Prelude to World War Three: The Rise of the Islamic Republic and the Rebirth of America

European Craziness

The EU was experiencing a rash of violence against Jews, Christians and Muslims all across the Union. After the destruction of the Al Aqsa Mosque and then the condemnation from the Pope, the Muslims living in Europe exploded. There had already been strong support in the Muslim communities for the Islamic Republic, and once hostilities broke out against Israel and the United States, hundreds of thousands of Muslim men began traveling to Turkey to join the Islamic Army. Turkey had left the NATO alliance to join the IR, which created a lot of friction between the EU and Turkey. The border between Greece and Turkey, which was already a source of friction, quickly became a fully militarized border.

To complicate things further in Europe, the American Embassies in Paris, Rome, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Spain and Germany were brutally attacked on the third day of the war. The Embassies were pummeled with multiple Vehicle Borne IEDs (VBIEDs) and RPGs and then they were directly assaulted by hundreds of “protesters,” as the EU media was calling them.

The Germans had caught wind of the threat and had prepared accordingly. When the attack was about to get underway, hundreds of German police and counterterrorism units intercepted the attackers. The outcome was a massive shootout in central Berlin that resulted in two VBIEDs going off, causing considerable damage to the neighboring buildings.

In Great Britain, the British arrested most of the attackers in the middle of the night and prevented the others from getting close to the Embassy.

The Paris attack was perhaps the most disturbing. The French had been dealing with hundreds of attacks between Jews, Christians, Muslims and rioting across the country. Despite intelligence sharing between countries within the EU, they were caught unprepared for the attack against the Embassy. Ten individuals attacked the French police guarding the Embassy with machine guns, killing them quickly. One individual unslung an RPG-7VR and blew apart the Marine guard station next to the gate, killing the two Marines and security contractors.

Within seconds, a cargo van drove directly into the front gate and exploded a 1,000 lb. bomb, destroying the primary and secondary gates. A second van drove through the newly created hole in the Embassy security and drove straight for the front entrance. Three security guards opened fire on the van, killing the driver. As the van began to slow down, someone detonated the bomb, exploding 3,000 lbs. of Semtex High Explosives. The VBIED blew the entire face of the Embassy right off, creating multiple new entries into the building.

Five additional vans arrived and disgorged 30 heavily armed men, who quickly began to storm the Embassy. In less than five minutes, they had captured the Ambassador, Deputy Ambassador and 23 employees. They were quickly moved to the vans and driven away while the remaining armed men began killing everyone in the building and waited for the police to arrive. By the end of the day, 136 US and French nationals were killed during the attack; an additional 61 police officers were killed as well. The next day, a video was posted showing the Ambassador and the 24 other individuals crucified on crosses and their bodies being set on fire; the screams they made were horrific. This same type of attack occurred at the other Embassies, with the Ambassadors and their staffs also being crucified the following day.

President Stein was furious with the EU for not providing better security for the Embassies. The fact that the diplomats were crucified on a cross and then set on fire further infuriated the President and the American people.

“Chancellor Lowden, we have started the call up of the Reserves. Our active duty forces are now on high alert and ready to deploy to the cities when you are ready,” Minister of Defense André Gouin said as he looked at the faces around the table.

“I do not like the idea of deploying the military into the cities, but we have to do something. The rioting and the attacks on the American Embassies are too much. President Stein was enraged when he called me this morning.”

“Perhaps if President Stein had kept his generals under control and not destroyed the Al Aqsa Mosque, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” said Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paolo Prodi.

“I might have done the same thing if I was in General Gardner’s position, after seeing video of our soldiers being crucified on crosses. That is beyond barbaric,” said General Volker Naumann, the EU Military Chief of Staff, shooting a stern look at Minister Prodi.

“Gentlemen, arguing is not going to change the situation. We have to deal with it and move forward; I want solutions, not arguments.”

“If you want to solve the problem, then we need to encourage the Muslim populations in our countries to leave and join the Islamic Republic. As long as they are here, they are going to cause problems. They refuse to assimilate, learn our languages and demand that our women dress more conservatively and wear a headdress. French women are scared to go out in public in certain areas of Paris for fear of being attacked,” said General Naumann, looking each person in the eye.

“Chancellor, I do not believe it is possible for us to evict them from our country, at least not peacefully. What we can do is deploy the military into the cities to return law and order. As Muslims are apprehended for violations of our laws, they can be moved to a detention facility we intend to set up in Marseille. From there, we will load them on freighters and send them to Algeria or Tunisia, both IR members. If the IR will not accept them, then sink the ship in the harbor,” said André Gouin as he took a sip of expresso.

“I cannot even believe you would suggest such a thing,” said Paolo as he pointed angrily at Gouin.

“Enough!” shouted Chancellor Lowden. “We, as the government, need to have a unified plan and deal with this problem immediately. Paulo, I understand your concerns, and I share them as well. However, the state of the world has changed so much in such a short time; while the majority of the Muslim populations in our countries used to be peaceful, we can no longer say that is true. The last five days have resulted in over 9,242 people being killed, and four times that many injured. We cannot continue to debate this. I do not like this plan at all, but I can see that it is the only plan right now that will work. Minister Gouin, order the military into the cities. General Naumann, crush this uprising.”

After spending several days in the underground bunker, the President returned back to the White House, albeit with a significant military presence protecting the residence, in addition to the regular detail of Secret Service. Despite his advisors saying he should continue to stay underground with the rest of the government, the President was adamant that he needed to be in the White House and project to the American people a sense of calm. It was imperative that people stop panicking and do their best to return back to their daily lives.

The President met with the CEOs and head producers for each of the major news networks and insisted that their coverage start to focus on the positive aspects of the war (victories, defeats of the enemy, winning), the economy and other stories rather than coverage aimed at scaring the public and further inciting rioting and violence between American Muslims and non-Muslims. The news agencies agreed to refocus a majority of their coverage to topics that would hopefully help to diffuse the growing violence and panic that was starting to run amuck. Even the journalists, usually keen to find the most salacious stories possible in order to rack up their ratings, realized society would not function if everything imploded. They knew they could do something to help bring some calm to the situation and moved to do so.

“Does the President understand how many casualties we are sustaining? We need more reinforcements now or we may lose the rest of Israel,” said General Gardner through the secured video phone in the Situation Room while the group waited for the President to arrive.

“General, we know how many soldiers you are losing, and so does the President,” said General Aaron Wade, the Central Command CG.

“—Sorry I’m late gentlemen. Monty and I were held up in the economic meeting. Please, let’s start the briefing,” the President said as he sat down at the head of the table. “Before we move to Israel, update me on the situation in the EU and our forces there.”

“Our forces in the EU continue to stay in a state of high alert. The bases are also receiving additional security from the EU, so we are confident they are as secured as they can be,” said General Branson.

“Well, I’m glad the EU is finally doing something to protect our people and buildings from their unruly mob,” said the President.

“We have moved close to 300,000 troops to Italy and Germany. Our biggest challenge is getting those troops into Israel. We do not have full air supremacy over Israel. We’ve had to focus on using only military cargo aircraft to bring in reinforcements — it has slowed down the number of reinforcements we can send each day. Nine civilian aircraft were shot down over the past four days, trying to break through; no pilot is willing to take the chance now,” said General Rice, the Air Force Chief of Staff.

“General Rice, how many troops a day are we sending into Israel right now?” asked the President.

“We are flying in 13,000 reinforcements a day. I would also like to add that we have lost sixteen C17s and four C5s; roughly 4,000 troops were killed. We just are not able to get enough reinforcements to the front,” said Rice.

“V Corps just arrived at the port of Ashdod; they are offloading their equipment as we speak. They have been under a lot of artillery and rocket fire, slowing the offloading of equipment. The equipment and troops that are offloaded are immediately being moved to General Gardner’s Command,” explained Admiral Juliano, reading from his tablet.

General Gardner broke in to add, “As these troops are becoming available, I am filtering them into the frontline where they are needed. It will still take several days to unload their equipment. I’m feeding most of the Corps into the frontline as infantry for the time being.”

“Mr. President, I know you are aware of how dire the situation is here in Israel. If we are not able to get more reinforcements to Israel within the next 24 to 36 hours, I am not confident we are going to be able to hold onto Northern Israel and Tel Aviv. If we lose Tel Aviv, the Army will have to pull back to Be’er Sheva and Gaza,” said General Gardner with a worried yet tough look on his face.

“General Wade, what is your opinion on the situation?” asked the President.

“I have to agree with General Gardner, Mr. President. If we continue to try and hold Northern Israel and Tel Aviv without reinforcements, General Gardner’s force may be cut off from the rest of Israel and surrounded. Then it would only be a matter of time until they are wiped out,” said General Wade with a solemn expression.

“General Rice, what else can the Air Force do to improve the situation?” asked President Stein.

“Mr. President, we are in a tough position. The IR continues to move hundreds of thousands of troops to Israel. They have already lost over 300,000 troops and more keep coming. Presently, there are 540,000 IR troops fighting in Israel; the IDF has taken some horrific casualties too. The IDF have lost 154,000 troops; on our side, 31,235 soldiers and 18,432 sailors have given their lives in sacrifice to our country.”

“I know the losses are terrible, General Wade. What is the solution? How are you going to get more troops into Israel and stop the continued IR reinforcements?”

“The USS Intrepid battle group has arrived on station and we’ve moved another 600 fighter drones to Europe; most of them are now in Cypress. We are going to make a massive air assault that we believe will finally give us air superiority. I’ve ordered our strategic bombers to Europe as well; once we have air superiority, our bombers will begin attacking their reinforcements and supply lines. Of note is our cruise missile stockpile — it’s down to 37 % — I’ve ordered 12,000 additional cruise missiles to Europe, but it will drop our strategic reserves down to 28 %,” said General Rice.

“I’ve been in discussion with our cruise missile suppliers; they are now working 24/7 on producing more cruise missiles. They are even adding several new production lines to increase their production capacity,” said the SecDef, trying to ease concerns over the possibility of a munitions shortage.

“That is a whole other issue, getting the economy on a war footing. We knew a war was coming, but I do not believe we thought we would lose this many troops and equipment so fast. We are only eight days into the war and we are already running low on ordnance, infantry vehicles, tanks, aircraft and naval ships,” the President said with a bit of concern.

“Mr. President, there is still another issue we need to discuss. As you know, the country has been experiencing an incredible amount of cyber-attacks against the DOD and private industry. Some of the attacks have been going after the critical infrastructure, which is concerning,” said Mike Williams, the National Security Advisor.

“This is also becoming an issue for the DOD as well; we are starting to see equipment requests and orders for personnel being generated that are bogus. We have to divert manpower to address the issues from the cyber-attacks, which is hurting us in other areas,” said Eric Clarke, the Secretary of Defense.

“Where are these attacks emanating from?” asked Stein.

“We have tracked them to various organizations and groups within China. Most of them have some connection with the PLA,” said LTG Rick Scott, the Director of the DIA.

“Is this a potential precursor for something or are they trying to just take advantage of the situation?” asked the President with trepidation in his voice.

General Rick Scott’s parents had lived in China while working for an American company. General Scott had become fluent in the language and studied at the University of Beijing before obtaining his Master Degree from Yale through the Army ROTC program. General Scott believed the true threat to the US was Russia and the Islamic Republic, not China. This strong belief that China’s interests lie not with attacking the US but in stealing technology was blinding his perspective.

“From the DIA’s perspective, it does appear they may be up to something. The challenge with the Chinese is that over the past two years they have been conducting land and naval exercises in and around Taiwan and the South China Sea. These exercises have always been preceded by an increase in cyber-attacks, making it difficult for us to determine if this time there may be something more to the equation. The first few times, we certainly thought something was amiss; after four more exercises, we assumed it was part of their training drill,” General Scott said with an air of confidence.

“Mr. President, the problem I have with this assessment is that this time around they have more than doubled their number of ships and troops as part of this exercise. The more alarming part is that a PLAN Naval Task Force is conducting their exercise between Taiwan and Guam. My concern is that if this is not an exercise, but a prepositioning of forces, we could be hit pretty hard. We are in a weak position in the Pacific right now; if there were ever a time to invade Taiwan and assert dominion over the Pacific, this would be it,” asserted Admiral Lewis Juliano, the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO).

“The DIA has evaluated that as well, and we believe they are posturing. The Chinese economy has been growing immensely the last three years. Our repayment of our debt has left them flush with cash and our economic recovery has increased demand for their products. Our analysts do not believe the Chinese would be willing to throw away the American market by attacking our base on Guam or anywhere else.”

“They may take a risk and go for Taiwan, and if they do, there is little we can do to stop them. However, we believe that would be the extent of it,” General Scott insisted.

“Admiral, if we wanted to shift additional assets to the Pacific, what do we have available?” asked the President.

“Sir, we just pulled our third aircraft carrier from the Pacific and most of our naval assets are engaged in Indonesia. The most we could bring to bear would be eight additional submarines and two fighter drone squadrons. We have, at most, two battalions of Marines at Camp Pendleton we could move to Guam, but that is it,” explained Admiral Juliano.

“Look, I do not want to be caught off guard by the Chinese. We already got sucker-punched by the IR with those nukes; I do not want to get hit by the Chinese like that as well. General Black, I want you to send every additional Marine you can to Guam. Tell the base commander to be ready for a potential Chinese invasion and be ready to repel an invasion, should it come to that. I also want to start evacuating all military dependents from Guam as well,” directed the President.

“Admiral Juliano, I want you to deploy that additional fighter drone squadron. Also, move additional hunter killer submarines into the waters around Guam; if the Chinese surface fleet does make a move towards Guam, then our subs are to target the Chinese capital ships. This is important, Admiral Juliano. I am authorizing the use of nuclear torpedoes, but only if the sub commander believes it is necessary and would significantly damage the PLAN fleet, understood?”

“Yes, Mr. President. I hope it does not come to that, but yes, I will relay those specific instructions.”

“General Lewis, is the Air Force able to maintain air superiority over Guam with assistance from the Navy and Marines?”

“Yes, Mr. President. We have two squadrons of F22s, two squadrons of F38 fighter drones and three medium range drone bomber squadrons, which are currently being used in support of our operations in Indonesia. They could easily be re-tasked to protect Guam. We still have plenty of anti-ship ordnances on Guam to supply our Air Wings, should it be necessary,” General Lewis said with a devilish grin.

“Excellent, General. I was hoping you were going to say that. Now moving to the cyber-attacks; since the Chinese have engaged in a full scale cyber-attack against the country, I want our entire cyber-attack capability launched against China. Target their banking, energy, and transportation sectors. If we can turn the lights off in the country, then do so. It’s time we start to show the Chinese what it’s like to be hit with cyber-attacks of the same level, and perhaps a bit more. Oh, and General Black and Admiral Juliano, if hostilities were to erupt between China and the US, then I want those specific locations where the cyber-attacks are originating from to be immediately eliminated — is that clear?” asked the President with a sternness in his voice not often used.

“Yes sir,” came the synchronized response.

Between the 7th and 12th day of the war, the US Navy and Air Force had moved 185,000 US Soldiers and Marines into Israel and the Egyptian SCZ via military and commercial aircraft, military naval transports and civilian cruise ships. This massive influx of US Forces into Israel was the deciding factor in being able to repel the near-constant human wave attacks from the IR forces. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians had been killed in less than two weeks, mirroring the destruction of most of Israel and the entire Palestinian area in the West Bank and Gaza. The IR had lost their ability to threaten coalition air forces by the end of the 8th day of the war when the US Air Force conducted a massive air raid comprising of nearly 2,000 fighter and fighter bomber drones and 900 cruise missiles. They destroyed every IR air base within three hundred miles of Israel.

Once the Allies had regained air superiority, the tide of the war quickly began to shift as the IR supply lines and reinforcements began to come under tremendous pressure. The IDF and US Forces were able to stabilize the frontlines and slowly began to push the IR forces back, reclaiming territory and Israeli cities. As the IR forces withdrew, they ensured no civilians survived and did their best to level every building, increasing the number of defensible positions.

Every yard of land was being heavily contested as casualties on both sides continued to mount. The IR had lost 400,000 soldiers and another 170,000 were listed as missing. The IDF were reporting nearly 197,000 killed and missing soldiers. From the US, 72,340 had perished or were missing, and nearly twice that number were injured.

With large portions of the IR operating on limited power and subject to rolling blackouts, it was becoming nearly impossible for them to move additional soldiers and equipment to the frontlines. However, the Russian Federation succeeded in integrating the IR power grid into their own along their shared border in the Caucasus region around the 11th day of the war. Russia began to provide the IR with nearly 65 % of their power, restoring most of the country back too normal while emergency repair crews began to fix what power plants could be mended after the American nuclear and conventional attacks on the 1st day of the war.

Russia also began to move the Second Shock Army into Turkey and began to insist on a dialog with the Israelis and Americans to put an end to hostilities. While the Second Shock Army was being assembled in Turkey, the First and Third Shock Armies were being positioned along the EU border to begin their winter training exercise.

Caliph Mohammed was adamant with the Russian Foreign Minister that the IR would continue to fight and did not want to pursue talks with Israel and the Americans. They believed if they could continue to send reinforcements and received enough replacement equipment from Russia and China, they could continue to grind the IDF and American Forces into submission.

The Russian Foreign Minister had to remind the Caliph that neither Russia nor China could supply the IR with essentially a new military overnight; it would take years to replace the equipment that was lost, not to mention the training of military members to operate it. The best course of action was to negotiate a ceasefire and insist upon retaining the conquered land. The Foreign Minister assured Caliph Mohammed that once Russia declared war on the EU and US, the time to restart hostilities with Israel could begin almost immediately. With great reluctance, the IR asked for a ceasefire with the Allies…whether President Stein would listen was another question entirely.