Guns Of August

"On July 29th 2008 Iran successfully launches a Shahab rocket and orbiting
satellite, proving it has a formidable functioning delivery vehicle, then
announces it has produced sufficient fissionable material at its Natanz
facility to build two nuclear bombs in 2009 and begins work on underground
test facilities in the basalt formations beneath the great salt desert of Dacht-e-Kavir.

Supreme Leader Ali Khameini announces baldly that his nation has manufactured weapons-grade fissionable material enriched to nearly 100% (in lieu of 5% enrichment for peaceful nuclear reactors)."

Two days later Great Satan launches the most audacious regional series of regime changes ever implemented in history, Officially dubbed 'Operation Boundless Freedom" Allies and enemies alike refer to it as 'Operation Great Satan"

3 Iranian submarines are destroyed - 1 in the Med, 1 in the Atlantic and 1 in the Indian Ocean. Another surrenders and defects near Barcelona.

Naval and air force assets at Bandar Abbas are hit with a combination of missiles and a French- Saudi Amphibious assault from Qatar and the UAE. Waves of Tomahawk cruise missiles streak through Persian aerospace from ships and subs - effectively targetting the Iranian air force - air fields, missile sites and air defense systems are struck down within hours.

Communications are totally co opted or overwhelmed cybernetically. Nearly 50 B2 Stealth bombers sortee to to strike IRRGC command and control HQ's.

"American warplanes and missiles carefully avoid striking research reactors
in Teheran and Ispahan as well as the nuclear reactor at Bousher--less than 100
kilometers from Kuwait--as well as the centrifuges themselves at Natanz in an
effort to prevent the spread of radioactive material to nearby population
centers.

However, other missiles producing electromagnetic pulses do knock out
virtually all of Iran's electric grid and computer systems"

Airborne troops from Great Britain and Great Satan sieze all passes through the Zagros mountains - effectively cutting Iran in half.

Special Forces strike and hold especial clerical compounds in Tehran and Qom right before Friday prayers. Nearly 20% of Iran's ruling praetorian guards and mullahs are captured, killed or missing by breakfast time.

Armed insurgencies break out across Iran as ex and au currant MEK groups strike, sieze and hold towns and cities.

At the same moment, Little Satan launches a panzer blitz straight up the Bekah Valley. Key turf captured and held by paratroopers and commandos. Syrian missile batteries are captured or annihilated by waves of attack aircraft and Syrian armor fights a desperate retreating battle - outmatched and over whelmed by a new school combo of vertical envelopment as armor surges and chops through an immense junkyard of wrecked, smoldering Russian built tanks and a flood of broken Syrian conscripts.

Great Satan' s seaborne regime changing Marines hit the surf just north of the Litani river in Lebanon and methodically grind and leap frog straight through the heart of Hiz'B'AllahLand.

Known missile batteries and weapons caches (many in innocent civilian rich areas) are captured by chopper borne marines and French commandos or trashed.

HBA's command complex in Beirut is clamped shut by heavily armed Marines after precision cruise missile strikes.

Al Manar - HBA's 'suicide channel' seems to be co opted - running a marathon of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" in Arabic overdubs. All communications in the ME are totally wacked - from Bashar's Al Sana network to Al Jazeera - regular programming has been replaced with the most outrageous cable quality programming the Great Satan can jam like "Playboys Girls Next Door" and choice selections from 'Girls Gone Wild'

The IAF incinerates the power grid in Damascus and by the 3rd day - Littles Satan's self propelled artillery is shelling the Presidential Palace. Downtown Damascus is cut off and resistence crumbles.

Within 5 days, Iran is reduced to a state of near paralysis, unable in any sense to retaliate militarily, its entire economic infrastructure in shambles. By this time the largest armored division in history has left Iraq and "Old Ironsides" is within striking distance of a thunder run into downtown Tehran.

Riots wreck the regime and a caretaker gov is installed by the Iranians themselves. Syria is occupied and Hiz'B'Allah is history.

Lebanon starts to rebuild the ME's riviera. HAMAS is suddenly confronted by a host of alternate, well armed. tolerant, egalitarian political movements (funny too - the Strips pop magically increases by nearly 40K) and has a real fight - politically - on it's hands to maintain a bizarro land where death is precious, praised and preferred.

Sound crazy? Hold up - Check out the tease and inspiration for this all original scenerio in "Iran, Le Choix des Armes" by Francois Heisbourg.

Alas, unavailable in English yet, the PR looks interesting.

"For there are some extraordinary surprises in this consummate, if brief, but
brilliantly conceived work by the man who is perhaps Europe's leading global
thinker--chairman of the London-based International Institute for Strategic
Studies, adviser to French presidents and ministers of defense and foreign
affairs going back to Valery Giscard d'Estaing and top adviser to French arms
makers from Thompson to Matra."