Holiday in Tehran

[forcon]

Sign up/The picket line or the parade?

June-July 2018: The Stalemate

When news of the draft being reintroduced became public knowledge, protests again exploded right across the Unites States. From Seattle to Austin to Chicago to Detroit, furious mobs took to the streets in protest at the thought of being sent to fight this far. Thousands of arrests were made as riots broke out, often lead by college students who might soon find themselves with rifles in their hands in an Iranian desert. The unpopularity of the concept could not be overstated, and even vast amounts of Trump voters opposed the idea. However, that group of anti-draft Republicans always found an excuse not to outwardly condemn the idea of the draft. Nevertheless, the U.S. government soon set to work designing ordered hundreds of thousands of young men to report to local recruiting stations to begin their training.

By early July, the first batch of teenagers had begun their basic training at Fort Bragg. Of the hundreds of thousands of men called up, over 20% refused initially. Police raids arrested those who refused, and sometimes action by pro-Trump gangs was taken against draft-refusers families in certain, heavily Republican states. Canada, under Prime Minister Trudeau, was quietly willing to accept those fleeing the draft in the United States, having previously spoken out against the war. The scale of the riots was almost incomprehensible. Martial law was in effect almost nationwide as State and Local officials called out troops to quell the monumental protests. Though President Trump had initially held the support of the majority of enlisted troops, this had begun to dwindle and often “Veterans Coalitions” against the war and the concept of the draft itself helped set up sanctuaries for people who had been drafted.

Senator John McCain spoke out against the draft despite his pro-War leanings. He berated the Administration for its poor conduct and for its “alternative facts” regarding recent defeats suffered by the U.S. military. McCain, a former POW captured and tortured in Vietnam, new full well the horrors being endured by U.S. troops in Iran, and although he had initially supported the invasion his support gradually faded. Those draftees who had begun their training in July would have to continue it throughout the summer and into the early autumn before they could be deployed to infantry units; others, specialising in different areas of expertise would take far longer to train.

Throughout Iran itself, fighting had reached a lull. The U.S. Army had halted its advance temporarily to reconstitute its forces, which were spread thin. Different units had deployed to different places, some had been overrun and captured and others had simply gotten lost during movements. For example, the 4th Infantry Division was spread from Shahrekord to Mehriz after its failed attempt to rescue the encircled 11th ACR, and would be unable to hold off any major Iranian counter-attacks should they occur. III Corps was struggling after the loss of its Headquarters & Supply Battalion, and needed time to sort out its lines of communication and its constantly-hampered supply lines. I Corps, having suffered far less during the previous few weeks, was still ordered to halt its advance rather than go on fighting without the support of III Corps.

Whilst the lull continued on the ground, there were clashes between American and Iranian units. The Iranian Army was too damaged to launch a major counter-attack after these two months of fighting, but battalion-level fighting continued as the Iranians often stumbled into American units having halted in the desert as they awaited orders to continue advancing. The main U.S. effort for now would be concentrated in the air rather than on the ground. Whilst the U.S. air campaign had been almost non-stop since March, it increased in intensity following the temporary suspension of the ground advance. American aircraft repeatedly pounded targets on the ground, with particular focus being on Mehriz, where the 11th ACR had been destroyed. In what was almost a punishment sortie, six B-52Hs from the USAF bombed the area surrounding the town and devastated many Basij units in the area.

It was clear for the U.S. High Command that it was going to take massive, total and absolute commitment to win the ground war at this point.

This bombardment was everlasting as the U.S. prepared to continue its ground advance with renewed vigour. The 4th Marine Division, a reservist unit, was in the process of being deployed through into Iran, where it would join III Corps, whilst the 4th Marine Air Wing found itself deployed to Diego Garcia, ready to support the air campaign. Soon joining III Corps was the 1st Mechanized Infantry Division, which arrived at Bandar Abbas on June 4th, bringing its M1A2s to the frontlines over the course of the month. Offloading these new reinforcements was problematic, especially with repeated attempts to sabotage the dockyards and with attacks behind U.S. lines by saboteurs. The Iranians had a few precious Shahab missiles five of which were fired at the dockyards on that day, causing dozens of casualties amongst the newly arriving American troops.

One main area of concern was American supply lines. Behind U.S. lines, thousands upon thousands of Iranian stay-behind troops and Basij militiamen lay in wait to target supply columns, often destroying dozens of vehicles each time with shoulder-fired ATGMs and small arms. These attacks often cost a dozen casualties at a time, and occurred on daily basis. Air support took too long to arrive, and when it did it was often warded off by MANPADs. Across all fronts, supply lines came under sustained ambush, hampering the effort to keep U.S. troops supplied. Often, Central Command resorted to airlifting supplies to Army units that weren’t even cut off because supply routes on the ground were taking such heavy casualties. National Guard formations deployed to protect these supply lines were formed of battle-hardened troops, most of whom had been deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq during previous years. Yet, the combat faced in Afghanistan was different from the fast-paced, nearly constant fighting that took place across Iran even after the U.S. had suspended its advance temporarily.

This meant that for now, much of the fighting was taking place behind U.S. lines, with insurgency-style attacks on American positions everywhere whilst troops on the frontline still had to content with the Iranian forces which stood in their way and had yet to retreat. Every so often, a patrolling squad or platoon would let downs its guard and find itself caught in a well-placed Iranian ambush, often being cut to pieces by their enemy. On several occasions, small groups of soldiers were captured or abducted during these ambushes, joining the ever growing number of American POWs being held near Tehran. Fighting also continued at long-range with artillery strikes causing significant losses on both sides.

Much thought was given to the idea of simply bypassing Iranian cities and starving out the defenders; President Trump somewhat favoured the idea, but the Joint Chiefs had explained that siege without the possibility of feeding the civilians was for all intensive purposes a war crime. Not that president Trump was opposed to that on a moral level, but the international reaction would be even more negative if the U.S. carried out an Aleppo-style siege against Iranian cities. It was decided that Isfahan, Qom and Tehran would have to be fought for just like the cities before them.

Of course, the U.S. Army actually had to get its advance moving once again before that could happen.

Another major issue in Iran was the civilian population. The U.S. had launched thousands of strikes on Iranian civilian infrastructure, causing untold damage to things such as water mains and power generation facilities. Supplies of food were difficult to move and thus Iranian civilians soon began to suffer from malnourishment, unable to get the supplies they so desperately needed. Refugees fleeing the conflict had already begun to pour over Iran’s borders with Armenia and Turkey. U.S. troops did their best to take care of civilians in their charge, but the population was largely hostile and more than once rioted in U.S.-occupied cities. American soldiers found themselves forced to confront angry crowds without the proper training or non-lethal equipment to do so.

In Afghanistan, a major surge in insurgent activity had also taken place. Not only U.S. forces, but also those from the UK and other countries involved in the coalition found themselves facing off against insurgents, including Shia militias funded by Iran – although those groups were under orders to avoid targeting non-U.S. forces where possible to avoid altering public opinion – causing heavy casualties across the country. I Corps invasion from Afghanistan depended largely on supplies coming in from Afghanistan, so the routine attacks on supply bases were massively problematic. American soldiers in Afghanistan were outnumbered, with a vast number of them having deployed into Iran. Air support was rarely forthcoming as most aircraft in the area were supporting U.S. troops in Iran. Casualties were still far lower than in Iran, but higher than they had been during any other time since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan well over a decade.

In Iraq, there were frequent clashes between Sunni and Shia forces. Though the Iraqi government was neutral in the conflict, it was Shia one and did little to quell anti-American violence which took place, having banned U.S. forces from using Iraqi territory before the war. Anti-American protests took place in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, with those protests swiftly descending into full-blown riots in the latter country. There was also a commando attack on the U.S. Navy base in Bahrain, killing eight American sailors. Already, the base had been saturated by Iranian ballistic missiles, although Iran’s missile forces had been severely reduced so far.

U.S. Military casualties had increased almost twofold since the previous month. Total American losses now stood at 17,000 Killed in Action and 1,500 Prisoners of War. Another four hundred soldiers were classified as Missing in Action, whilst the number of wounded had climbed as well. However, those classified as Wounded in Action earlier during the war, depending on the severity of their injuries of course, were being redeployed back into their units to replenish numbers. Along with this was the movement of the 1st Infantry Division and the 4th Marine Division, along with the National Guard 28th and 42nd Infantry Divisions to replenish losses sustained earlier.

Although the U.S. Military had suffered grievous losses during the fighting so far, Iran too had suffered. Its civilian infrastructure lay in ruins, with water, power and food now scarce for the populations of virtually every town and city. The Iranian Armed Forces had suffered nearly 100,000 troops Killed in Action and many more wounded; 60,000 Iranian soldiers and militiamen were had been captured during the fighting, and Iran’s heavy armoured and mechanized formations were rapidly ceasing to exist. Those that still remained combat capable were low on ammunition, petroleum and food; commanders were forced to dig their tanks into the tank up to their turrets and hope that American formations wandered into range. Iran’s air force had ceased to exist except for perhaps a dozen aircraft, with only a few missiles between them, scattered across hidden desert airstrips in the north of the country.

The halt of the American advance did buy the Iranians time to sort out their supply situation, but American airpower often interdicted these attempts.

On the international front, Russia began supplying arms to Iran at the end of May. President Putin knew that there was little the U.S. could do to retaliate, even if the deployment of Russian weapons systems was discovered, which was unlikely. Russia benefitted greatly by keeping the fighting going; oil prices were at their highest ever, and both Europe and China were lapping up Russian oil, providing a much needed boost to Russia’s beleaguered economy. Also, the U.S. Military was facing a rate of attrition not seen since the Korean War. Thousands of American soldiers were being killed and countless aircraft being shot down, weakening the U.S. military greatly for the time that President Putin would eventually decide to expand his borders westwards.

Russia’s movement of weapons, however, was extremely covert and on a scale far smaller than that of China. Those ships moving to Iran over the Caspian Sea did so with extreme vigilance, avoiding US intelligence and offloading their supplies on abandoned stretches of beach. The weapons provided included both shoulder-launched and fixed SAM emplacements, anti-aircraft guns, anti-tank missiles and other supplies. However, Russia made sure to provide only older weapons systems which Iran was already using to help keep this new development quite. It also meant that Iranian personnel could use the weapons without any instructions from Russian advisors, whereas the weapons being provided by China, which included a batch of six HQ-9 SAMs, required instruction.

By the end of June, the U.S. Military was prepared – as best as it could be – for its intervention in Pakistan to halt the flow of Chinese weapons into Iran. The situation there was drastically complicated, with factions on both sides of the political aisle holding opposing views. The government was not getting the full picture from the ISA, which wanted to continue allowing the flow of weapons into Iran through Pakistan, and the Pakistani Army was split on what it wanted. Officers who wanted to stop the incursion were often left out of the loop by officers who favoured China to the United States, who were in a majority through the Pakistani Military. Within Pakistan, the convoys were guarded by Chinese anti-aircraft troops, albeit in very small numbers, with company-sized detachments of commandos also deployed to ensure the convoys did not fall victim to attack by any local insurgents.

On July 3rd, 2018, President Trump quietly issued an order for U.S. forces in the region to fly a series of sorties into Pakistan to target the rat lines. That night, B-2s, F-22s and F-35s flew sorties from Missouri and Diego Garcia, their bombs guided by pre-deployed Delta Force teams. A total of seven strikes were launched, mostly in the area of Pangjur and Turbat. A dozen Chinese transport vehicles were destroyed during the raids, but the worst was yet to come. During the raids, Pakistani air defences had detected incoming aircraft. An F-35A of the U.S. Air Force was shot down by a Pakistani air defence missile, and the pilot had been captured by the Pakistani 33rd Infantry Division.

By morning, it had become obvious the world over that the U.S. Air Force had bombed Chinese supply columns in Pakistani territory.

Nawaz Sharif, the Pakistani Prime Minister, already had a poor relationship with the Trump Administration. With the Army prepared to act unilaterally, Prime Minister Sharif condemned the United States and called for calm as riots broke out. In Balochistan, where the American pilot had been shot down, the Pakistani Army mobilised without orders to do so from the government, preparing for an apparent war with the United States. Shortly thereafter, virtually the entirety of the Pakistani Army began to mobilise.

Watching Pakistani descend into anarchy, India began to mobilise its own armed forces.

China’s response was almost muted comparatively. Since, officially of course, there were no Chinese troops in Pakistan, an open response was to be avoided. Instead, the Chinese government resolved on July 7th to begin deploying advisors to Iran, to aid the Iranian Armed Forces in their defence of the country. Supplies would continue to be moved through Pakistan with the protection of both small units of Chinese troops and significant elements of the Pakistani Army, which was continuing to split in two. Covertly, China deployed four hundred “advisors” into Iran by air, landing at the same airstrip from which those American POWs had been extracted.

Additional American airstrikes were launched throughout the next few days. On July 5th and July 6th, B-52 bombers hit a second Chinese convoy as it moved through the mountains, whilst Special Forces teams were occasionally forced to engage Pakistani troops in the countryside. Four more American planes were lost; a B-52, an F/A-18 and two F-15Es as the U.S. air campaign moved to focus on Pakistan. Although neither the United States nor China would admit publicly that they had forces in Pakistan, the Pakistani government very much would. The remains of downed American aircraft and the captured American aircrew proved this beyond all reasonable doubt. This semi-covert conflict only served to further drain American resources and increase public opposition to the war as it unfolded.

The situation in Pakistan continued to deteriorate when, on July 10th, Prime Minister Sharif was assassinated by a bomb outside his home...

[forcon]

Do you know what's worth fighting for/When it's not worth dying for

August 1-August 8:

Within hours of the Prime Minister’s assassination, the Pakistani Army was parading tanks town the streets of Islamabad. Those generals in Islamabad wanted to portray a show of force, telling the world that they were firmly in charge. The assassination of the Prime Minister had not been their doing – who exactly was behind the bombing was not yet known even to the ISI – but the Pakistani Army did have contingencies for such an event, and now they were putting those in place.

The European Union – and also the UK – was calling for the U.S. to cease airstrikes in Pakistan and allow for China to withdraw supply lines and help the junta in Islamabad regain control of the country – after all, they reasoned, a military junta ruling Pakistan with an iron fist was better than Pakistan collapsing or Islamists seizing power and controlling the nations’ nuclear arsenal.

The Pakistani military government wanted an end to American airstrikes on their soil, but was not about to declare war on the United States of America, even if they had justification to do so. Nevertheless, Pakistani military forces across the nation were ordered to a high alert, and Pakistani troops received orders to defend themselves and their territorial integrity from the United States with all the necessary force. The U.S. airstrikes in Pakistan had been successful in damaging China’s supply lines and they had sent an overwhelmingly strong message – However, Chinese equipment continued to cross the border through Pakistan into Iran. Strikes along the border meant that little of these weapons systems actually reached the Iranian troops using them. Despite this, dozens of these weapons had already been given to Iran before the American intervention in Pakistan.

On August 3, having lost eleven warplanes over Pakistan, the U.S. Air Force called off its bombing campaign. Having suffered horrendous losses over Iran, the U.S. Air Force could not simultaneously stomach a fight with Pakistan and potentially China too. A stern watch was kept on Pakistan by U.S. intelligence, but strikes were temporarily suspended, to begin again when the Air Force felt that it was necessary. Thirty-six American POWs remained in Pakistani custody, yet to be released. The Pakistani junta, in quite negotiations with the Americans, promised to release all POWs once the American bombing campaign had ended for good.

In spite of the events in Pakistan, the U.S. Military was ordered to renew its advance in Iran.

Having been reinforced by the four new divisions that had arrived from the states, the order was given for the U.S. Military to begin advancing once again. The two months of holding steady had allowed the Americans to replenish their forces and launch several major crackdowns against insurgents operating behind American lines. The 1st Infantry Division had been moved up to the front with III Corps to the area near Ramshe, with a strong Iranian presence there. Meanwhile, the 28th Infantry deployed as rear-guards to assist in holding the areas behind American lines and pacifying the cities, whilst the 42nd Infantry Division went up to the front to join III Corps. The 4th Marine Division moved to join I Corps to serve as a front-level reserve.

III Corps began its advance northwards once again on August 1st, moving towards Isfahan. The 1st Infantry Division, fresh from the States and not suffering from the same casualties as the other units, led the charge up Highway 65 with M1A2s and Bradley’s. However, by the evening, III Corps had already run into stubborn resistance. The 8th Armored Division of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard was one of the best equipped formations in Iran’s military, and had been given through June and July to prepare for this engagement. T-72s and Zulfiqar-4 tanks, dug in and well camouflaged from American airpower, met the leading American battalion near Mahyar. Those dug in Iranian tanks caught the Americans in a crossfire at close range, knocking out an M1A2 and three M2 Bradley’s with their long range weapons before the Americans conducted a fighting retreat back down the highway.

As night fell, the Americans regrouped and attacked again, this time aware of the positions of their enemy. AH-64D attack helicopters cleared the way, killing a half dozen tanks and many more BMP fighting vehicles as they provided air cover for the 1st Infantry Divisions’ advance. THose helicopter crews suffered a heavy toll, and despite their best efforts, no less than four AH-64Ds went down at the hands of Iranian troops with MANPADS and missile systems mounted on Iranian tanks. The 1st Infantry’s tanks and mechanized units rapidly fanned out from the highway and engaged dozens of Zulfiqar-4 tanks with 120mm guns and TOW missiles from Bradley’s. Explosions littered the horizon as tank after tank was destroyed on both sides. Despite the successes of the Americans, it took them till midday on August 3rd to get clear of Mahyar and push through this initial spout of resistance.

Across the entire southern front where III Corps was advancing, there were similar clashes, but not quite on the scale of the one that the 1st Infantry Division had just engaged in. Casualties were sustained, but the fighting at this point largely occurred when American armoured and mechanized units ran into dug in Iranian infantrymen, since much of the Iranian Army’s tank force had already been destroyed throughout the fighting. Most of these clashes resulted in American victories sooner or later, albeit with significant casualties sustained in this fighting. For I Corps, the story was much the same. The Iranian Army’s heavy forces had almost entirely been deployed near the coast or further to the north, so most of I Corps engagements were fought by infantry in towns and cities. The Americans had the advantage of using helicopters to advance across the hundreds of miles of desert which separated them from their objectives, which at this point where essentially confined to advancing to meet up with III Corps southern flank, and, for the 3rd Marine Division, to sieze Chah Bahar and the rest of the Iranian coastline.

Over the course of the week, III Corps was able to advance to the outskirts of its next objective; Isfahan.

As the casualty list grew in length, massive protests continued. The New York Times published a list of casualties on a daily basis, and it was like nothing the American people had ever seen before – at least since Korea. There were rarely less than a hundred names on those lists, and sometimes that number soared into the high hundreds. Although the number of casualties had slackened during the two months of stalemate, it soon began to rise once again as the United States Army advanced on Isfahan. Those reserve and National Guard divisions moved to Iran also suffered tragic losses at the hands of the Basij and Iranian commando attacks. CNN and NBC News broadcast images of wounded soldiers who were pouring back home, sometimes with limbs missing and often permanently disabled. Those images were particularly horrifying to the men being drafted into the Army now; they saw what may await them. Those teenagers were currently being rushed through basic training in Georgia and South Carolina, most of them having no experience whatsoever in military matters before now. There were frequent desertions and even an instance of mutiny when a dozen draftees barricaded themselves in their barrack room and refused to come out for three days, before Military Police stormed in and arrested the teenagers.

[forcon]

August 12-September 27th: The Battle of Isfahan

The Battle of Isfahan began not with soldiers fighting hand to hand in the streets, but with a massive artillery bombardment by American long-range guns. It began at seven in the evening, and it lasted for nearly two hours before the guns fell silent. Iranian counter-battery fire obliterated several American 105s, whilst the U.S. Army did the same to any Iranian positions that it discovered. American fighter jets pounded even the slightest hint of movement all around Isfahan as the 4th Infantry Division prepared for begin its advance into the beleaguered Iranian city. B-52s flying Arc Light strikes eradicated entire neighbourhoods in attempt to quell Iranian resistance before it even occurred. More than once, American fighter jets tumbled from the sky in flames, the pilots often torn apart my mobs of civilians as they parachuted into backyards, workplaces and playgrounds.

Iranian troops, dug in both in the deserts outside the city and in the buildings and alleyways inside it could do little but hunker down and wait for the bombardment to cease. Soldiers on both sides watched as artillery plummeted into the ground all around them, levelling entire city blocks within Isfahan. The city’s civilian population, joined by two hundred American POWs, had spent weeks digging slit trenches and building blockades out of overturned cars in preparation for the assault, preparing the city for its last stand beneath a sweltering sun. These defences, well prepared and heavily defended, were able to ride out the storm of incoming fire.

The assault began with 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment and 3rd Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment moving down Highway 65 to secure the outskirts of the city at dawn on August 13th. The first obstacle was the Iranian barracks which lay beside Highway 65, a few miles outside the city. Last night, the base had been devastated by no less than six airstrikes, along with the mighty artillery barrage. Nevertheless, an Iranian battalion lay concealed in slit trenches and ruined buildings, awaiting the Americans assault. It occurred at 0730am. In the open desert, there was little that could be done to conceal the incoming assault. In what could have been a charge from the First World War, the American battalion advanced right into the Iranian’s field of fire. Two M-3 Scout Vehicles were knocked out my anti-tank missiles as soldiers cowered behind them. Machine gun fire racked the desert ground, wiping out an entire platoon’s-wroth of infantry in the first ten minutes of the battle. The battalion commander resorted to calling in an Arc Light strike, obliterating the Iranian positions. In the moments after the airstrike, the Americans charged forwards as the Iranian troops recovered from the momentary shock, overpowering the barracks after several hours of fighting.

That was only the beginning.

It took another three days, till August 16th, for the leading American units to fight their way into the outskirts of Isfahan. Entering the city, the first sights that greeted the attackers were burning buildings and the corpses of civilians killed by the American bombardment. Columns of armour and throngs of infantry moved into the city, which by now had almost been engulfed by the firestorm which raged to the south. Hidden in the ruins of collapsed buildings, Iranian BMPs and Scorpions, fitted with upgraded anti-tank missiles, picked off their American counterparts. Countless American M1s, Bradleys and Stryker’s burst into flames with missile hits. Meanwhile, Iranian infantry dug in behind walls of sandbags, armed with machine guns and grenades, held up U.S. troops at every corner. They forced the Americans into bayonet charges time after time, cutting down the charging infantry with their machine guns.

Apache helicopters roamed above the city, picking off any targets they found. When one such aircraft was hit by an anti-aircraft missile, the pilot and his weapons officer were dragged from the wreckage by Basij troops and promptly shot on the spot. Snipers holed up in the University of Isfahan killed no less than thirteen American soldiers before an artillery strike levelled the complex, leaving the inhabitants buried alive amongst the rubble. An airstrike destroyed the city’s largest hospital, and there were no emergency services to speak of, meaning that the fires lit by airstrikes and artillery bombardments raged out of control for days. Iranian soldiers from the Basij defended an intersection of the city for all they were worth, holding up an entire American battalion for ten hours, before they were overrun by M1A2 tanks. Tragically, one American rifle company from 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment was cut off near Abbas Abbad, were after six hours of resistance, it was overrun and slaughtered by Basij troops.

It was far from over, though. Street by street, block by bloody block, the 4th Infantry Division seized Isfahan. A CNN camera crew filmed the moment a squad of American soldiers shot dead a surrendering Iranian unit, and NBC news shot live footage of the time that an American soldier accidentally set off a trap, blowing his legs off in an instant. When 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry seized the local airport, the Iranian commander called down artillery on his own position to prevent himself from falling into enemy hands, bringing sixteen American soldiers with him. Bodies lay scattered across the streets as Isfahan was reduced to little more than a smouldering heap of rubble. The fires continued to rage, the smoke clogging the air to the point that permanent darkness fell on the city lasting for weeks as the sun was blocked out by the sheer volume of smoke in the atmosphere. Countless times, soldiers on both sides were forced to watch their injured comrades lying in agony amidst the rubble, unable to reach their friends as gunfire racked the land in front of them.

Medical units were overwhelmed by the sheer number of casualties. Their wounds were utterly horrific. Limbs missing, faces destroyed by burns of shards of shrapnel, gaping bullet holes – those medics and doctors working around III Corps headquarters saw it all. They did their best to save everyone they could as Iranian artillery landed between their tents, causing further mutilations and deaths. In this day and age of social media, the scale of the horror was impossible to cover up. A YouTube Vlog by an Iranian teenager living in Isfahan caught the attention of the world; the girl claimed she was non political, and simply wanted to show the world the truth about what was happening there. Her social media posts gained millions of views across the world, turning almost an entire generation of young people in the United States against the war. Footage of American soldiers firing in crowds of civilians that swarmed their Humvee’s appeared on social media, causing Senator Bernie Sanders to claim “Today is the day that I am ashamed to be an American.” Even the most staunch supporters of the war could not deny the horror of the fighting in Isfahan.

The casualty list in the New York Times grew – quite literally – by the minute as bloggers reported new deaths online. Hundreds of names were added to the list every single day. It was like nothing anybody had seen before; there had, of course, been battles that were even bloodier, but those battles had not been shown in minute-by-minute detail online. Occasionally, American soldiers fed up with the carnage tweeted photos and updates from within the city itself. One such photo showed one young soldier, slumped up against a bullet-riddled wall, his face stained with ash and blood, and his rifle laying abandoned to his side. The photo would become one of the most iconic of the war.

Time after time, American soldiers ran into buildings to clear out their opponents, often being cut down as they charged through narrow doorways. Ambushes occurred at every turning, with well-placed machine gun fire cutting down American soldiers in droves. Soldiers fought sometimes for weeks without rest with often without food as their supplies were cut by partisans. The Iranians were making the U.S. Army pay in blood for every single inch of ground that it seized. Neither side took many prisoners during this fighting; surrendering soldiers on both sides were shot were they stood dozens of times, whilst public lynching’s of captured American soldiers and suspected collaborators also took place. Every so often, squads or platoons were cut off behind Iranian lines by counter-attacks and wiped out within hours. Individual Army units were fighting for their lives, often without proper command and control. Battalion commanders watched as their men perished by the dozen in ambushes and street battles, unable to spare additional troops to reach those men who ended up cut off.

To those involved in the fighting, it was not a war. It was an apocalypse.

Even those in command centres behind friendly lines would never forget those six weeks. One staff officer later leaked a radio transcript of an Army lieutenant whose platoon had become encircled behind Iranian lines calling for a helicopter extraction, and the lieutenant’s ultimate realisation that nobody was coming to extract his men could be heard amidst the roar of gunfire and explosions, until the encircled platoon was overrun and destroyed. Incidents like this were all too common during the Battle of Isfahan. Countless helicopter crews were shot down as they tried desperately to reach their cut off comrades on the ground, often ignoring orders to the contrary. Their heroism was matched by acts of bravery by troops on both sides of the fighting. There would be countless stories of courage that never became public knowledge; an Iranian doctor who ran from cover into the middle of a fire-fight to reach a wounded civilian; a wounded American lieutenant who called in an airstrike on his own position to buy time for his men to escape...

The fighting went on, and on, and on. Morale on both sides was shattered in the first few days of the fighting, and despite reinforcement the Americans found it impossible to secure more than a couple of streets every day. Had any veterans of the Second World War witnessed the fighting there, even they would have said that this combat was brutal on a level that had not been seen before. Both sides were now fuelled by desperation as they grappled for control of Isfahan – or rather, what remained of Isfahan. August slipped into September and the fighting had yet to end. Every single street was blockaded either by Iranian troops dug in with machine guns and concealed light armour, or by Basij militiamen fighting from behind makeshift barricades made out of damaged vehicles and rubble. The Americans fought their way through alleyways and backyards, often being forced to retreat from the same area daily as the Iranians counter-attacked.

Casualty evacuation was near impossible due to the SAM threat. Nevertheless, helicopter pilots tried time and time again to reach the wounded soldiers on the ground. Back home, hospitals were swamped by men returning with no limbs, with no faces, with burns covering up to ninety percent of their bodies. Civilian doctors back home had never had to deal with such hideous wounds before, and many of them needed almost as much counselling as the soldiers themselves before they could recover from the shock of everything they’d witnessed. It was feared that there weren’t enough burn wards in the entirety of the U.S. to look after the wounded just from the fighting in Iran, ignoring those who suffered burns at home. Those suffering burns were largely tank crews who had been hit by missiles, until both sides started using white phosphorous grenades. On several occasions, American pilots dropped napalm on enemy positions, causing utterly horrendous casualties amongst the defenders.

Protests back home had reached their peak; the war was fast becoming the most unpopular in American history. Across the nation, people were asking “How many more teenagers have to come home without faces?” Those being drafted were primarily from poorer communities, although the government denied that this was deliberate. It was just coincidence that you were likely to avoid the draft if your dad was a billionaire or your mother a member of Congress. Now, due to the effects of social media, nobody could deny the horror of what was happening in Isfahan. The civilian dead, the wounded kids coming home scarred for life, the fact that Graves Registration had run out of officers and was now using postmen to inform wives that their husbands were never coming home or to inform children that mom would never be able to walk again. A series of candlelight vigils were held in cities across the United States, as countless people wished for the fighting to come to an end. One such event in San Antonio, Texas, was disrupted when pro-Trump teenagers arrived, one of them wielding a “legal” AR-15. Fighting broke out and three people were shot dead before the teenager himself was killed by police.

Across the United States, the feeling of protest was, briefly, replaced by a feeling of mourning.

In Europe, those calls for the U.S. to end the war began pleas. Even Prime Minister May, who had been trying desperately to keep the UK’s relationship with the U.S. intact pulled out all the stops, condemning the “heinous atrocity” occurring in Isfahan. One by one, European nations flat-out blocked the U.S. from using their airspace to continue striking targets in Iran, appalled by the atrocities occurring there at the hands of both sides. Similar protests to the U.S. were held outside American embassies across Europe. Those protests were filled more with a feeling of sadness and mourning that the anger that had previously fuelled them. Across the world, people simply wanted the fighting to come to an end.

On September 27th, the fighting finally ended. The remainder of Iranian forces retreated from the city, having been almost wiped out by the American advance into Isfahan. The cost had been truly appalling. 17,981 Iranian soldiers dead. 10,811 Americans killed during the fighting. So many more returning home so disabled for life, most physically but also plenty mentally. American losses were so bad that the 4th Infantry Division had to be declared combat ineffective. It simply could not function as a fighting unit after having suffered such tragic losses. Nearly two thirds of the three hundred-odd American POWs held in Isfahan as human shields had been killed during the fighting. The surviving hundred POWs were found half starved in what had once been a school after the 23rd Infantry Regiment had overwhelmed the defenders.

The cost in terms of civilian lives was truly incalculable. Some put the death toll at 100,000. Some put it at ten times that. It was impossible to tell for sure. Isfahan itself was gone. The city had simply ceased to exist. Virtually every single building was flattened, and those that still stood were so badly damaged that they were barely inhabitable. The fires still burned, with nothing to put them out. In the space of six weeks, Isfahan had become a city of ruins. You couldn’t look anywhere without seeing the charred remnants of an M1 tank of the burning wreckage of a downed aircraft. There were too many bodies to even process, let alone dig out of the ruins.

[forcon]

September 28th-October 31st:

Even though the fighting in Isfahan was over, its effect had been unimaginable. Global condemnation echoed round the walls of the United Nations building in New York City, and there were calls for the U.S. to withdraw its forces from Iran immediately from European leaders. The losses suffered by the U.S. Military during the Battle of Isfahan had been appalling, not only in the terms of those Killed in Action, but also in terms of those permanently disabled during the fighting, who now swamped hospitals both military and civilian alike in the U.S. and in overseas military bases. Germany, reluctantly, allowed the U.S. to transfer its wounded through the formerly American-run base at Ramstein for humanitarian reasons, but all other military support was prevented.

In Iran itself, the U.S. Military was again forced to call a halt to its advance. For the second time during the war, casualties had reached a point where the Americans were forced to cease their advance and hold the territory that they had secured so far against a vicious insurgency. The battle lines had been drawn and American and Iranian forces fought each other in sporadic clashes along these lines, often using artillery rather than infantry to fight at long range. The Iranians had very few tanks or armoured vehicles left, but the Americans could not advance across the desert to Qom until they had received replenishments and sorted out the supply situation.

For the first time since Korea, it looked as though the U.S. might actually lose a conventional war. Of course, there had been the disaster that was Vietnam, but at least Vietnam had been a new type of war, a war fought in a way which the American Army was not trained for. Iran, however, would have been able to defeat the U.S. Army in a peer level engagement, where the U.S. was supposed to have been unbeatable. For now, though, the stalemate held much as it had in 1914, which both sides fighting primarily at long-range and across set battle lines. Behind American lines, the Iranian insurgency continued. Well-placed ambushes often slaughtered supply convoys with ATGMs and machine guns, with American bombers arriving too late to stop the carnage.

The Trump Administration tried to play Isfahan off as a great victory for the U.S., but the world knew otherwise. Although the city had fallen into American hands, by the time the fighting was over the American had been forced to halt their advance and the city had essentially ceased to exist. The U.S. Army simply didn’t have the strength or the manpower to continue, at least for a month, as it replenished its enormous losses. So much prestige had been lost on the international stage during these past few weeks of fighting that the world knew America no longer reined strong over the rest of the globe. Only a couple of divisions remained not deployed in Iran, with the capacity for intervention in Korea, Taiwan or Poland reduced to practically nothing.

Domestically, protests actually slowed from their height during the Battle of Isfahan, but plenty still occurred, often with violence. The National Guard responded violently, with student protestors often being beaten to the ground by rifle butts as troops untrained to deal with such protests clashed with them. Despite a strong anti-war movement thriving in the cities, there were still a large number of Republican die-hards who supported the war and President Trump. This cult following remained loyal to their leader even in the face of the war in Iran as the immense casualties that it was producing. They really believed President Trump when time after time he blamed military losses on poor leadership within the armed forces and when he called for troops to fight harder.

And, with the mid terms fast approaching, President Trump needed his die-hards. Although public opinion had shifted solidly against the war, Trump still had tactics to maintain a Republic majority in both houses during the mid terms. There was of course gerrymandering in many states, along with voter suppression and ever-stricter voter ID laws, along with the fact that the media sometimes portrayed anti-war protestors as violent thugs. Although Trump had accused the press of lying and of opposing the will of the American people in the past, there was a tendency amongst mainstream outlets to abide with the President’s decision to go to war, and to justify the conflict no matter how many casualties it produced. Whether this was through fear and coercion (Far-right groups had been involved in sending death threats to several anti-war protest leaders, and after the incident in San Antonio, nobody doubted the validity of these threats) or through the desire not to be seen as treacherous or as aiding the enemy, it did not matter.

When faced with criticism in Congress, President Trump always found away to attack and discredit his opponents. A story had been leaked that the FBI had investigated Senator Bernie Sanders in the past because of his supposed (and nonexistent) ties to communist regimes in Eastern Europe, whilst stories about John McCain voluntarily siding with his NVA captors in the Hanoi Hilton were spread across social media in order to discredit the opposition. McCain had once been a staunch supporter of the invasion, but over the time of the war had come to oppose it and released countless criticisms of the President’s conduct throughout the fighting. McCain had become the unofficial leader of the growing Conservative anti-war movement despite his initial enthusiasm for airstrikes on Iran. McCain was himself a former POW, tortured for years at the hands of the NVA, and knew the cost of war. Often, Trump supporters called him a hypocrite for supporting the war at the beginning, and McCain, rather than lashing out, accepted that this claim did have some truth behind it, but vehemently continued to oppose the draft and the way the war was being fought.

Tragically, Senator John McCain died in a car accident in Washington D.C. on October 26th 2018.

Within the upper echelons of the UK government, knowledge that Iran had not actually been the culprit behind the terrorist attacks in California the previous year circled. The directors of the Secret Intelligence Service and Defence Intelligence wanted that information to be leaked to the public in an effort to bring down the Trump Administration before it caused any more damage. Prime Minister Theresa May, however, was aware that this was Britain’s trump card; it was the only leverage that the UK held internationally. She believed, along with the Foreign Secretary and several officials, that it would be more useful to withhold this information and use it as blackmail material further down the line rather than using it to influence the 2018 midterms. Even if this information was leaked, she reasoned that Trump might still maintain his majority through underhand (though not downright illegal) tactics such as gerrymandering. Although the intelligence chiefs vehemently disagreed with the Prime Minister’s decision, they obeyed their orders as they were loyal civil servants, whose duty was to the elected government. For now.

The situation in Pakistan remained tense, with the junta in Islamabad staring down American troops in Afghanistan and Iran. ISAF forces in Afghanistan now relied almost entirely on supplies coming through Russian airspace, meaning that Putin held a huge amount of leverage over European countries with troops still deployed in Afghanistan, and with the U.S. as well. Slowly but surely, the price that Putin was willing to sell his desperately needed oil to Europe increased, and there was absolutely nothing that Europe could do about it. In addition to this, a trade agreement was reached with China to allow for a series of oil pipelines through Kazakhstan between the two countries, further bettering their relations with one another. Covertly, the U.S. had entered negotiations with Pakistan, in order to secure the release of Americans held there. This was not a humanitarian play on the part of the Administration, but rather political point-scoring. With the midterms fast approaching, President Trump needed something to drag conventional Conservatives back into his corner; the release of American POWs in Pakistani might just do that.

[forcon]

November 1st-November 7th: The Midterms

On November 1st came the report from British intelligence that President Trump had ordered that evidence be procured that Iran had been behind the terrorist attack in California which had taken place in the winter of the previous year, and had been one of the key causes of the war. The information had been leaked to the New York Times and the Telegraph by separate individuals, one who identified himself as a Lieutenant-Commander in the Royal Navy working for Britain’s Defence Intelligence Staff and the other a member of the Secret Intelligence Service. With this information now spreading across the world, a new wave of dissent echoed around the U.S.

To the disappointment of the leakers, however, the reports they had given to both newspapers failed to ignite the same level of protest that they had hoped for. Partly, of course, this was because of the evermore repressive national security laws in place to counter the threat of terrorist attacks which was being used to quell dissent by some regional authorities. However, it was also due to the almost immediate denial issued by President Trump, along with a comprehensive speech issued by his press secretary which claimed that at no point had any such information had been fabricated. By the evening of that day, President Trump, during a press conference, declared that the document was a forgery created by British intelligence to end the war in Iran and so that the U.S. could either be freed of its commitments there and be free to defend Europe from Russia, or to bring the UK more national prestige.

The country was divided, of course, but it wasn’t like there was video proof of Trump ordering a cover-up of even leaked transcripts, leading many of Trump’s core support base to believe his statement about a conspiracy by British intelligence. The common view was that the UK did not want Trump “putting America first” and so it had fabricated the evidence in order to try to bring down Trump’s administration.

British intelligence had hoped that the leak would be far more damaging, perhaps even causing the fall of Trump’s presidency – be that through legal means or otherwise – and had the Administration not been so prepared with denials and counter-theories, it may well have done. So how, SIS wondered, had The Trump Administration know about the leak before it had happened? There was no way that Trump was able to draft such an ironclad denial with only hours notice. The only explanation was that somebody who wanted to keep the war going had told the Trump Administration that such a leak was imminent. And whoever that was would have had to had somebody inside British intelligence to do so. Thus began the search for the mole...

Desperate to reinvigorate public support before the midterms, President Trump ordered a series of airstrikes against suspected Iranian government bunkers in an effort to take out the enemy high command and possibly allow another one to take power. Perhaps what saved President Trump, however, was Pakistan. A deal had been arranged in secret over a period of two weeks, and it was put into effect on November 5th, the day before the election, which re-earned at least some support for the Administration. The U.S. agreed to a permanent ceasefire in Pakistan, and as a result all thirty-six American POWs held by the Pakistani Army were released almost immediately. As a result of this, there was a minor change in public mood. It wasn’t enough to sway millions of people, obviously, but Conservatives who had considered voting Democrat in the midterms found themselves again drawn to Trump as the media flooded viewers with footage of overjoyed American aircrew and also several embassy staff being returned home after months spent in the custody of the ISI.

On November 6th, the U.S. went to the polls once again. Throughout the day, there were reported instances of voter intimidation, and several fights broke out in some polling stations between Trump supporters and opposition voters. President Trump’s “poll watchers” stood around outside voting stations, often openly armed. Amateur camera footage recorded one such individual reporting that he was here because “muzzrats shouldn’t get to vote.” In some places, they were shoed away by law enforcement, but in certain areas the police stood by and did nothing to stop this from occurring. Several times, people in southern states where gerrymandering had been most brutal reported being turned away from polling stations because of inadequate identification. Incidences like this were commonplace, causing outrage amongst several communities.

By the time the voting was over, it was clear that the Republicans had (barely) retained control of the House of Representatives. The Republicans held on by the skin of their teeth, with 219 seats in the House of representatives remaining under their control. Whilst this represented a dramatic fall in support since the 2014 midterms, Trump boasted following the election that this was the American people endorsing his presidency and the war in Iran. The GOP lost seats in Colorado, Arizona, Illinois and even Georgia, despite maintaining its majority. Republicans also retained control of the Senate, just about - they'd lost seats, but kept enough of a majority to prevent a Democratic turn.

His victory was, however, followed by a new wave of unrest, with protests escalating into riots from New York to Seattle. Thousands of arrests were made under the National Security Act, with detainees often left without access to legal representation or support. Democrats viciously attacked the riot Administration and called for another election to be held due to the inconsistencies with this one, including widespread reports of voter intimidation.

Democrats screamed corruption, adding further fuel to the (quite literal) fires which engulfed American cities. These were the most violent political protests perhaps in American history, with pro-Trump groups often taking to the streets in counter-demonstrations, leading to violent clashes between both sides. Those on the outside compared it to the final days of democracy in Nazi Germany, with the political violence which had taken place their being compared to that taking place in the United States. The effects of the draft had not yet been fully realized, as none of these raw recruits had even completed basic training yet, let alone seen combat in Iran.

[forcon]

November 8th-December 15th: The Continued Stalemate

With the midterms over, President Trump retained his focus on the war in Iran. When the U.S. Army had halted its advance temporarily earlier, the lines had stabilised just north of Isfahan, with much of Iran’s Army now destroyed or captured. It was true that grievous losses had been inflicted on the Americans, but the Iranian Army also was suffering truly unimaginable casualties from both the fighting on the ground and the might of American airpower.

The Iranian Military’s supply lines were also suffering badly, suffering from near constant aerial bombardment. Iran’s strategy began to shift away from any attempts to meet the Americans head on in the deserts and mountains, towards only urban fighting. Much of Iran’s armoured force had been destroyed and what remained lacked fuel and ammunition, whilst many experienced crews had been killed or captured during the fighting. From the end of November, the Iranians moved to deploy almost their entire military (or what remained of it) into cities and towns across the north of the country, allowing for an even stronger defence in those areas, whilst abandoning much of the countryside.

It was, of course, unpopular, but the high command saw it as the only choice. Engaging the Americans in the desert would only lad to the total destruction of what was left, and resources were so scarce that this could not be allowed to happen. This meant that III Corps would have a relatively “easy”, for lack of better words, ride until they reached cities like Kashan and eventually Qom. Iran’s resistance was still far heavier here than it was where I Corps was advancing. I Corps, still advancing from Afghanistan, moved to sieze the smaller villages and hamlets which lay between it and III Corps eastern flank. These fights were of course brutal, some lasting weeks, but I Corps had been spared the horrors of Isfahan.

For now, though, the advance was to be halted whilst supplies were replenished and troops rested. From the moment the advance began again, III Corps would face a quick but brutal drive from their start line to Kashan and then on to Qom in an effort to knock out both of these cities as quickly as possible. After Isfahan, nobody in the U.S. high command doubted that the fighting in both cities would take weeks, but it was thought that this was the advance could be kept up even with fighting still raging in these cities. Thankfully, both Kashan and Qom had smaller populations than Isfahan did, and were slightly geographically smaller, allowing for was hoped to be a quicker fight.

With Iran so overstretched, smaller forces would have to be used to defend Qom and Kashan; roughly a division level formation for each city, with accompanying Basij forces. Isfahan had been the garrison of two IRGC divisions along with regular army forces and Basij men, but these cities, whilst well defended, had smaller garrisons.

Conversely to the occurrences earlier in the year, anti-war protests again began to slacken. This was caused simply by a loss of momentum. Protests had been going for months now, and those organising them were often in prison under the repressive National Security Act (which, despite being blocked several times by the courts was still in effect), along with the fact that most protestors had come to the hopeless realisation that their voices simply weren’t being heard. March after march, riot after riot, there were simply crackdowns on protest organisations by police and National Guard, but no change in the war. Even as protestors gathered in their thousands near the White House, close enough President Trump to hear their chants from the Oval Office, nothing changed. The war went on, and the body bags kept flowing home. Another blow to the anti-war movement was the suicide of one of the main movement organisers, a former Black Lives Matter member who had attended demonstrations throughout the Trump presidency.

Internationally, the U.S. grew further and further from its former NATO allies. Europe, with gas from Russia now double what it used to cost, was struggling to stay afloat, and the rioting in Estonia had only just slowed down to a halt. Exercises by the Russian Army in Belarus caused a constant headache for European militaries, who were scrambling to retain their defence budgets, seeing a Russian invasion of Ukraine or the Baltic States as “when” rather than “if”. The U.S. Air Force had been barred from the airspace of dozens of European nations and most bases in Europe, except for those bases in Germany needed to repatriate wounded personnel, which had been left open with the tacit cooperation of the German government.

China’s arms supplies had kept Iran well stocked, and although the flow of such supplies had all but ceased now, due to the situation in Pakistan, the Iranian air defence force had plenty of good quality Chinese-made SAMs to use, along with equipment such as radar trucks and anti-tank missiles. Even ammunition for small arms had been provided, with millions of rounds being airlifted during previous months in case Iran began to run out. There were conspiracy theorists cropping up with theories about missing American POWs being given to China even before the war ended.

There were about 1,500 American POWs being held in Iran. About 900 of them were from the 11th ACR, when that unit had seen two of its battalions encircled and captured. Others were a mixture of aircrew, special operations personnel and other troops captured during the fighting when their platoons or companies had been overrun. Concern for them echoed around the country, with little knowledge in the U.S. of how many personnel had been captured and how many were just missing in action. There were several escape attempts, two of which succeeded, with about ten American POWs making it back to friendly lines, bringing with them horror stories. To make matters worse, those Americans captured when III Corps H&S battalion had been overrun had been “persuaded” to reveal sensitive information to the VEVAK during their captivity.

American treatment of Iranian POWs was not exactly perfect either. During the initial phase of their captivity, surrendering Iranian troops were liable to be shot out of hand by American soldiers, or sometimes beaten where they stood. Officers and certain specialists were separated for interrogation, which, whilst mostly being compliant with the Geneva Convention, did sometimes go out of bounds, with angry and scared American intelligence officers using coercive methods to obtain information from their captives on occasion – it wasn’t sanctioned by the high command, but it did happen sometimes. The Americans were running out of ideas on where to hold those 50,000 Iranian POWs in their hands – some in Trump’s cabinet wanted to transfer them to prisons on the U.S. mainland, and there were fears that prisoners would not be released after the war. Fortunately, common sense prevailed and the U.S. CENTCOM commanders managed to persuade their superiors to allow them to hold those POWs mainly in Iran, and sometimes at U.S. bases in the region. It was feared that the U.S. taking prisoners back to the American mainland or to somewhere like Guantanamo Bay would cause even harsher reprisals against American prisoners. It was well known by U.S. Military Intelligence that the VEVAK – or at least elements of that organisation – wanted to put several American POWs up on war crimes charges and probably shoot them. For now, this was avoided because an even larger number of Iranian’s remained POWs in American custody.

[forcon]

December 15th–January 25th: The Beginning of the End

It began with mortar attacks against U.S. bases in Afghanistan. Bagram Airbase received several hits, whilst attacks on the perimeters of the airfield also occurred, causing violent clashes between USAF security units and Taliban fighters. Armed and supplied by Pakistan, rebel groups across Afghanistan began to take their revenge on undersupplied U.S. forces. American Forward Operations Bases suffered the brunt of the onslaught, with those units occupying them, often only platoon and company sized forces, finding themselves facing massive attacks with air cover in limited supply. Outside of American forces, NATO troops in Afghanistan had been quietly withdrawing for months, leaving only small contingents based there. Most of these troops were stationed at the larger bases such as Bagram and Kandahar, meaning they didn’t face so much of the fighting as the Americans did.

On December 23rd, the 82nd Airborne’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team was deployed to Afghanistan via Bagram Airbase to assist U.S. forces there. The 2nd BCT had been stationed in Iran, behind friendly lines as an occupying force after sustained heavy casualties during the first days of the fighting. Almost immediately, the overstretched brigade found itself deployed in locations across Afghanistan in fighting that was far more brutal than before. Platoons often faced human wave attacks by Taliban insurgents, covered by mortar fire. For the most part, the Americans held out, but sometimes squads were destroyed or captured during the fighting. Airpower was not enough to quell the uprising, even with slackened rules of engagement.

In Iran, the American advance began once again. For the past few months, fighting had been confined to long distance artillery engagements and the occasional infantry skirmish as both sides tried to recover from the losses taken at Isfahan. The U.S. Military was desperately overstretched by this point, and was facing a resistance movement which operated with virtual impunity behind their lines. Working alongside Basij stay-behinds and special operations units, the Iranian resistance kept up constant pressure on the Americans and showed no sign of relenting. By the time the U.S. Army was moving again, battalion commanders found themselves low on food, ammunition and fuel.

Advancing northwards towards Kashan, the 1st Cavalry Division again engaged the retreating Iranian Army. Infantry units, dug in beside roads and in villages, ambushed the Americans with anti-tank missiles and small arms, causing casualties amongst III Corps lead units. Stryker fighting vehicles suffered some of the worst hits, being less well armed than M2s and M1s. Infantry dismounts were forced to clear out these pockets of resistance, taking heavy losses as they did so.

However, since the Iranian Army had taken such heavy losses, no significant armour engagements took place. Only once did tanks clash during these weeks of the fighting; Iranian T-72s dug into the sand up to their turrets knocked out a single M1A2 of the 3rd Infantry Division, for the loss of twenty of their own. The Iranians had concentrated their remaining armour near Tehran and Qom, where they could be supplied, leaving the patches of desert less well defended. They knew they couldn’t face the Americans in peer-level tank fighting, so they didn’t bother trying to stop the advance with this kind of open fighting.

By January 1st, the 1st Cavalry Division had reached Kashan. Defended by the Basij, this city would be a tough nut to crack. However, the 1st Cavalry began advancing into the city two days later, meeting its first serious resistance in the suburbs. The leading column of Bradley’s was hit by a wave of missiles, knocking out three of their number before they returned fire with cannons and TOW missiles, destroying the houses where the ambushers had been hiding. Houses on both sides of the street collapsed as they were hit with missiles and bullets, sending the defenders running into the streets before they were cut down by American infantrymen.

Street by street, engagements like this took place over the course of the month. The defending troops tried desperately to delay the1st Cavalry, and they inflicted grievous casualties whilst doing so, but also sustained heavy casualties themselves. Anti tank missiles were particularly effective, with dozens of Bradleys and Strykers being destroyed in the fighting. By the time the city fell, on January 26th, the 1st Cavalry Division’s morale was bordering on total collapse. They’d seen nearly a month of fighting just for this city, and they all knew that Qom still lay ahead. Bodies recovered were often those of foreign citizens, meaning that the Jihadists – mostly Shia, but some Sunni – were flocking to Iran to fight the Americans.

On the opposite side of the country I Corps did not begin advancing. They faced little combat comparatively to III Corps. I Corps main duty was at this point to hold the territory that it had secured, without advancing much deeper into Iran. The U.S. High Command didn’t want to overstretch the forces that it had, and thus it left I Corps mostly in place, bar for a few advances westwards to secure nearby territory. The Iranian Army’s strength was concentrated mostly in the north, allowing for I Corps to focus mostly on the resistance movement behind its lines.

There were also developments occurring internationally. Turkey, which had slipped further and further away from NATO as the alliance dissolved, practically allowed for Jihadists to begin moving through its territory into Iran. The Army, traditionally seen as the guardian of Turkey’s constitution and secular government, had become more and more loyal to Erdogan after the failed military coup against him in 2016, and the subsequent purges of mutinous officers, meaning that the Military had no objections to Erdogan’s actions. Turkish Air Force F-16s crossed into Iranian airspace twice that January, being chased out by American fighters shortly after.

There was also a surge of fighting in Ukraine. Pro-Russian rebels became more and more bold, attacking Ukrainian Army units near Kiev. Consequently, the Ukrainian Army shifted even more of its resources eastwards, to the border. Russia responded, of course, sending the 20th Guards Army to the border region and holding a series of exercises there. With Russian Military equipment quietly being moved across the Caspian Sea, tying up U.S. forces even more, European military chiefs knew that if Russia did choose to invade Ukraine, and if those Russian tanks didn’t stop at the Polish and Romanian borders, there would be no help coming from across the Atlantic.

Those shipments of Russian supplies moving across the Caspian Sea were noticed by U.S. intelligence early in the year. Those ships were laden with S-300 missiles, radar systems, anti-tank missiles and other essential weapons systems. When the deployment of these Russian weapons was reported to President Trump, he became, reportedly, “suspiciously quiet”. President Trump, along with Secretary of State Tillerson, disputed the claims by U.S. intelligence. Those personnel who had given the intelligence briefing were incredulous. The President of the United States was simply denying the fact that Russia was supplying the Iranian Army. Of course, this information quickly fell into the hands of the Washington Post, not that it made much difference. The president had practically lost all of his support from the military leadership. Not only was the war a disaster, U.S. influence around the world had been utterly shattered, casualties were rising by the day, and now he was sucking up to the Russians once again.

On January 26th, a cyber attack occurred on the Pentagon, leaving the personnel information of a number of American operatives inside Iran open to the public, along with the positions of American Special Forces teams operating in Iran. In itself, this was catastrophic; dozens of American agents inside Iran were rounded up by the VEVAK, whilst several special forces teams were engaged and killed or captured, whilst others managed to extract themselves form behind Iranian lines. Further information was also leaked, including specifications for fighter aircraft and ships. A second attack lead to a power cut in several cities, including Austin, Chicago and San Francisco, causing outage across the United States. China was the immediate focus of the following witch hunt, but some eyes were cast towards Russia. Retaliatory action however, occurred solely against China, in the form of a similar cyber attack against China’s missile progam - the attack targeted the production of future missiles rather than China's active air defence system, as to avoid provoking an immediate military response.

Another area was the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico. The border wall was, predictably, still under construction after many delays and budget faults. Mexico and the U.S. continued to squabble over the construction of the border, with Mexican civilians protesting outside the American embassy. The Mexican government’s official policy was quite hard-line, explicitly mentioning the United States’ behaviour as reckless and immature. Nobody in Mexico, however, wanted to anger President Trump too much, seeing his actions in Iran.

However bad things seemed now, however, on January 27th they would get a whole lot worse.

The first explosion happened on the Subway. A lone bomber had snuck the bomb on the train in a backpack. It exploded at rush hour in New York City, with predictably devastating effect. When the bomber yanked the chord connected to the device, it ignited, sending a fireball through the train carriage, and nails packed into the bomb flying. This crude device, by itself, killed twenty-nine people. The second happened in Washington D.C. rather than in New York; the bus on which the bomber travelled was meant to take him to the Dulles International Airport. Yet, when a police officer boarded the bus, the bomber panicked and detonated the device. Nineteen more people died in that moment.

The third attack happened in New York like the first. Grand Central Station was the target for the three men sent here. Armed with AK-74s, grenades and suicide vests, they jumped out of a car and charged through the main doors of the station, firing at passers by as they went. Dozens of people fell in a hail of gunfire, as civilians scattered, running for their lives. Thirty-five people were shot dead as they struggled to escape. Then the first bomber detonated his suicide vest, killing another six people. The second attacker was tackled to the ground by a newspaper seller who happened to be passing by during the attack; though the civilian didn’t stop the bomb from going off, the device killed only him and the suicide bomber. The third attacker, still firing his AK-74, was shot dead by police, his bomb failing to detonate.

The fourth, fifth and sixth explosions occurred in Baltimore and Philadelphia. A train station in the former city was attacked by a lone suicide bomber with an assault rifle first, and then with a bomb. Sixteen people were killed. In Philadelphia, two massive explosions occurred on two busses in the city, killing another twenty civilians. Although the police and National Guard had been on high alert right before the attacks, they’d been unable to prevent them, and the deaths of over a hundred people in a series of coordinated attacks.

The body of the Baltimore attacker was swiftly identified as that of Iranian-American Amari Mohktari. Mohktari had moved to the U.S. with his parents as a child in the 1980s, and the FBI raced to find out more details about his life.

On the evening of January 29th, two days after the attack, President Trump issued a series of executive orders to the National Guard and the FBI. From this moment on, Iranian citizens living in the United States were to be placed under “Temporary protective Custody” either by local law enforcement if they chose to cooperate or if not by federal forces. The Commanding General of the National Guard resigned his commission in disgust soon after the order was issued.

This order began being implemented that evening, as trigger-happy local law enforcement personnel began detaining Iranian citizens under the National Security Act. . Protests began right after the round-ups, reinvigorated as people from both sides of the aisle fought back against what was essentially internment. The policy was widely opposed in the Senate and in the House of Representatives, with Congressmen arguing viciously against the policy, Republican and Democrat alike. Except for a few fringe supporters of the President, dissent echoed around the Capital.

The courts had blocked the order within an hour of it being issued, however. By the time CNN and NBC were airing footage of the arrests, the courts had made it perfectly clear that the order was blatantly illegal, and should not be obeyed. The National Guard, for the most part, obeyed the instructions from the courts, halting the first wave of arrests.

This put the Military and the Courts in one corner, and the Administration in another.

Work was already being done to overrule the executive order within Congress. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan finally came out with an open attack on Trump, calling the President's policies "xenophobic" and "ill-thought."

On the morning of January 30th, an impeachment bill was introduced to the House of Representatives.

At the same time, U.S. forces in Iran received orders to dig in and face southwards.

[stevep]

   forcon

   Given the way things are going should we be suspicious about McCain's fatal car accident and the suicide of an opponent of the war?

   I'm a little surprised that actions against Iranians inside the US gets such a strong reaction from both the opposition and the final breaking of support for Trump on the right in Congress, given the scale of the terrorist attack. However something was going to give sooner or later.

   Ironic that the draft, which caused so much hostility will by the sound of it have zero effect on the conflict as none of the draftees will be trained enough to enter action in time.

   Steve

[forcon]

January 26th-February 4th:

An hour after U.S. forces in Iran were ordered to prepare for nuclear war, the unthinkable finally happened.

The order came not through the regular military command channels, but through an emergency network which needed less authentication than the regular one. Inside the White House Situation Room, President Trump was feeling increasingly isolated and distrustful of his generals. Although there were no enemy tanks surrounding Washington, Trump was falling into the “Hitlers’ Bunker” mentality, feeling that his armed forces had let him down and that he was losing control. It was believed that this was the beginning of his nervous breakdown. Trump’s emotional state was caused in part due to the stress of being a wartime president, in part due to his general unpopularity even amongst Republican Congressmen and Senators, and largely due to his age and poor health.

In the Situation Room, only Steve Bannon and Vice President Mike Pence – two of Trumps’ most staunch allies – were present when the order was issued for nuclear weapons to be used. The Navy commander carrying the briefcase offered little resistance, believing that it was his duty to obey orders without question. With the Joint Chiefs absent, the officer did not want to challenge the President of the United States on an issue of disputed legality. When the order was given, the head of Strategic Command flat-out refused to obey it over the phone, stating that the order was unlawful and he could not in good conscience go through with it. He was fired on the spot and told to expect a treason trial by the furious President Trump. His second-in-command was quickly placed in charge, and he, unlike the general before him, agreed to obey the order, passing it on to the ICBM silos.

Two ICBMs, Minuteman IIIs from North Dakota, soared into the air, streaming towards their targets. Russian and Chinese air defences went on high alert as they saw two ICBMs launch from American silos on their early warning systems. Phone calls by both Russian and Chinese officials were met with dial tones. The Chinese government came within minutes of launching a retaliatory strike before the targets of those missiles became apparent.

Half an hour later, two mushroom clouds arose over targets in Iran. The first target was Mehrabad Airbase on the outskirts of Tehran. Five hundred thousand Iranians would die as a result of this act.

The second target was, thankfully, more isolated. A secret communications bunker near Tabriz, believed to be where the Iranian military was coordinating the majority of its resistance form, was destroyed by a second Minuteman III.

By the time anyone outside of Trump’s inner circle and the few military officers involved in the decision knew what was happening, it was too late. Why had President Trump done it? He felt he’d had no choice following the New York attacks. He was buying into his own propaganda. In his mind, the enemy was evil and had to be destroyed no matter what. The stress of his presidency, the war in Iran, the attacks on the East Coast, and the impeachment bill had been too much, and he’d finally lost all control and ordered that the war be ended the only way he could think how. Pence and Bannon had disagreed with him at first, but, like the yes men they were, they’d been easily persuaded.

The first most of those officers in the Pentagon heard of it was when the mushroom clouds appeared on CNN. Almost immediately, retaliatory action was taken against American POWs by Iranian camp guards, with over two hundred being lined up and shot right after the nuclear detonations. Another forty-two were hanged by prison guards for their participation in the war, whilst the survivors would soon be made to wish that they’d been amongst the dead.

The Joint Chiefs, in the Pentagon, made several frantic calls to the White House which were ignored. Shortly after, on their own initiative, they made their way to the White House by car, arriving about half an hour after the two nuclear detonations in Iran. A heated debate occurred, whilst Speaker of the House Paul Ryan recalled Congress to take an impeachment vote and then give the President a trial in the Senate to remove him from power. As footage of the devastation occurring in Tehran flooded television screens around the world, not even the most staunch Republican would stand beside Trump after this atrocity. Already there was talk of a war crimes tribunal.

The argument in the White House ended with a phone call between the Speaker of the House and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. The line of succession was discussed, and Ryan announced that an impeachment and trial in the Senate would be held within the next few days. That, however, would take too long. It was clear from his mannerisms that Trump was suffering from some kind of mental breakdown right after his order to launch nuclear weapons. He could not be allowed to remain in office for a moment longer.

It was not a decision taken lightly, but shortly after the phone call ended, U.S. Marines from the garrison in Washington began moving towards the White House. Secret Service agents quietly detained Trump, along with Pence and Bannon, confiscating their communications equipment and ensuring that they were unarmed. There we no handcuffs or official reading of the rights, but it was clear to those watching that those three men were essentially being placed under arrest.

When the Marines arrived, Trump, Pence and Bannon were placed in military custody and moved to the nearest secure facility at Quantico.

Confusion reigned across the United States. Paul Ryan announced himself Acting President of the United States. Only the most staunch Trump supporters took to the streets in protest after that, the rest of the country being so war-weary that it simply wanted the situation to go away. The shame and the horror of what their President had done was beginning to dawn on most Americans, and there was also the fact that several foreign embassies had been destroyed by the nuclear strike on Mehrabad Airbase...

Nevertheless, by the evening of the next day, Trump had been formally impeached. His trial in the Senate, which would mark his removal from office, lasted into the night, with a cluster of die hards fighting on and calling President Ryan “illegitimate” and “treasonous” – legally, they were not entirely wrong, but Ryan had been forced to act. Otherwise there would have been no America left to defend.

Two days after the trial and final, official removal of President Trump from office, President Ryan announced the formation of an “emergency government of national unity.” Numerous figures from both parties were asked to come together to assist the Ryan Administration in restoring the U.S. to its democratic past. Pete Buttigieg, former Mayor of Indiana and prominent Democratic party anti-war protestor was floated as a nominee for Vice President of the U.S., to give the country a non-partisan government to work with.

A cease-fire was implemented in Iran only days later. It was not a permanent one, but both sides had suffered too much to go on. Iran wanted revenge, but the government wanted nothing more than to bring this catastrophe to an end. The withdrawal of American troops from Iran, along with the return of POWs would be the order of the day, followed by reparations for the damage done to Tehran and Tabriz and international assistance in rebuilding. For now, though, soldiers on both sides stared each other down as the Iranians plotted their vengeance...

[forcon]

The End:

In the days following the announcement of a ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran, so many developments occurred around the world. Discretely, a plot was hatched within the Iranian Armed Forces to release biological agents against U.S. forces. The plot never materialised, as elements of the army still loyal to the government stepped in and arrested the plotters. The ceasefire, whilst being immensely unpopular with many Iranians, still held. The Iranian government understood that, whilst it and its population desperately wanted revenge, the ignition of hostilities would only mean an American advance to the ruins of Tehran and across the rest of the country, probably supported by tactical nuclear weapons.

On February 6th, elements of the 76th Guards Airborne Division of the Russian Army parachuted into the desert outside Tehran, supported by fighter jets and attack helicopters. President Putin announced this as the deployment of a peacekeeping force to provide aid to the desperate people of Tehran. The Iranian government accepted the “generous offer” of Russian assistance, as engineers moved to set up supply lines so that aid from Russia could reach Tehran and Tabriz. International aid continued to flow in by sea, with many countries providing official transportation for NGOs that were flocking to the area to provide assistance. American troops in the occupied areas continued to face attacks by Iranian resistance fighters, but since these fighters were no longer aided by the Basij, their effect was greatly diminished.

President Ryan and his Iranian counterparts began their permanent peace talks in Switzerland. By the end of the month, a peace treaty had been signed. Over the course of two months, all U.S. troops would withdraw from Iranian soil. POWs would be exchanged after U.S. forces had withdrawn. During this time Russian intelligence officers who had deployed to Iran with the 76th Airborne had picked out three dozen Americans who they thought would be of use and covertly had them transported to Russian soil for interrogation. Since Americans captured by the Iranian military had never been recorded or listed anywhere, this second transfer of POWs, much like the earlier transfer of nineteen American prisoners to China, had been easily covered up. There would be discrepancies of course, but no proof would ever emerge of what had happened. The Americans wanted war crimes trials of Iranian officers who had tortured their prisoners, but this was a reality that was never going to happen, and the America ns weren’t about to risk putting captured Iranian soldiers on trial whilst the Iranians still held over 1,000 Americans prisoner.

So at the beginning of March 2018, U.S. forces began their march towards the sea. So much had been lost in so little time; in just a year of fighting, 45,000 American soldiers had been killed. Three times that wounded. President Ryan allowed the draft to be cancelled. Half-trained recruits simply walked out of their training barracks en masse, unwilling to fight a war even if they had still been required to. In the United States, a new wave of political turmoil occurred. Die-hard Trump supporters took to the streets in the south, protesting the coup which had bought down their idol; Police were told to act cautiously and not to provoke violence in an effort to avoid violence. Even so, three terrorist-style attacks were launched by Trump supporting die-hards. The Mayor’s Office in New York was damaged by a car bomb, and a shooting at a private school in Virginia killed several civilians, along with another bomb at a federal building in Montana.

Pete Buttigieg was made Vice President of the United States later that year, and narrowly avoided an assassination attempt himself. There was talk of putting President Trump and his cronies on trial; it would buy back some international credit, especially an international war crimes trial in The Hague. There were also domestic crimes committed by the administration; political assassinations, the cover-up of the true identity of the Los Angeles attacker’s identities amongst other things. Ultimately though, even after all he’d done, American citizens were uncomfortable with the idea of having a former President imprisoned. Trump was eventually tried for the cover-up over Los Angeles and sentenced to long-term house arrest rather than prison.

Internationally, the U.S. was done as the worlds “protector of democracy.” The final straw had been the destruction of several western embassies in the nuclear attack on Tehran. Whilst many western countries had withdrawn their embassy staff during the fighting, eight countries suffered deaths at the hands of U.S. forces. Reparations were paid quietly as possible, and the U.S. begged forgiveness, but the world had decided that enough was enough.

When U.S. forces left Iran in June 2018, the POWs were exchanged. 68,000 Iranian POWs were handed back to their devastated country, whilst 1,284 Americans were returned. This number seemed curiously low to U.S. intelligence. Although the truth would never be proven, there were far more American POWs than those that were returned. Back in March of 2017, 19 American soldiers, airmen and sailors had been secretly shipped to China. They’d been brutally squeezed for every ounce of information that they had, and then murdered, their ashes scattered far and wide. Another thirty-six American POWs had been taken back to Russia after the cease-fire had been signed and Russian paratroopers had entered Iran to provide assistance. That left 1,411 in Iranian custody. Those 127 Americans who remained in Iranian custody were kept their in total secrecy. They’d been kept back for two reasons; firstly, some of them were still of intelligence value, and secondly, some were kept back merely in case they were needed later on. These prisoners were the most hapless, being kept back just in case five years down the line the Iranian government needed something to bargain with.

With America’s international standing utterly shattered, the world changed dramatically. The U.S. withdrew into isolationism as Japan and most Middle Eastern countries kicked U.S. forces out of their territory. NATO dissolved, to be replaced by the Euro-Canadian Defence Partnership; this alliance was focused around defending Eastern Europe from Russian invasion, but it also was more principled that the NATO alliance had been. Its founders decreed that the organisation solely accept democratic countries and did not allowed human rights abusers to join; Turkey and Hungary were on the list of nations denied entry to the alliance as their governments became evermore authoritarian. The UK, France, Poland (whose government had been sternly warned about its declining human rights record) Italy and Spain became the beacons of European democracy even after Britain had left the European Union.

The Democrats won a landslide victory in the 2020 elections, with former Vice President Buttigieg ascending to the presidency after running (Paul Ryan had declined to run for another term due to the circumstances of his presidency). Whilst President Buttigieg would try to change the world back to its old order, he found the U.S. getting the door slammed in its face following the events in Iran. The world simply didn’t want America’s backing anymore. The new President resigned himself to sitting back and allowing the new world order to take shape in front of him, powerless, really to stop it. His few remaing allies didn’t want U.S. forces on their soil and the U.S. military was still recovering from the horror of the war in Iran anyway.

Turkey drifted further into dictatorship, whist North Korea eventually collapsed in on itself after a failed coup attempt in 2023. Chinese forces came in from the north and the South Koreans also crossed the DMZ, with the two sides meeting just outside of Pyongyang. The Neither country wanted to deal with North Korea’s wreckage, and so it was agreed that China could rule a buffer state north of Pyongyang, whilst the Republic of Korea would administrate a second state south of Pyongyang without fully absorbing the former North Korea until at least a decade in the future to prevent the economic ruin that would come from such an action.

China expanded its influence around the world, much like Russia. Putting a missile base in the Sudan gave China huge influence over the Red Sea. A naval facility in Indonesia put Chinese forces uncomfortably close to Australian soil. Putting troops into Karachi, Pakistan, gave China the ability to put more naval power into the Indian Ocean. Russia’s presence in Iran became permanent, even as the Russian Army rolled through Kiev in 2019.

Following the American nuclear strike on Iran, nuclear proliferation was rife. Almost immediately after American forces had withdrawn from Iranian soil, Iran began a nuclear program to build up a credible nuclear deterrent in secret. Saudi Arabia purchased six nuclear bombs from Pakistan in 2019, putting them on Chinese made-missiles as it endeavoured to build more. Turkey went nuclear in 2023, followed by South Korea in 2024. Britain and France, working under the guidelines of the ECDP, strengthened their nuclear arsenals, with a return to the thought of using tactical nuclear weapons as well as strategic ones.

Meanwhile, America sat in the background, withdrawn from an increasingly dangerous and chaotic world.

It would be another decade before the world began to trust the United States once again.