Objective observers believe Iran is has made great progress in their race to build nuclear weapons. I share that belief. I also believe Iran has purchased nuclear warheads for study, testing, and perhaps for use. The main thing about which observers disagree is the date on which Iran will manufacture nuclear warheads, and will be able to mount them on their own intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Besides its nuclear weapons program, Iran surely has a chemical and biological weapons stockpile; we saw chemical weapons used on the battlefield twenty-five years ago during the Iran-Iraq War.

History teaches us that when authoritarian regimes publish plans, and when dictators tell us their precise intentions, it is best to believe them immediately. Besides their clear statements, Iran's leaders utilize khode, their way of tricking opponents into misjudging their position. Modifying strictures in the Koran, they also employ takiya, a technique of concealing their true intentions from enemies. In other words, religiously sanctioned lies. The United States has been the victim of Iran's khode and takiya for thirty years, and we are now approaching the time when it will be too late to take preemptive action.

Iran's leaders are also a menace because of their irrational beliefs. The president of Iran believes the Imam-Mahdi has been hiding in the Jamkaran well in the holy city of Qom for eight hundred years. He has said this "hidden Imam" is directing world affairs and helping him govern Iran. That might be amusing, except Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a member of the Hojatieh cult, also believes the "Imam-Messiah" will return to rule the world when chaos reigns, and that it is his religious duty to bring about that chaos. We better understand he intends to do just that.

As this is being written, a global financial crisis is exploding. Depending on how that crisis is handled, the political landscape in the United States, Europe, and the rest of the world may be radically changed in ways we can hardly anticipate. But through it all, Iran will not falter in its plan to acquire nuclear weapons. The terror masters of Tehran may even be able to accelerate their program. Because of that real menace, it is essential the United States does not become distracted from insuring nuclear weapons never get into the hands of any Middle East Islamic regime—especially Iran.

All that noted, this book is still a product of my imagination, and except for a few public figures, all the characters and events are fictitious. Military hardware and tactics, on the other hand, are as close to reality as my personal experience, research and official secrecy allows. In the pages that follow there are no ray-guns, no secret weapons and no easy solutions to a growing crisis, so the reader has little need to suspend disbelief.

And for anyone who thinks Iran's dreadful ambitions cannot be ended decisively and quickly by conventional military action, or that Iran can close the vital Straits of Hormuz and starve the world of crude oil, or that Iran is so large as to be invulnerable—I have a suggestion. Read this book.

Chet Nagle
October 2008

© 2008, Chet Nagle. All rights reserved.