Operation Red Dawn and the Siege of Europe

Occupation Offer

The state of the IR was near chaos across most of the country, with the exception of Indonesia. The IR had limited electric power and intermittent rolling blackouts were plaguing the Republic; fortunately, several Chinese nuclear-powered ships and a single nuclear-powered Russian cruiser were still in the Gulf and providing power to the IR. It had been six months since the US had carried out their overwhelming nuclear attack across the IR. It had resulted in the provinces of North Africa seceding from the Caliphate in a side deal they made with the Americans. The country was further hurt by the near total destruction of their critical infrastructure, highway and rail systems along with the vast majority of their major ports. There were critical food and water shortages across nearly every major city, with tens of thousands of people dying from thirst and hunger weekly.

Talal bin Abdulaziz was the Foreign Minister for the IR. He had been the one to contact the White House and the President when Caliph Abbas made his demands to President Stein and then detonated a second nuclear device in America. The Caliph had made a calculated risk that the IR could survive a nuclear exchange with the Americans… he was wrong. The Americans had hit the IR with five 25 Megaton neutron bombs that effectively killed over 250 million people; another 200 million more people were killed in the subsequent conventional nuclear attack and another 200 million would eventually die from radiation poisoning. The loss of so many additional troops and equipment during the second invasion of Israel further compounded the losses for the IR.

Recently, Talal had been contacted by the American Secretary of State with an offer to end the war. Jim Wise had called him on a secure line and calmly laid out the details, “Talal, we know that your country is suffering greatly. We would be willing to accept an unconditional term of surrender from the IR; the U.S. would even provide the Republic with 100 million tons of food a month, for the next three years. In return, you would have to surrender your nuclear arsenal and terminate your military alliance and base rights with both Russia and China. In addition, there would be a 30-mile radius of land around the Israeli border where there would be an Israeli and American military occupation and monitors. You would be allowed to maintain a military force, of course, but one that is no larger than what is needed for territorial defense and internal security.”

At first Talal dismissed the offer. “There is no way that the Caliph would agree to this,” he replied.

Unabated, Jim Wise had replied, “Well, please think about it. We will give you some time to consider, but don’t take too long; this offer may not be on the table if you wait too much before making your decision. I will send you an official dossier on the details of my proposal.”

Talal couldn’t help but think about the offer; having spent the better part of a week mulling it over, Talal wondered if it might be best to inform the Caliph of the offer and see if he couldn’t perhaps persuade him to accept. The IR as a country was falling apart; if they did not do something soon, they were going to lose the country regardless.

Huseen ibn Abdullah Al Gubayel, the Director of Intelligence, pulled Talal aside as they were getting ready for a briefing. “The American and Israeli armies are starting to amass on their border. It appears that they will invade in the coming weeks.” He seemed nervous, and he never seemed nervous. “There is little the army can do to stop it, despite whatever protests you may hear from General Rafik Hamza.”

“What do you suggest?” asked Talal.

“Islam can still conquer the world; we will just need to wait,” he argued.

Talal sat at the briefing table, waiting for the Caliph to enter the room. Everyone from the governing council was present, and judging by the looks on their faces. they all knew the IR was doomed. It was just a matter of time.

Caliph Muhammad Abbas walked into the room and took his seat at the head of the table in his diamond and jewel encrusted gold chair.

He cleared his throat before beginning, “Council members, we have much to discuss today. The state of our Republic is not going to survive unless we make some tough decisions.” Caliph Abbas turned to look at his Minister of Industry, Muhammad bin Aziz. “What is the current state of our economy and infrastructure?” he asked.

“The Americans continue to bomb our bridges, rail and road junctions, with little to stop them. Every time we turn on our radars to attack their drones and aircraft, they are quickly destroyed. We have successfully shot down over 150 drones in the last two weeks, but they far outnumber our radar stations. Our losses are just not sustainable.”

He took a deep breath before he continued, “As to our economy, we have rolling brownouts throughout the country. We have restarted all of our deactivated power plants, but each time a new one comes on line, the Americans quickly attack or destroy the infrastructure needed to transmit the power. Our only effective production taking place is in the Kuwait region and parts of Iran near the coast. The Russian and Chinese naval ships there have been extremely effective in engaging the American drones and cruise missiles that get near them. I wish I had better news to report, but I do not,” said Minister Muhammad as he lowered his head.

Turning to his Foreign Minister, the Caliph inquired, “Minister Aziz, what additional aid can the Russians provide us to help get our power restored and stop the Israeli and American air forces from continually destroying our infrastructure?” He was hoping to hear some good news.

Minister Aziz brightened a little, responding, “My Caliph, the Russian Foreign Minister said they can increase food shipments to the Republic via Iran and through Azerbaijan. They can ship us roughly 5 million tons’ worth of food products monthly. They are also going to send thirty mobile anti-missiles, and anti-aircraft laser defensive systems (along with the crews for them). Their goal is to help us establish a defensive pattern that should protect southern Iraq, Kuwait and most of Iran, allowing us a chance to rebuild our industrial capabilities. As for additional military aid, they said there is no additional military aid they can provide beyond the laser defensive systems. Their war in Europe is now their primary focus.”

The Caliph thought for a moment, “This will certainly help, but without military aid to stop the Allied air forces, they are going to continue to pound us into the stone age. ” Aloud, he sounded much more optimistic as he replied, “This is good news; we can work with what they are willing to provide. What about the Chinese?”

General Hamza was not sure if his reply would satisfy the Caliph. “Now that the Chinese have landed the majority of their ground forces in Alaska, they said they can send an aircraft carrier battle group to the Arabian Gulf. They will have multiple anti-aircraft ships with them; they will be able to provide a lot of aircraft support while we rebuild our air force in Iran. As for ground forces, they are capturing numerous countries in South and Central Africa while the U.S. appears to be distracted with their main focus now in North America. Therefore, the Chinese have no additional ground forces they can send to us.”

“What about food and other aid?” asked Talal, the Foreign Minister.

“They are not able to send us this type of aid at this moment,” he replied.

General Rafik Hamza added, “Caliph, this aid and support is appreciated, but it will not stop the Israeli and American forces who are now, as we speak, readying to invade our country. There is very little we can do to stop them from capturing Amman or driving further into Saudi Arabia. They have already captured Damascus and appear to be readying an advance into Northern Iraq.”

Knowing the military situation needed to be discussed, Caliph Abbas moved the discussion in that direction. “You bring up some major concerns. What are your suggestions?”

“Sir, I recommend that we withdraw our forces to three major points: Fallujah, Mosul and Riyadh. We can turn the cities into fortresses and fight the American and Israeli forces house-to-house if need be,” General Hamza said, showing some of his plans on the holographic map for the council members to see.

Clearing his throat and signaling to speak, Talal thought this was as good a time as any to bring up the American proposal. “My Caliph, council members. I was contacted by the American Secretary of State not long ago. He offered us terms of surrender and I would like to brief them to you.” Talal hoped he had not just signed his death warrant.

General Hamza was shocked. His face went through a gambit of emotions quickly as he looked surprised, then hurt, and then curious to know what had been offered.

Caliph Abbas on the other hand, had only one reaction. He seethed with anger and broke out into an anti-American, anti-Israeli tirade before he calmed down enough for General Hamza to intervene on Talal’s behalf. “Caliph, I believe we should at least hear the offer before we turn it down.” He looked around the room for support; several heads nodded in agreement, while a couple of members dismissed this notion altogether.

“What are the terms then?” demanded the Caliph.

“Yes, my Caliph. The Americans broke their offer down into incentives and requirements. I will go through the requirements first, and then the incentives, which I believe everyone will be interested in knowing about.” He pulled out his notes before continuing, “Their demands were as follows:

1) The surrender of all nuclear weapons and end our nuclear program, both military and civilian

2) A 30-mile buffer zone of land around the Israeli border, along with the removal of all Arabs and population living within that buffer zone. The Zionists will actually pay NAD 25,000 to each person above 18 years of age who is being evicted (snickers could be heard from this statement)

3) The demobilization of our military, turning it into a defense force meant only to protect our borders and provide internal security

4) An immediate termination of our military alliance with China and Russia. This would include the removal of all their forces from our territory and access to it

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 5^th 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.