The sum of all fears - Tom Clancy [70]
"Really?" Ryan blurted.
"That does clobber one of your predictions, doesn't it?" DCI Cabot noted with a chuckle.
"How so?" the President asked.
"Mr President, arms sales to that area are a major cash cow for the Sovs. For them to reduce those sales will cost them billions in hard-currency earnings that they really need." Ryan leaned back and whistled. "That is surprising."
"They also want to have a few people at the negotiations. That seems fair enough. The arms-sales aspect of the treaty - if we get that far - will be set up as a side-bar codicil between America and the Soviets." Liz Elliot smiled at Ryan. She'd predicted that development.
"In return, the Soviets want some help on farm commodities, and a few trade credits," Talbot added. "It's cheap at the price. Soviet cooperation in this affair is hugely important to us, and the prestige associated with the treaty is important for them. It's a very equitable deal for the both of us. Besides, we have all that wheat lying around and doing nothing."
"So, the only stumbling block is Israel?" Fowler asked the table. He was answered with nods. "How serious?"
"Jack," Cabot said, turning to his deputy, "how did Avi Ben Jakob react to things?"
"We had dinner the day before I flew to Saudi Arabia. He looked very unhappy. Exactly what he knew I do not know. I didn't give him very much to warn his government with, and -"
"What does "not very much" mean, Ryan?" Elliot snapped down the table.
"Nothing," Ryan answered. "I told him to wait and see. Intelligence people don't like that. I would speculate that he knew something was up, but not what."
"The looks I got at the table over there were pretty surprised," Adler said to back Ryan up. "They expected something, but what I gave them wasn't it."
The Secretary of State leaned forward. "Mr President, Israel has lived for two generations under the fiction that they and they alone are responsible for their national security. It's become almost a religious belief over there - and despite the fact that we give them vast amounts of arms and other grants every year, it is their government policy to live as though that idea were true. Their institutional fear is that once they mortgage their national security to the good will of others, they become vulnerable to the discontinuance of that good will."
"You get tired of hearing that," Liz Elliot observed coldly.
Maybe you wouldn't if six million of your relatives got themselves turned into air pollution, Ryan thought to himself. How the hell can we not be sensitive to memories of the Holocaust.
"I think we can take it as given that a bilateral defense treaty between the United States and Israel will sail through the Senate," Arnie van Damm said, speaking for the first time.
"How quickly can we deploy the necessary units to Israeli territory?" Fowler wanted to know.
"It would take roughly five weeks from the time you push the button, sir," the SecDef replied. The 10th Armored Cavalry Regiment is forming up right now. That's essentially a heavy brigade force, and it'll defeat - make that "destroy" - any armored division the Arabs could throw at it. To that we'll add a Marine unit for show, and with the home-port deal at Haifa, we'll almost always have a carrier battle-group in the Eastern Med. Toss in the F16 wing from Sicily, and you've got a sizable force. The military will like it, too. It gives them a big play area to train in. We'll use our base in the Negev the same way we use the National Training Center in Fort Irwin. The best way to keep that unit tight and ready is to train the hell out of it. It'll be expensive to run it that way, of course, but -"
"But we'll pay that price," Fowler said, cutting Bunker off gently. "It's more than worth the expenditure, and we won't have any problems on The Hill keeping that funded, will we, Arnie?"
"Any congressman who bitches about this will have his career cut short," the Chief of Staff said confidently.
"So, it's just a matter of eliminating Israeli opposition?"