Israel's Next War

by Martin Archer

  Isaak fired more than a dozen rounds before he ran out of targets and the firing began to die down all along the line. At that point most of the surviving Iranian crewmen, and amazingly there seem to be quite a few of them, had either escaped from their devastated and burning tanks and APCs or abandoned them and ran. I could see numerous men running into the desert on the other side of the road beyond the Iranian tanks. No order was ever given but one after another we stopped firing as we ran out of tanks to kill. The running men weren’t pursued with machine gun fire; we let them go.

  Thereafter, for what seems like a short time but might have been as long as five minutes, there were only sporadic bursts of cannon fire whenever an Iranian tank on the road suddenly appeared to move in a belated effort to fight back or escape.

  Everyone including me is incredibly excited and looking for threats. So, each time there is any movement among the Iranian armor, the mover is instantly, and usually simultaneously, blasted by two or three of our gunners. Killing fleeing men is one thing; killing a moving or threatening tank is something else.

  Even so, we do not get off without casualties. We lost five of Ezra Company’s twenty-two tanks and three of its APCs. Somehow there was a mix up in the battalion’s targeting assignments; a short stretch of the road to my right was left uncovered by Ezra Company during the first few moments of firing—enough time for some of the Iranian tanks to fight back while Ezra’s tanks and APCs were shooting at targets further along on the road. The battalion also lost another four M-60s at various places along the line and a couple of APCs along with their crews and infantry.

  My God! That’s more than a hundred men and most of them are probably dead.

  ******

  “Three of Three. Three One. Odds to move up on the enemy column to take prisoners and assist the wounded; evens to maintain overlook. Everyone move carefully and stay alert. Let the runners into the desert go for now. Abe, watch the enemy APCs on the road to your left. Some of them still look operational. Hit them again if you’re in doubt.”

  My tank is number 1319, one of the older M-60s the Americans sent us years ago and we reconditioned a couple of years ago so only the steel hull is original. It has an odd number at the end so I told Shaul to get ready to move us down to the road. We’ll go, I told my crew, as soon as I finish rolling up the sides of our camouflage nets. It took me some time to roll them up—because I got out and did it all by myself. I did it by myself so Reuven can come up and man the turret machine gun to cover me and Issak can stay on the cannon.

  No sense taking chances. Even so, it’s a bit scary to climb out from behind the armor plate of the turret to work on the camouflage nets.

  Doing it all by myself took a while. Finally, when I was even more soaked in sweat than before, I finished rolling up the nets and climbed back up to the turret. Reuven slid back down into the loader’s position as I grabbed the machine gun handles and plugged my radio earphones back in. Then I gave the word and we slowly clanked our way over the desert to the burning and destroyed tanks on the road. Up close it was a terrible scene of dead and wounded men and burning tanks and APCs.

  “Okay. Everyone stay put. In a minute I’m going to dismount and see if I can help anyone. Everyone keep your eyes peeled. Reuven, you come up again and get on the machine gun to cover me. And bring me the first aid kit.”

  I can see an Iranian who looks alive leaning against the smoking Centurion II on our left. Maybe another one a little further down is moving too. My God the smoke smells awful.

  I pulled my short Galil out of the clamps holding it, ran the bolt to cock it, and warily climbed down—holding the Galil in my right hand like a pistol and the straps of our canvas aid kit in the other.

  “Watch your ass, Dov; don’t take any chances,” Reuven said quietly as he came up to take my place.

  To say I moved cautiously as I walked past a couple of smoking and devastated Iranian tanks towards the wounded Iranian would be the understatement of the day. I was extremely cautious because I could hear scattered bursts of gunfire in the distance and once the 105s on a couple of M-60s somewhere off to my right fired almost simultaneously.

  After I took off my earphones and got a few steps away from the engine noise I could hear almost constant explosions and aircraft noise and see numerous planes swooping up and down off in the distance to my right. Our air force and assault helicopters are obviously attacking the Iranian tanks which succeeded in passing all the way through our kill zone before Sami gave the order to open fire.

  A similarly noisy air attack also seems to be hitting the enemy APCs and trucks up the road to our left—the ones that didn’t make it into our fire sack before we started shooting. I’m surrounded on either side by a rising and falling roar of constant explosions and jet engines.

  The Iranian’s eyes were open but sort of blinking and staring off into space. I was leaning over him trying to figure out what the hell I should do, when a shadow flashed over me and something picked me up and threw me in the air.

  The next thing I can remember was Benny and a couple of guys I didn’t recognize running their hands over me to see if I was wounded, and trying to help me sit up. The poor Iranian on the ground next to me hadn’t moved at all. His eyes just continued to flicker and not focus.

  Then I realized Benny was kneeling next to me with his arm around my shoulders and looking at me really funny. That’s when I see the smoking hulk of what was left of my tank. I couldn’t help myself. I started sobbing. So did Benny. Oh God. No. Oh God.

  ****** General Christopher Roberts

  We were about an hour away from Andrews and I was watching on one of the plane’s communication screens as the President entered the room and the Security Council meeting began. It started with Peter summarizing the Morning Book. Then the Directors of NSA and the CIA gave their reports and the talk and questions turned to the future of the war. Israel is obviously launching some kind of counter offensive just as NSA suggested it would and the Israeli defense minister told Tommy Talbot and me less than an hour ago.

  I’m pretty sure I know the basics of the Israeli plan so I listened with interest and agreement as Tommy explained what the Joint Chiefs think is going to happen and why.

  “The Islamic Coalition Army,” Tommy explained, “is attempting to move through Jordan and Lebanon in order to attack Israel on its flanks. They expect such a move will either let them enter Israel relatively unopposed or, much more likely, draw Israeli units away from the Syrian front where, at the moment, the infantry and militias of the Islamic Army appear to still be slowly moving forward under an extremely heavy SAM umbrella. And the Islamic Coalition’s commanders are probably right in thinking their move through Jordan and Lebanon will sooner or later draw some of the Israeli forces away from confronting their attack on the Golan – but probably not with the outcome they expect.”

  “What Defense thinks we’re starting to see, Mr. President,” Tommy said, “is the beginning of a couple of major Israeli counterattacks that will go through Jordan and Lebanon and, perhaps, even on into Syria. We think the Israelis are going to try to go all the way around the Islamic Army—and try to cut it off and totally destroy it the way they did the Egyptians in ’56 with their airborne troops and in ’67 and ’73 with their armor.” Good. We’re thinking alike!

  “Are you on the line, General Roberts? Do you agree with General Talbot?”

  “Yes sir, Mr. President, I do. I believe General Talbot is right on the money. And based on what I was told in Israel I think this time, even if we ask them, the Israelis are not going to stop advancing when the Islamist countries realize they’re losing and ask for a ceasefire. They’re likely to keep going until they totally destroy the Islamic armies even if we ask them to stop. We need to keep that in mind before we start demonstrating our impotence by calling for truces, peace talks, and withdrawals that we won’t get.”

  Boy does that trigger an argument. It seems the Secretary of State, former congressman Jack
Billaud of Rhode Island, wants to hold a press conference right after the meeting and call for an urgent Security Council meeting and a cessation of the fighting and peace talks.

  I finally couldn’t contain myself any longer.

  “Jack, that would be a mistake—a big one. Do you really think the Israelis are going to agree to a truce or listen to us when the Coalition Army or whatever it calls itself is still occupying part of Israel or camped out on its borders? I can tell you categorically that they won’t. And you know it. So what are you trying to accomplish?”

  “General, uh… Well we want to let the world know that the United States stands for peace and the use of negotiations to solve disputes.” Christ on a crutch, he’s looking at this as an opportunity to get his picture in the papers.

  “Jack, that’s just a bunch of meaningless bullshit for the media and you know it and so does everyone else. All you’re going to do is make us look weak and stupid by asking for something likely to be impossible for Israel to give. It’s time for you people over at State to stop looking for media opportunities and start thinking about solutions that will last.”

  Jesus Christ. Where did the President find this asshole?

  “I resent that, General, I really do. We’ve got good lines of communication to the leaders of both Iraq and Syria and even some to Iran. Maybe we can get them to work out their differences.”

  “Good. Use them and I hope you and the UN can negotiate a permanent peace so the Israelis won’t have to lose more men in order to impose one. But you better keep in mind the kind of people you’ll be talking to when you talk to the Islamists. They’ll be polite and charming to your face—but you better remember they aren’t likely to keep their promises and the Israelis know it.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Dorothy and I reached Andrews late Thursday afternoon. It was actually early Friday morning in the Middle East but because of the seven hour time difference between Cairo and Washington we touched down only an hour or so later in the day than when we had taken off. Peter was there with a couple of cars so we could talk on our way to the White House in one of the cars while Dorothy went home in the other. She’s going to stop on the way to see our grandchildren.

  We’re both surprisingly anxious to see our grandchildren. I always miss my family when I’m gone but it’s amazing how a little danger and excitement really sharpens the desire to be with them.

  My early evening meeting with the President and Marty Andrews was short and brief. The President seemed distracted and obviously had things on his mind other than the Middle East, probably the flak he’s been taking in the press and from the liberal wing of the party over his new Supreme Court nominee. After the meeting I was driven home in time to have supper with Dorothy and go to bed early.

  The last thing I remember after I got in bed is wondering what was distracting the President. He didn’t say anything so it must be domestic.

  ****** In Somalia

  The heavily laden Fokker droned on through the night until it cleared the Ethiopian coast. By the time the sun came up it was low over an untraveled portion of the Sahara on a heading which suggested it might have come from Pakistan and won’t pass within a thousand kilometers of its ultimate target.

  Everything changed when the sun went down. The Fokker still had more than enough fuel when the pilots in the remote control van turned it back towards the southwest and climbed it to twelve thousand feet and turned on its transponder so it would appear to be a slow moving civilian cargo flight coming out of Pakistan and bound for Cairo.

  There was only one surviving Coalition AWACS, an Iranian. At the moment it was operating along the Russian border and attempting to control what was left of the Coalition’s planes. Its controllers saw the blinking transponder of the slow moving Fokker, of course, and promptly ignored it. It was the Islamic Coalition’s last surviving AWACS and its controllers were much too busy trying to stay alive and control what was left of their fighters. They had no time to worry about a slow moving civilian plane from Pakistan squawking the proper identification codes as it moved along a commercial air corridor towards Cairo.

  The Fokker was cruising westerly at twelve thousand feet with its transponder turned on as it came across the Saudi desert and crossed into Iranian airspace over the Persian Gulf on the southern edge of Iran. That’s where the Fokker was in the moonlit darkness at about 0056 in the morning local time.

  It was cruising along in such a routine way that no one paid much attention to the fact its route would take it near Bushehr, the home of Iran’s recently reactivated Russian-built nuclear reactor and the headquarters of what was left of Iran’s navy. No one paid much attention, that is, until the Fokker suddenly turned off the air corridor it was flying and headed over the Iranian shoreline towards the Bushehr airfield. It had nothing to hide so its transponder was still squawking its location.

  ******

  Everything changed and the atmosphere in the situation room of the Defense Ministry got noticeably tenser when the watchers realized the Fokker was making its scheduled turn and beginning to dive and gain speed. Things got even more tense when the Fokker’s infrared nose camera picked up the heat signatures of buildings in the distance and they began to appear on the situation room monitors.

  “The radar at the navy base has it. They’re lighting it up,” one of the seated technicians suddenly announced. The anxious political leaders and a number of senior military officers intently watched the monitors displaying the heat signatures of rapidly approaching buildings. No one had to say a word—they instinctively understood what they were seeing through the television camera in the Fokker’s nose.

  “They better hurry or they’re going to be too late,” the technical director remarked in a matter of fact voice to no one in particular. “We’ve timed it. It takes the Iranians at least one hundred and thirty seconds, just over two minutes, to get the SAMs they’ve got at the naval base from first alert to launch … It’s going to be close. Stand by … Still nothing … Stand by…”

  Everyone in the room watched in fascination as the picture from the Fokker’s infrared nose camera continued to tighten as it got closer and closer to its target. Finally only the infrared outline of a single building appeared out of the initial mass of heat signatures. A few seconds later the outline of the building housing Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Reactor completely filled the screen. Two seconds later the monitors suddenly showed only white flecks.

  ****** The Colonel in Somalia

  The best of the three Antonovs we bought in Indonesia lifted off the runway in Somalia eighty minutes after the Fokker and it too cleared the Somalian coast long before the sun rose. It somewhat copied the Fokker by spending the day flying on a commercial airway over an isolated area of the Indian Ocean. Then it turned on to another commercial airway, turned off its transponder, descended to three hundred feet, and headed back towards Pakistan.

  It was just after dark when our Antonov crossed the Pakistani coastline and began flying north on a carefully charted course into the darkness of Afghanistan and on towards Turkmenistan. The Antonov continued to fly as low as possible and westerly on a radar-avoiding route after it crossed the border. It continued into Turkmenistan until it reached the commercial air corridor between Moscow and Mashad—then it climbed to twenty two thousand feet, turned on its transponder, and commenced flying quite normally towards Mashad.

  Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until the Antonov diverted from its approach into Mashad International and dove into Iran’s secret and almost completed heavy water reactor four minutes and fifty-two seconds after the Fokker destroyed the Iranian nuclear reactor at Bushehr. The Iranian AWACS never even reported it.

  ****** General Roberts

  When I got home I found we had the grandkids for the evening. They were in bed and Dorothy and I were sitting in the living room talking about the day’s events and watching an old movie on Netflix when the phone rang.

  “General Roberts? This is Ro
bin Meekins at the Situation Room, sir. We have just received reports of a major explosion at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear facility.” Hmm. A few days ago I would have said it was almost certainly an Iraqi attack. But now? Maybe this time it’s the Israelis.

  No sooner than I’d hung up and gone to the bathroom when Meekins called again with another flash message. This one about another major explosion in Iran—at the secret heavy water facility at Mashhad which the Iranians had recently reactivated and begun operating to produce weapons grade plutonium; the one they say they don’t have and think no one knows about.

  What was surprising was what NSA reported that it overheard—the Iranians trying to communicate with the attacking plane. It had come over the Turkmenistan border as a cargo flight bound for Mashad before it deliberately crashed into the secret Iranian facility—undoubtedly a suicide mission according to NSA.

  Uh oh. The Israelis and Russians don’t do suicide missions, at least not that I know of.

  When Meekins finished I decided to call Marty Andrews instead of waking up the President. The President’s Chief of Staff was up late and on his way home from the White House when I reached him in his car.

  “Marty, Chris Roberts here. Something’s up and I am not sure how serious it is so I decided to call you instead of waking the President. It’s not an emergency for us but I think the White House needs to know about it in case the media or some foreign government begins asking questions.”

  After I finished explaining we decided to jointly call the President. He was still awake and came on the line quickly—and immediately told Marty to order beefed up security for our own nuclear facilities and request an intelligence analysis as to who might be behind the attacks.