another figure of hate in the Arab World would be just the ticket to improving his reputation among Sunnis - he decided to take on Bashar al-Assad. What put things over the edge was Assad’s comments detailing his indifference to what was happening in the West Bank, reportedly telling a British journalist, “One acre of the Golan Heights was worth more than Al-Aqsa”. While Assad denied ever making the statement, it spread like wildfire, with Assad being seen as the face of Arab sellout towards Israel and the West. In early March, protests escalated in Aleppo and other largely Sunni cities in Syria protesting Assad’s allegiance with Israel and the West and discrimination against Sunnis by his government. While there were indeed Christian, Shia, even Alawite protestors, like Syria itself, the protest movement was majority Sunni. Typical of Assad’s methodology, his brother Maher would personally oversee the crowd dispersals, eventually culminating in live fire killing ninety-seven people in Aleppo and wounding many more. The JTJ had been expected to push their advantage in Iraq, heading south and causing chaos through the already divided, ravaged country. Instead, the JTJ turned its forces west, and on March 24th 2006, the JTJ launched their surprise attack into Syria.
The Syrian army, distracted with putting down the protestors, were caught completely unprepared by the vicious JTJ invasion over their border along the Euphrates and in the north (where the JTJ would collide with a highly motivated Kurdish paramilitary instead of the state army). By April 1st, the city of Deir ez-Zur had fallen into their hands, charging full-pelt to Aleppo, seen as a hotbed of anti-Assad sentiment. Some Sunnis in eastern Syria, most of whom would regret it, initially supported the JTJ as both defenders of Palestine and the rights of the Sunni majority in Syria. However, they would swiftly see the effortless brutality of the Jihadists, who launched a campaign of destruction through Syria’s multicultural landscape. The JTJ imposed a harsh version of Sharia that was alien to the cosmopolitan and generally secular country that Syria had been. Syria, one of the most diverse countries in the Middle East and home to a tapestry of nations of religions was overwhelmingly sickened by the JTJ, and rallied in the defence of the state, many inspired by the Iranian example of fighting in the midst of utter contempt for your leader. The Christians, Alawis, Shia and moderate Sunni of Syria (who made up a majority of the Syrian nation), did not have to think too long and hard about the potential consequences of Jihadist rule over the country they loved so much. Syrians of all communities banded together to expel the JTJ, but the fanatical troops continued to overwhelm the Syrian army in the initial stages of the war, as they set their sights on Aleppo. Even many Anti-Assad Syrians considered the actions of the JTJ not as an act of liberation but of a foreign invasion, with most democracy-advocates understanding the JTJ promised nothing but death, certaintly not democracy.
Syria had been held up as one of the more unsavoury allies of the Bush Administration among the American Left and indeed the world due to Assad’s totalitarianism and system of religious discrimination as policy - as a result, there was little global sympathy for Assad, especially not among Arab states who saw Assad as an opportunist who backstabbed Palestinians for a chance of Western money and support. However, Assad did have one country that was ready to back it. A country with renewed confidence, one who was worried about the impact of a collapsed Syrian state on the Mediterranean and the broader Middle East, and one who felt like they had something to prove to the world. That country was the old colonial ruler - France. The move was incredibly controversial within Assad’s government, not that many said it publicly given the regime’s totalitarianism, owing to France’s history in the region (including an apocryphal story of the French general that came to Damascus arriving by kicking Saladin’s tomb and saying that his arrival showed that Islam had now completely lost to Christianity). Assad however, seeing the lack of action from the Americans despite his pleas that Syria’s countless minorities were at risk of genocide, saw an exhausted American public was completely unwilling to come to his aid, although bombing runs in Iraq escalated with the coordination of the Iraqi military. Wellstone, who had condemned the Bush Administration’s dealings with Assad, was particularly politically unable to come to Assad’s aid. At the same time, Bashar was no fool - he suspected that the French wanted his uncle Rifaat (who had a hand in the Hama Massacre and attempted a coup against Hafez which resulted in his living in exile for twenty years in France) to replace him as leader. Assad, still chilled from having been shown the video of Saddam’s execution, had become desperate to do anything to, in more sympathetic eyes, preserve his Alawi people from genocide, and in more cynical eyes, preserve his family’s eternal grip on power.
One reason France, on the other hand was interested in helping Assad was fears of a wave of refugees whose ripples had already reached French shores - the invasion of Iran had led to a surge of Iranian expatriates joining families to escape the conflict, and many Lebanese had likewise fled towards France to escape the chaos in their own country. The fear was that a collapse of Syria would lead to a refugee crisis no one could control, and thus the maintenance of the Syrian state was considered a matter of national priority. Similar fears would lead to rapprochement with Gaddafi, who had increasingly moved towards the West following the War on Terror due to the fear they were plotting to get him next. The French public in relevant polls were deeply split on the war, with the French Left comparing it to Bush’s folly in the War on Terror while the French Right argued it would re-establish France as a world power, prevent a refugee crisis and perhaps even lead to a renaissance of French in Syria (this answer from a French minister being widely derided). Ultimately, in order to sustain popularity, it was decided by President Chirac that little more than a token French force would be deployed on the ground, but that significant quantities of weapons would be shipped (Syria remains one of France’s most loyal customers to this day) and full air and naval support would be guaranteed.
Just as the Battle of Aleppo began on April 15th 2006, the French Air Force launched Operation Levant, and began striking JTJ targets all across Syria with the coordination of the Syrian military. In just a week, the French dropped more bombs on the JTJ than the Americans had in the prior three months. While it took much of the wind out of the Jihadists, they managed to embed themselves deep into the ancient city, beginning a conflict that encapsulated the destruction contained in the word ‘warfare’. Both sides committed atrocities, with the actions of the Syrian regime being minimised by French media in particular. Meanwhile, the French Foreign Legion saw combat just east of Palmyra, preserving the ancient ruins from potential destruction at the hands of the Jihadis, marking the first instance of French combat troops being used in Syria. The Syrian army in that instance was unable to make it in time, but the French deployed their multinational brigades to battle the multinational brigades of the JTJ amidst the awe-inspiring ruins of Palmyra. While this declaration of victory was the quick morale boost the French politicians wanted, and preserving Palmyra was certainly a solid way of winning over the locals, the JTJ were still deeply entrenched in the western corner of the country. It didn’t help when the Syrian regime itself still displayed its brutality, committing massacres upon recapturing ‘disloyal’ towns who had no other sin than being overrun. Maher al-Assad had been identified as the ringleader in much of these killings (though his brother had obviously approved of them previously), leading to consternation in France that such a killer was cooperating with the French military. Ultimately, it wouldn’t matter, as on August 22nd 2006, Maher al-Assad was killed in a car bombing in Damascus. The identity of his killer remains one of the the most debated topics in Syria, with not the simply the JTJ (the official culprits) being brought up, but also the French, Bashar, Mossad, and even various Palestinian militant groups including the PFLP. At the state funeral, Bashar refused to attend, saying he was afraid he was going to be assassinated too. Whether this was simply paranoia from the Saddam tape, a fear that the French were out to get him too, or simply a mark of disrespect to the person he might have killed, these arguments rage to this day.
One thing that wasn’t questionable was that soon after, Assad announced a series of reforms which had come about at the insistence of the French government in order to help keep public opinion in France onside with France’s involvement in the Syrian Civil War. These included a pledge to increase the presence of non-Alawi in the decision-making apparatus of Damascus, including pledges to reduce restrictions on Islamic practice like the wearing of the hijab in public office, an irony for the country of laicite, but a move considered necessary to make rural Muslims feel welcome in the state. Last was a return to pre-Hama Massacre levels of cultural expression, the atmosphere that produced such acclaimed works as ‘Cheers to You, Nation’/‘Kasak Ya Watan’, a biting critique of the Arab World of the 1970s with the famous line said by one character, saying before being placed in an electric chair that, “Before I ever got electricity in my house, they’re shoving it up my ass!”. [1] Assad was livid at the diktats initially but managed to negotiate a transition period over time, though the ‘increased-participation’ of the non-Alawi communities has been de facto a benefit that has not fallen upon all but the most politically faultless Sunnis, with the Christians being the biggest benefactor given their similar status as an emperilled minority in the Middle East. Christian participation in the Syrian government has skyrocketed, with Syrian Christians making links with the Republican Party in the United States to help tie the two together. Like Israel, Syria maintains a complicated political support structure in the US (to say nothing of the complicated relationship between Syria and Israel), with the Republicans generally being more favourable to both parties. The Ba’ath Party itself would slowly move away from Arab Nationalism towards a form of Syrian nationalism consistent with the old SSNP, further solidifying Syria’s alienation from the rest of the Arab World, with Syrians often emphasising their ability to have a multifaith society favourably towards countries with more Salafist influence like Saudi Arabia.
While some worried that the Syrian Civil War would last for years to come, thankfully it was not to be. Instead in Iran, Syria’s old ally of all places, events were happening that were changing the entire face of the Middle East.
Extract from ‘The Rise, Fall, and Rise of Iran’ by Zoreh Rahimi
The situation Iran found itself in 2005 was beyond dire. The economy was in shambles, much of its infrastructure was still destroyed from the American invasion, its politics were deeply divided and there were four major secessionist rebellions, some of which were augmented by foreign ‘volunteers’, on top of an Islamist insurgency that was still hanging on. In the south-east, the Balochis were setting up fortifications to try and declare an independent Balochistan. Further to the west along the coast, Khuzestan had set up a de facto country along the Gulf with the heavy backing of the Gulf States, while just to the north Iraqi Kurdistan had defacto annexed Iranian Kurdistan. Further north from that the Azerbaijani army disguised as ‘volunteers’ were sealing off the border into Armenia. Many thought it a certainty that at best Iran would be carved into de facto fiefdoms representing their own tribes, much as Kurdistan had done in Iraq, while the dark possibility of total state collapse loomed on the horizon. A sense of dark hopelessness pervaded Iranians, who felt that the American invasion had opened a portal that had unleashed its dark energy upon their country. President Pahlavi now faced a challenge more difficult than any his father had faced: the challenge of holding Iran together. But while many might have fled and run, or scapegoat and finger-point, Pahlavi had spent a quarter century meditating on what he could have done if he was in power, how he could have chosen a better path for his beloved country - he would allow himself no self-pity.
First, he met the Israeli President and made his intentions clear of buying serious quantities of Israeli military stock, while asking to cut off Israel’s arms sales to Azerbaijan and to switch customers. Seeing more geopolitical utility, Israelis were forced to wrap their heads around their new allies, and began sending military equipment to the Iranians. The Azerbaijanis were quite angered to find out their weapons were getting ‘delayed’ and instead looked to Turkey for assistance, who were glad to assist in their place. Pahlavi rallied the Iranian people to stop the nation from disintegrating while at the same time securing desperately needed American/European loans with the help of the Iranian Diaspora acting as lobbyist groups. The loans were critical in getting Iran through the war, and critical in tying Iran to the West by economics to prevent the Tudehists from sabotaging the Resurrectionist Plans for Iran. Lastly, Pahlavi announced that in order to avert dictatorship and to ensure that the minorities of Iran would have their places of reprieve, he would pass a bill to promote regionalism to empower the local regions and give them language rights, cultural rights and increased cuts of revenue derived from local resources (such as oil). The agreement was a game-changer to independence-leaning separatists in all communities and somewhat weakened their appeal among their host communities, but many already had shot their shot, and weren’t backing down. A more direct approach had to be taken.
First, the bulk of the Iranian army was sent south-west to secure the oil in Khuzestan.The ‘Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz’ (ASMLA) had seized control of many cities in the region and demanded the whole Gulf coast secede as an Arab state. Much of their weapons had been sent by the Saudis and Emiratis in hopes of permanently crippling their regional rival - a fact that had united Iranians in disgust. In March 2005 the first major clash of arms between the Iranian army and the ASMLA occurred, often in the same battlefields where the same men had fought side by side during the American invasion. As tragedy upon tragedy compounded itself, the Iranian army kept on pushing their way down south. However, ASMLA forces had fallen for a trap. As they fought in the deserts and mountains, facing north, in the south Tehran was pulling off its high-risk manoeuvre. The remnants of the Iranian navy, disguised as fishing vessels, sailed from various ports along the Persian Gulf, before congregating in the waters of Abadan. The troops, famished from their days on the water, were exhausted but managed to take the port while ASMLA troops were distracted up north. Over the coming weeks, the Iranians would flood the port with troops sent from Bandar Abbas on every sailing ship they could get their hands on. With their supplies from their Arab allies dried up, and fighting a war in all directions, the ASMLA would mostly collapse as a coherent force by that August.
At the same time as the war raged in Khuzestan, a smaller force was sent west to Iranian Kurdistan. This move was much criticised by Pahlavi’s council, who argued that the skilled Iraqi Kurds would make mincemeat of them given the territory and location. Instead, Pahlavi insisted on continuing the march, and was proven quite right in his assessment. The Iranian Kurds had no great trauma inflicted on them due to their ethnicity like the Iraqi Kurds did, and thus quickly saw the Iraqi Kurds more as occupiers than liberators, especially given that power was centralised back in Erbil. Upon the march of the Iranian army to Iranian Kurdistan, Iranian Kurds protested in the streets that they would not allow ‘Iraqis’ to fire on their fellow Iranians. Shocked at the outpouring against them, the Iraqi Kurds quickly lost morale, the safety of their supply lines, and headed back over the border with a bitter taste in their mouth over the ‘betrayal’ of their fellow Kurds. On April 28th, Iranian Kurdistan was back under full Iranian control without a shot being fired, sending Pahlavi’s popularity through the roof.
Despite his newfound support among Iranians, to the consternation of his advisors, Pahlavi would even put his military training to use as a jet pilot and join in on bombing missions against both Azeri and Balochi targets. On one occasion, he was almost shot down by MANPAD missiles supplied by Turkey. This initiated perhaps the most difficult part of the war, to reclaim the Azeri territories of the north, replete with Turkish supplied Azeri regulars who had isolated and cut off the border to Armenia as well as create a connection to Nakhchivan, adding another player into the crisis. However, Pahlavi was more than willing to double the stakes. On July 2nd, Pahlavi called upon the Armenian army to temporarily enter Iran to ‘help support our liberation’. Before the Armenians could do anything, the Azeris (who still officially denied that they were sending actual troops into Iran) warned Armenia that it would be considered an act of war as it was too threatening for Azerbaijani security to have Armenian troops potentially beyond the mountains and into the plains of Azerbaijan’s south where Baku was effectively defenceless. On July 5th, Armenia ignored the order and began engaging the Azerbaijani army in the north of Iran while the Iranian army moved its way north in the Second Battle of Tabriz (the first being the one where the Coalition invaded). With the Azerbaijani army now attacked from all sides in Azerbaijan, Baku decided it needed to go all in, and on July 7th would begin an attack on Nagorno-Karabakh in an attempt to rally the Azeri population and potentially even get Turkey involved. However, Turkey had been so badly burned by the invasion of Iran and subsequent fights with the Kurds that the urge to help Azerbaijan after they had tried to stick their nose into Iran was nonexistent. Though fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh was bloody and brutal, the region held its ground with the help of the Iranian Air Force, both sides using devastating cluster munitions that ripped holes in each other’s forces.
With the addition of Armenia into the war, the Azeris felt overwhelmed and began surrendering. On August 18th, Azeri forces in Iran had been removed, and Iranian troops once more resided on the Turkish border, with very angry looking guards to greet them. But, not content to stop there, Pahlavi made the decision to make Azerbaijan regret their attempt to carve Iran to their liking. The Iranian army surged their troops through the undefended plains of southern Azerbaijan, with a column of Iran’s last surviving M60 Pattons leading the way towards Baku. The move caused international concern and an emergency UN Council, but the Iranian and Armenian lobbies in the United States managed to control the narrative and portray the Azerbaijani venture as Iran and Armenia working together to prevent another Armenian Genocide. Ironically, it was Russia, not America, whose veto would sink Azerbaijan’s hopes of a UN meditated solution, with Russia eager to maintain close relations to the new leadership of Iran while wanting to reward their Armenian ally. On September 9th 2005, with tanks on the outskirts of Baku following the surrender or encirclement of much of the Azerbaijani around the Nagorno-Karabakh region, Azerbaijan agreed to surrender. Unfortunately, at Armenian insistence, the signing would be an especially humiliating one.
Colonel-General Safar Abiyev was called to Yerevan, where he would be directed to the signing ceremony on September 10th 2005. When he arrived at the scene, he was flabbergasted at the sight laid out to him. President Pahlavi and Armenian President Robert Kocharyan (a former governor of Nagorno-Karabakh) sat side by side in the open air - the open air in the shade of the Tsitsernakaberd, better known as the Armenian Genocide Memorial. The three desks were lain out in front of the eternal flame of the genocide [2]. In attendance were Elie Wiesel and the last few survivors of the genocide. Abiyev was forced to relinquish all claims over Iranian territory or Nagorno-Karabakh, which would be allowed to join Armenia, and acknowledge that the Armenian Genocide happened. At the Wellstone Administration’s insistence however, Armenia would promise to compensate the Azerbaijanis who were displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh since the conflict began (with Iran using their oil money to pay for it). For the Armenian Diaspora, it was a cathartic wonderland, sealing an alliance between Iran and Armenia for eternity. For Azerbaijan, it was their version of the Six Day War, with Abiyev never returning to Azerbaijan since he knew the game was already up. Ilham Aliyev, the President and de facto dictator at the time, was deposed in the ‘Coffee Revolution’, named after a calamitous speech where he compared the Treaty of Yerevan to ‘A bitter cup of coffee’. Aliyev attempted to flee but was arrested by police just before boarding his plane, with Aliyev ultimately sentenced to life in prison for corruption and ‘treason’. In the subsequent snap-elections, Isa Gambar of the Equality Party won based on name recognition alone based on his work as an opponent of Aliyev. Though he condemned the treaty, he claimed to have no choice but to go along with it. Rescinding recognition of the Armenian Genocide is a popular call in Azerbaijan today, but no government has since officially renounced it, though they skirt dangerously close with regularity.
With the Azeri regions of the north now brought back under the control of Iran (though many Azeris in the region were bitter towards Pahlavi which caused their moving to the Tudehists), Pahlavi turned his gaze towards the Balochi guerillas, utilising a now thoroughly-motivated and battle-hardened force to rip across the south east along the sea. On October 10th, the final operation to reunite Iran came together at last. The Iranian army tore through the Balochi insurgents, many Salafist groups who hated the secular Balochi insurgents as much as they hated Tehran. Pakistan, in the same wisdom that led elements of its security establishment to fund the Taliban despite the Taliban’s atrocities against the Pakistani people, were discovered to have been funding these Balochi groups despite the fact that many of them were actively participating in terrorism in Pakistan itself. Upon the reclamation of the Iranian border on December 3rd 2005, Iran deliberately shot across the border at Balochi insurgent groups, going as far as to fire artillery into Pakistan. This move infuriated Islamabad, who threatened a full-scale invasion of Iran if they repeated their actions again. Then, to the surprise of much of the world, Pahlavi announced his new trade and security treaty with India on December 5th 2005, with India privately contacting Pakistan to tell them that attacking Iran would ‘not be in your interest’. The relationship between India and Iran has only deepened since, with Pakistan stuck between the two, deepening its ties to the Gulf States in response.
That Christmas, an event which has become a national holiday in Iran due to the Christmas Truce, Iranians celebrated. In only a single year, they had reunited their country that they thought was on the verge of complete collapse. The IRM had also massively fallen in popularity, as the success of the new regime defied predictions by Islamists that a state that rejected them would not receive God’s blessing. The many miraculous victories of the Reunification War, succeeding in the face of having just lost a major war with thousands dead, had put to bed any sense of pessimism that Iran would now fall through the cracks of history. The Iranian Left had more than found a common enemy with the Iranian Right against the Gulf States, and began the process of sending advisors and witnesses to places like Dubai to observe the appalling worker conditions to make this centre-stage in a new class-based understanding of Middle Eastern geopolitics, and to renounce the Palestinian Authority to declare the PFLP the legitimate government of Palestine (becoming a promoter of the One-State solution as compared to the Two-State solution). But amidst the relief back at home, Pahlavi was still at work, calling up Prime Minister al-Maliki in Iraq, and how dire the situation was there. Al-Maliki assured Pahlavi that the situation was under control, and that the JTJ were on their last legs. Something that, unfortunately, he was very wrong about.
As the JTJ spread into Syria early in 2006, Pahlavi saw this as the moment Iran could claim its mantle as a leader in the Middle East. In response to France’s intervention in Syria, Pahlavi announced in May that Iran would send its troops to ‘defend the name of Islam’ against the JTJ. ‘Not in the name of Shia versus Sunni, but of Muslim against Satanists.’ The Shia clerics and atheists in Iran were united in their common disgust of the mass murder and subjugation committed by the JTJ against non-Salafists. Pahlavi set up an amnesty plan for any member of the IRM who wanted to sign up to defend Iranian Shia against the massacres committed by the JTJ, an offer more than a few accepted. Iran sent 50,000 men over the Iraqi border in July of 2006, much to the unmitigated horror of the Gulf States. The Iraqi Army and Kurdistani forces in the north, two groups that had little reason to love the Iranian army, were reluctantly forced into what Pahlavi described as ‘The Greatest Alliance in this part of the world since the days of Saladin’. That August, the Iranian army successfully liberated Kirkuk from the talons of the JTJ. Soon it was Fallujah, and Ramadi. The Battle of Mosul, fought with all three anti-JTJ forces working side by side, saw unprecedented levels of death and destruction as the Jihadists were defeated, but by January 2007, the city had been cleared. With the aid of US planes, a constant though underappreciated ally in the war to end the JTJ, the Iraqi-iranian-Kurdish alliance slowly continued to march their way to the border. Most Sunni by now saw even the Iranian soldiers as liberators compared to the misery of their life under the JTJ’s despotism, making life significantly easier.
On the other side of the Syrian border, the Syrian-French alliance continued to painstakingly crawl their way back across the country with overwhelming firepower. The Battle of Aleppo was declared resolved in February 2007, albeit with tens of thousands of civilians dead and serious questions over the conduct of French forces and their knowledge of atrocities committed by Syrian commanders. However, with Aleppo seized, the back of the Jihadists in Syria had been broken. French paratroopers and the Foreign Legion cut through the desert, wiping out Jihadist facilities at will. Ultimately, the first cross-border meeting between anti-JTJ forces would be on June 10th between an American who had joined the French Foreign Legion and an American with Persian ancestry who had joined the Iranian army upon moving to Iran the prior year, speaking in English. However, it would still take months to flush out the remainder of the JTJ, with the group not being declared gone from Iraq until August 26th 2007 and Syria declaring themselves free of the JTJ on October 11th. Al-Zarqawi was killed on November 1st 2007 by a US Air Strike, though the French usually joke they ‘let them have him’ to make up for taking out Nasrallah first. The death of the leader sent the organisation into a tailspin, with the group having fallen off the radar in recent years. With that came to an end the sordid legacy of the JTJ, the most hated group in the Middle East. While there was more turbulence to come in the Middle East, it was at least never as bad as the trail of death and terror left in the JTJ’s wake. It was also the end of al-Maliki, who was forced out in favour of a less sectarian leader who could mend Iraq’s divisions.
Upon the completion of the war, Iran withdrew all of her troops back beyond the Iraqi border - the influence they had won over Iraqis had been more than enough. Once there had been a violent, vindictive neighbour to Iran’s west, but now it was an ally, struggling with its new role in the Middle East but grateful for the help Iran had provided to save them from the army of death that the JTJ was. Iran’s successful campaign in Iraq further emboldened the nationalism of its people, so much so that President Pahlavi decided to unveil a new Iranian flag for a new Iranian era. The flag had temporarily been the mere tricolour after the Islamic Republic had fallen, as the lion flag had too much Shahist connotation. However, the new flag would address those concerns: it would have both the lion as before, and the lioness, in honour of the contribution of the women of Iran to national liberation. It proved a compromise that the Left (and most Iranians) were more than happy to accept, with both the lion and lioness now represented upon the flag of a free, independent Iran. His efforts to promote women within the halls of power in Iran after decades of banishment were greatly appreciated, with one third of his cabinet being women. State broadcasters didn’t play national or religious propaganda anymore, only the 1970s tunes that Iranians would pass along in whispers to their friends graced the airwaves. Iranian films from the 60s and 70s graced the television, and the long-suppressed Iranian art world flourished with the abolition of censorship. Memories of the wars, the theocracy, all were expressed adroitly by the artists of Iran and became known to the whole world. For all this, the Iranian Left would come to respect Pahlavi.
[...]
Pahlavi had saved his country from the brink, had earned the respect of the Iranian Left and united Iranians under one flag, shored up and guaranteed the democratic tradition, swore off every temptation to take full power, saved the economy and made Iran a geopolitical player again. He had constructed a network of regional allies that the Iranian bureaucracy called, ‘The Alliance of the Ancients’, namely Israel, Armenia and India. His attachment to his Islamic faith had led to a resurgence of Islam in Iran, after years of unending secularisation. In just a few short years, Iran had gone from a country that seemed set for Balkanistan to one seeming set to last a millennium. For Iranians, inheritors of that great ancient civilisation, to see their nation become what they always knew they could be, a strong, free and tolerant people, it was something they would never fail to acknowledge. For this, the historian Stephen Kotkin would call Pahlavi, ‘The Persian Aurelian’.
Extract from ‘Date with Destiny: The War that brought Korea and Japan Together’ by Kaori Makimura
The 2008 Olympics had been looked forward to by Beijing for more than a decade. For the CCP, it would serve as the proof that China was a modern, developed power in the running to be its leader. An equal to the West, with a Civilisation far older and prouder. They wanted it to be the moment the world acknowledged China’s greatness, but instead it would see perhaps the biggest shock and scandal since the Munich Massacre of the Israeli Team in 1972. The central reason for that was Kim Jong-Il, who had enjoyed his time under house arrest in a luxurious compound on the outskirts of Beijing. Contrary to reports from China that he was living a spartan existence, he was living quite a luxurious lifestyle from his modern mansion, albeit not as opulent as the ones he enjoyed in North Korea, which caused him to complain a lot. The Chinese wanted Kim alive so that their fellow dictatorship allies would feel they could trust Beijing not to throw them to the wolves if the going got tough, and wanted him relatively content so he didn’t do anything stupid that got him into headlines. As the Beijing Olympics came close, international campaigns began to bring Kim to justice, but the Chinese government adamantly refused. South Korea even considered boycotting the Olympics, but eventually decided not to. The games would happen, as would the opening ceremony on August 8th 2008. Unfortunately for China, someone was about to ruin the big day.
Kim was watched day and night by a Chinese soldier who reported regularly about his status. This soldier was required to know Korean, and the role was regularly changed over time. The only common rule between them was that every word that came out of Kim’s mouth made these soldiers hate him more. He would eat when he talked, complained about the failure of North Koreans to follow him and would insist on the soldiers watching the films he made alongside him, with Kim talking over the film so much that one never had a chance to hear the dialogue. Kim was also racist against the Chinese, so much so that it was eventually decided to give him exclusively ethnically Korean soldiers to watch over him. This was a terrible mistake. Eventually, Kim’s arrogance so grossly offended one Chinese soldier that he would tell his girlfriend (he already had a wife) about Kim and his unbearable behaviour. The next day, said girlfriend sat him down at her house and told him the truth: she was a South Korean agent, and he was going to bring Kim to the ROK where he would face justice. Thankfully, the soldier was swayable by payment, with the agent promising him that he would also be able to bring his family out in time as well. Whether it was love of money, or hatred of Kim, ultimately the soldier decided to go along with the deal.
But then came a snag - it was revealed by the soldier’s superiors that he would be moved out for another guard for Kim sooner than expected. This meant there was a single day where they could go ahead with the operation - August 8th 2008, the day of the Olympics. New ROK President Lee Myung-bak (hereafter referred to as ‘MB’ as he is in Korea), was faced with a dilemma. He knew that this would be the biggest slap in the face possible to China, an important trade partner, a nuclear power, a behemoth on their doorstep that occupied part of their country. Faced with the decision in his hands, President MB, elected as a hardliner, decided to trust his gut and go ahead with it. Operation Liberty Dawn was put into action with the help of on-staff Israeli advisors - while Operation Guardian Angel would be South Korea’s Entebbe, this would be their Eichmann.
On August 8th, with the Chinese having received a false report from South Koreans counterintelligence threatening a Uighur terrorist attack on the games, yet further police resources were moved towards the stadium and away from where the real action was taking place. Kim lazily watched the Opening Ceremony from his couch, complaining that the mass games in Pyongyang were far more impressive. All the while he got drowsier and drowsier, until he fells asleep. The soldier on guard sighed in relief, seeing that the tranquiliser that the South Korean agent had given him had worked. Giving the signal, a truck arrived at the front door of the compound, with the guards outside seeing the familiar sight of soldiers bringing boxes full of wine into the house and eventually the boxes being put back before driving off. What they didn’t realise was that this time, the boxes coming out had two people in them, one knocked hard asleep. Reportedly, Kim’s son, Kim Jong-Un, walked in to see the soldiers stuff his father’s lifeless body into the box, before casually telling the soldiers ‘Do whatever you want’ and turning back around to go to bed. Spooked, the soldiers sped up their work and managed to get Kim on the truck. Elsewhere in Beijing, the soldier's wife was driven to the airport to get a ticket out of Beijing as soon as possible before everything went crazy. Kim himself was just waking up when the plane left the runway in Beijing, aboard the official South Korean Olympic delegation craft that contained the diplomats who were present in Beijing. Sedated and in handcuffs, the North Korean dictator could only screech and scream as the plane flew over international waters and towards Seoul.
Upon landing in a military airport in South Korea, he was dragged off in handcuffs from the plane and made to stand face-to-face with someone - it was Lee Sang-hee, Defence Minister of the South Korean government. It was on that runway that Lee would utter the immortal words, “Welcome to the Republic of Korea, you son of a bitch,” before punching Kim with full force in the face and giving him a black eye. Kim was dragged off to await trial in Seoul, but even as Lee felt the warm glow upon his fist, he knew that what they had done had more than crossed the Rubicon. They had given the gravest possible insult to China to get back at Kim - they knew the reckoning would be terrible. And they were right.
[1] A factoid related to me by a Syrian friend of mine.
[2] Partly inspired by the photos of the surrender signing in the Bangladesh Liberation War
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