Considering they were the guys who started this whole mess ITTL, what had become of Hezbollah's leaders as the last we have seen of them is that they were hiding in Iran? Any chance we could hear from them soon and whether they'd be caught or killed in the chaos of the final days of the war?
Bush vs. The Axis of Evil - TL
In the third chapter, one Hezbollah higher-up was killed by Americans and two were waterboarded, while Nasrallah and surviving top members escaped to Iran. It's similar to OTL Osama and Al-Qaeda fleeing to Pakistan after the Battle of Tora Bora during the American invasion of Afghanistan, and stayed there until he got hunted down in 2011.
Yeah, I was talking about Nasrallah and the ones who similarly fled to Iran when I noted Hezbollah's leaders were hiding in Iran.
Again, similar to Osama: Trying to survive in a new private life while hoping the location of their hideout isn't leaked.
Prigozhin by TTL 2002/3 is still Putin's personal chef and not a prominent military commander he was in OTL's 2020s.
Speaking of which, even if Sorairo has said the Iranian monarchy won‘t be restored, I wouldn’t be surprised if Reza here pulls a Simeon of Bulgaria (who was indeed PM of Bulgaria around this time).
I do see Reza Jr. attempt to become Post-War on Terror Iran's Prime Minister so as to improve the image of his dynasty. Few decades later, in case he's successful, there might be a refferendum on reinstating the Shahdom back to Iran.
There is a significant difference and that is that no one blamed the King of Bulgaria for the years of communist occupation, while there is a solid argument about how the stupidity and brutality of the Shah was what caused the 1979 revolution and therefore everything that came later is a consequence of his actions...
True. By the time the Red Army occupied Bulgaria, Tsar Simeon II fled to Egypt and then Spain while his government-in-exile, or specifically speaking Aleksandar Tsankov, cooperated with the Nazis ->https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_government-in-exile. It was unpopular among Bulgarians and have thus sided with Georgi Dimitrov, whom there had a republican referendum imposed by the Soviets in 1946 to officially abolish the monarchy in favor of Socialist Republic despite violating the Tarnovo Constitution ->https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1946_Bulgarian_republic_referendum.
In short, Iran and Bulgaria have jeopardized their monarchies for different reasons; Iran for stoking the fires of resentment, and Bulgaria for joining the wrong side of WW2.
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All Done in Vain
All Done in Vain
Extract from ‘Kim’s Footprint: How the War on Terror Changed Asia’ by Saeba Ryou
Extract from ‘Kim’s Footprint: How the War on Terror Changed Asia’ by Saeba Ryou
The Battle of Sariwon was the final battle the ROK and UN forces had to face before reaching the outskirts of Pyongyang. The North Koreans should, by logic, have simply retreated into their capital city like the Iranians did and bleed the Allies that way. Instead, in Hiterlian fashion, Kim would demand his soldiers (little more than Volkssturm units in many places with weapons probably as old as the Battle of Berlin itself) stand their ground and fight until the last. Of those who surrendered, it was generally the very old who could remember a time before the Kims, while the younger had gone their whole lives with nothing but fear beaten into them about what would happen if they disobeyed authority. If they could, the North Koreans generally tried to surrender to UN forces, owing to immense hurt among ROK soldiers over the loss of life that South Korea had faced. The North Korean soldiers found were often in appalling states when they were captured, with starvation a given, and often wearing clothes laced with maggots, black eyes from beatings by superior officers, stomachs full of parasites and tapeworms and more. Infamously, the regime used photos and videos of captured North Koreans in their own propaganda to imply that this was a result of the ‘American-run concentration camps’ they would be subjected to in case of defeat. As the regime got closer to its deathbed, it struck an increasingly racist tone as well, leaving out leaflets to South Korean soldiers that White and Black UN soldiers were creating ‘Half-breeds’ by raping the local women and that this was the future of a North Korea under ‘US-Rule’, in a desperate attempt to strike racial solidarity that had long since vanished.
This further annoyed China, who had played the middle-man in the torturous negotiations over the captured South Korean children that had been taken in the initial days of the invasion. This had provided China with an excuse to not entirely cut off the North Koreans, arguing that it would put the childrens’ lives in danger. Roughly 9,000 South Korean children, used to a life of Playstation, talking about the World Cup and Diet Pepsis, now found themselves imprisoned along the northern border of North Korea, subject to beatings, torture, and unfortunately sometimes worse. Though only 20 or so would die as a result of disease, neglect or violence, this was because the regime wanted to keep them alive as a bargaining chip with South Korea. Therefore, in a sad way, the children actually had more food security than the regular North Korean citizen, even in the army. After three meetings in China between North and South Korean officials that ended up with physical altercations, the Chinese finally decided to do business entirely by sending their own men back and forth in Beijing from the two Korean embassies.
At the same time, China made one thing very clear to the ROK and to the United States - they were told in no uncertain terms that thousands of Chinese soldiers did not die in the Korean War in vain, and that South Korean and American troops on the Yalu would be seen as an unacceptable security risk that would receive ‘An identical response’. The rhetoric of some American and South Korean politicians implying the full annexation of North Korea was met by the repeated and direct reminders from Beijing that this would be considered grounds for a war. Bush, exhausted enough already, agreed behind the backdoor while being ambiguous in public, but the South Korean Cabinet was staunchly divided between those who thought China was bluffing and the hope that China would help with reconstruction.
The plight of the kidnapped children was one of the first things on the mind of millions of South Koreans. Pope John Paul II released an uncharacteristically harsh announcement that ‘It is written in Scripture that those who trespassed against children represented the worst of sinners. To hurt a child is an act of the most visceral rebellion against God, against his word, against the idea of ‘good’ itself.’ Debates raged in South Korea about how to retrieve their kids, and if it was possible at all, with many arguing that they were probably dead anyway, or in a place where death was a preferable option, leading to many fist fights south of the DMZ. In November, after the deaths of several children due to bad conditions, China struck a deal that handed over children with medical issues or serious illnesses through China, though they were only allowed to stay in China itself to meet their parents there. An act of extreme pettiness that at least ensured some relatives (their parents often tragically had not survived to see these reunions) got to see their loved ones again.
At the same time, especially after the Megumi Yokota case, the plight of the countless captured Korean, Japanese and other citizens had come to the attention of the world’s media. This would also have some ramifications in the pop culture sphere. Both the South Korean and Japanese governments especially encouraged their citizens to focus on the kidnapped victims as a way to motivate them in the war, with a now hilariously dated edition of Shonen Jump featuring the major protagonists of the magazine taking turns battering Kim Jong-Il like the 1940s Looney Tunes cartoons mocking Hitler to encourage their younger readers to feel solidarity with both the South Korean child hostages in North Korea and to demand the return of Japanese citizens whom Kim had kidnapped. By early 2003, their back against a wall, especially after the Megumi Yokota affair which North Korea insisted was entirely made up and had nothing to do with them, the North Koreans finally accepted in their backroom negotiations to include all their kidnapping victims that they had taken. Among these were Reverend Kim Dong-shik, a pastor kidnapped in China for his religious efforts among North Korean escapees. As a result of his now being considered tied with the children, he was imprisoned alongside them in the same labour camp and became something of their protector against camp abuses, often volunteering to take punishments so that the children could be spared. The survivors of the hijacked airline Korean Airlines YS-11, Japanese women kidnapped on vacation in Denmark and many more were likewise thrown into the camps and gathered in one place so that another Megumi Yokota-style incident could not happen again.
With all this information in the background, it’s little wonder why so many South Korean soldiers treated the North Koreans with such utter contempt. However, after stern words between the Americans and South Korean leadership, the South Koreans reaffirmed their attempts to capture prisoners and more harshly cracked down on violence by troops against captured North Koreans as well as applying more civilian-considerate targeting protocol. This was resented by the soldiers but it didn’t prove too destructive, simply because so many North Korean soldiers (not to many mention often the only ones who were considered professional) had already died, though that didn’t even begin to tell the full story of the devastation that had been wrought behind the lines as a result of the war.
According to recent studies, the effects of the Black Winter alone killed roughly 1.5 million people in North Korea. In three months, about half of those who died in the thirty-six month Arduous March had perished. This did not include the deaths from the Second Korean War or the executions behind the front lines, this was just death as a result of starvation, disease or exposure - coupled with violent deaths as a result of the war it could be said that somewhere between 2 and 2.5 million had been killed in North Korea as a result of the war by the time the Battle of Sariwon began. South Korea and America have seen increasing criticism for their part in the famine owing to their bombing many of the trade routes into North Korea by rail. The Chinese, not wanting a refugee crisis on their border, vastly increased their anti-immigration measures and ordering anyone attempting to cross into China to be handed over to North Korea immediately, while North Korea simply decreed that anyone caught trying to escape would be executed. Many more died than successfully made their way into China.
The Fall of Sariwon on March 1st led the way open to Pyongyang, something that South Korean troops had fantasised about in some cases for decades. By now the UN armies were being significantly augmented by scores of American draftees and volunteers. Like in Tehran, the build-up period now slowly began to gather the forces necessary for the final push on what everyone knew would be the most difficult campaign of the entire Second Korean War: the Battle of Pyongyang. Recognising the symbolic value, Kim would announce he would die in Pyongyang with the city if need be and ordered every man, woman and child in the city to ‘defend Socialism until and with your final breath’. In perhaps the sickest moment of the entire Second Korean War, a conflict with many of them, North Korean soldiers would instruct mothers as to the most harmless way to kill their young children to ensure they would not have to live ‘the fate worse than death’ that would be a world without Kim Jong-Il - asphyxiation via pillow was generally the most recommended ‘solution’. Thankfully, it appears that few actually took up the idea in practice, though many would die in other circumstances.
And then, as if things could not get any worse, Kim Jong-Il would announce, “If the Imperialists are foolish enough to march upon our capitol, we will use every weapon we have such that if Pyongyang ceases to exist then the world shall cease to exist”. Concurrently, realising that there was no sense in holding back for a second longer, Kim ordered his commanders to finally release the full gambit of WMDs in the North Korean arsenal. On April 18th 2003 ROK and UN forces began to advance towards the Pyongyang area. Slowly but surely, as they got closer, some of the troops began to come down with bad fevers. At the same time, they increasingly seemed to be running into dead North Koreans with seemingly no trauma wounds anywhere that also didn’t look famished. On further examination, they noticed that these bodies were laced with black ulcers. Meanwhile, some of the sicker soldiers were starting to have sores develop over their bodies. Then, the horrifying revelation became all too obvious. After a quick investigation, it was confirmed on April 24th to the mortified world: North Korea had deployed anthrax.
On April 23rd, the advance on Pyongyang had halted to reconfirm PPE and vehicle resistance to WMDs (an extreme task given the number of soldiers South Korea and the UN had on hand), while bombing runs stepped up again.There were multiple voices in the Bush Administration demanding the ‘ultimate response’. Bush pushed back against it, trying to find another way. Luckily, he found a way to resolve the situation within international norms in a thoroughly abnormal situation. On April 26th both China and Russia would finally terminate all trade with North Korea, a result of negotiations between the two countries and America that America would not feel the need to open their own matchbox and would let the cancellation of all trade suffice as a suitable deterrent to North Korea and future rogue states in general. China and Russia were incensed at Kim for his opening of such a dangerous Pandora’s Box onto the wider world, but Kim was not deterred. He demanded the Allies pull back right away or he would unleash ‘The End of Existence’.
Immediately, fears exploded that Kim would unleash weaponized smallpox, the disease thought eradicated by modern medicine, and potentially kill millions, not only in the Korean Peninsula, as part of his insane plans. China very directly told Kim that if he did that then Beijing would not allow America the pleasure, and would gladly drop a nuke on Pyongyang first. Getting the hint, Kim would explicitly promise the Chinese leadership not to use Smallpox though he insisted he never planned it in the first place, which recovered minutes in Pyongyang prove were a lie and that he was planning on using it if the ROK/UN broke into central Pyongyang. In the West, the fear dominated cable news, with Fox especially hyping the threat of a smallpox bio-weapon that could leave, in host Bill O’Reilly’s words, “Tens of millions of Americans dead, whole states laid waste, mountains of bodies in the streets wherever you look.” The Bush Administration orchestrated an emergency vaccination production program to encourage Americans to take the smallpox vaccination, with the limited vaccinations quickly getting booked out. A large-scale production campaign began in South Korea, Japan and America especially to get people vaccinated for smallpox. Unfortunately, it became the genesis of a new Anti-Vaxxer movement led by now thoroughly disgraced professor Andrew Wakefield, who argued that ‘It would be safer to get smallpox than whatever they’ll give you in those needles.’ Wakefield and many conspiracy theorists alleged that the 'New Vaccine' was not the traditional Smallpox vaccine, but a new 'mystery goop' that was made to give the Republican-supporting pharmaceutical industry a payday - given that there were no substantial differences between the 'original vaccine' and the 'new vaccine', this was never taken seriously by any major institution. Owing to Bush’s association with the vaccine, the Anti-Vaxxer movement was generally stereotyped as a movement of the left, though it was more of a union of the conspiratorial right and left than anything else.
Anthrax and biological weapons in general had been forbidden with little complaint by most world powers owing to their utterly indiscriminate nature. While even a nuke had fallout and a wide range, the anthrax weapons case of North Korea resulted in inadvertent casualties among Japanese and South Korean citizens as a result of infected parties returning to those locations. Tellingly, it was not primarily these countries that suffered for the most part, but North Korea itself. Shattered by poor nutrition, starvation, godawful conditions and hopelessness, anthrax began to rip through the North Korean population, with the town of Songnim reporting civil collapse as a result of death and terror from the anthrax. The bombing of Pyongyang now picked up again, now without any form of trade coming through the north. Every car in Pyongyang was a target, since it was assumed only the elite still drove them, thus the streets were littered with craters to make the city impassable.
On May 4th, the Battle of Pyongyang resumed, with the South Koreans fighting amidst an increasingly toxic wasteland dangerous to the touch. The fight proved as viscous as everyone expected, with Pyongyang now mostly a mass of poisoned rubble. By now, with nerve agents, anthrax and mustard gas on the field, the city was increasingly being regarded as a no-go zone, but much to the anger of many in the Pentagon, the US was not using its nuclear deterrent. Bush insisted that Kim’s defeat in itself would be the appropriate deterrent, but little did he know, Kim was about to pull his final trump card. The final gasp of Juche as its wretched life was about to come to an end, ensuring it would go down as the most evil party of the Axis of Evil.
Extract from ‘Saddam’s Shadow: The Legacy of Baathism in Iraq’ by Michel Farooq
As the Battle of Baghdad heated up with Shia militias battling the Fedayeen Saddam and Sunni Jihadist groups within the city, the Americans redoubled their efforts to find and destroy the remnants of the Baathist Party in hopes of an early collapse of Saddamist forces. Naturally, this included Saddam himself, with every far off lead having to be followed up on, from pretending to be a shepherd in Tikrit to being a DJ in Istanbul. However, there were some genuine successes. The ‘Dirty Dozen’ an identified list of the worst offenders in Saddam’s regime was one by one picked off, with ‘Chemical Ali’ and Mohammed Hamza Zubeidi (a Prime Minister who made a habit of filming himself kicking already captured and rebels on the propaganda reels to make himself look tough) were both blown to bits in airstrikes in Ramadi. Taha Ramadan, Saddam’s highest ranking Kurdish member who proposed Bush and Saddam decide the fate of Iraq with a one-on-one duel, was captured by American forces and handed over (to the annoyance of the Basra government) to the Kurds to be trialled in Erbil.
But like a ghost, Saddam didn’t seem to be anywhere. He vanished from the airwaves, radio, any form of proof that he was still alive. He had last been seen on April 22nd 2003 in Tikrit but there was no evidence as to what had happened to him. In early May, American troops finally reached Tikrit. They had expected a bloodbath and came prepared, but to their astonishment, there was nothing. No Fedayeen, standard Iraqi Army, not even Jihadists. The people seemed quietly resigned to their new American occupiers and kept their heads down in fear. In this war, people had grown too pessimistic to be taken in by the fool’s gold of a bloodless victory, and so the soldiers started to ask the locals what had happened. The vast majority were too scared to say a word and avoided the US troops as much as they could. Someone who was also seemingly avoiding them was Saddam, as there was no trace of him, until a suspicious find was made on May 15th. In an abandoned farmhouse just outside Tikrit, the Americans found multiple dead Fedayeen Saddam soldiers, and one dead JTJ jihadist in positions that seemed to imply the two parties were fighting each other. This was surprising enough, but why would the two be here at an abandoned farmhouse? Little over a week later, they would get the confirmation they sought.
On May 23rd 2003, Privates Mike Stoklasa and Rich Evans were searching a house on the outskirts of Tikrit, before noticing a strange, blood-soaked VHS tape left on a table, with a note attached to it saying, “For the American Invaders and their Basra dogs.” Checking that it wasn’t a trap, the two retrieved the tape and brought it back to base. Sticking it in the VHS player, the crowd that had gathered around the TV were thunderstruck by the sight that flickered onto the television: It was a knife-wielding al-Zarqawi and three members of the JTJ behind black masks, along with a bloodied, beaten and still alive Saddam Hussein on his knees. Addressing the camera as if he was right there in the room, al-Zarqawi pointed his knife to the camera and went on a rant (in Arabic) about how the Americans had been their fools and that they had allowed the ‘Mujahadeen’ to revive in Iraq. He went on to say, ‘First we will end the last shreds of the atheism of Ba’athism from our territory, then we shall continue with our true mission, which is to rid the land of Iraq of the apostate Government of Maliki and his apostate followers’. Intermittently, Saddam would interrupt and tell al-Zarqawi to shove the knife up his ass. Finally turning to Saddam, al-Zarqawi would use Saddam’s persecution of Sunni Islamist group’s as proof of his ‘atheism’, before finally declaring, ‘The era of Ba’athism in Iraq is over.’ Saddam’s last decipherable words were a recitation of the Shahada. The camera made sure to show Saddam’s beheading in explicit and brutal detail. After quick DNA testing from Qasay’s corpse, the blood on the VHS was confirmed to be that of Saddam.
On May 24th, after verification of the video’s authenticity, President Bush would announce that Saddam Hussein had been killed, ‘By the very monsters he had unleashed upon the Iraqi People. The liberation of the Iraqi People from Saddam Hussein is complete - now we will work with the new Iraqi government to create a stable, better Iraq.’ The sentence was unfairly taken out of context in many early internet memes to just imply Bush thought that Iraq was doing fine and that they had achieved their essential mission. The confirmation soon later from JTJ that they had beheaded Saddam shocked and enraged the Fedayeen Saddam who were engaged alongside the Jihadists, leading to a total breakdown among the Saddamist wing. The highest ranking surviving member of the Ba’athist government, Ibrahim Ahmad Abd al-Sattar, would officially surrender on May 29th 2003. Baghdad was officially declared secure on May 30th 2003, which would be considered the end of the ‘Iraq stage’ of the War on Terror (and the beginning of something new).
The video of Saddam’s execution was kept under wraps owing to its brutal content and would become a Holy Grail to early internet sleuths and investigators. Apparently, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad successfully requested a copy of it, and would become almost hypnotised by it, with family alleging it notably changed his psyche. The video would somehow find its way to the internet, of all places, on the 4chan /b/ board on December 3rd 2009, with the accompanying message, ‘I’m going to jail for this, so you’d better watch it.’ It was quickly downloaded before being taken down and now immediately disseminated around the internet. The leaker was never identified, much to the embarrassment of the US military. Needless to say, the video is a hard watch and most people are only aware of its existence without feeling the need to watch it. However, it is considered a necessary watch by many students of history, who see it as the official beginning of the Iraqi Civil War. Saddam’s body has never been found, leading to much speculation as to what happened to it. Rumours swirled that al-Zarqawi turned Saddam’s skull into a goblet but this is generally dismissed as a fantasy by serious researchers, who think it’s likely Saddam was just anonymously buried somewhere in the vast deserts of Iraq, rotting in anonymity. It was perhaps a fitting fate for a man who thought himself equal to a God, who commanded such exaltation of himself in life, that in his death he should be alone and forgotten, forever, after having been devoured by the very monsters he loosed on his citizens.
The Bush Administration’s salvo into Iraq had been perhaps its most short-sighted blunder, and of the four countries that American soldiers occupied during the War on Terror, Iraq was almost certainly the one who had the least to be grateful of in terms of results. While conflict had basically vanished from Lebanon, in Iraq it seemed guaranteed only to escalate. Even as al-Maliki walked the streets of Baghdad to joyful reception by the residents who were happier the fighting was ‘over’ than anything to do with the politician, the Salafists prepared in the shadows. They had taken out their long-term enemy in Saddam and had walked in through the giant hole he had left behind, opening the door to Wahhabism in Babylon. With Iran now out of the picture, at least the Shia-extremist brand of it, al-Zarqawi eagerly prepared for the final battle in the shadows. To him, the real war was only beginning.
Extract from ‘The Rise, Fall, and Rise of Iran’ by Zoreh Rahimi
The Battle of Tehran had proven even worse than American planners expected, with the death toll of the battle rising into four figures within the first two weeks. Roughly 25% of the casualties were draftees. The Azadi Tower had crumbled to the Earth, flat on its back like a beached whale riddled with artillery fire. The Golestan Palace was an open-air ruin. Laleh Park was a moonscape of barbed wire and shredded Earth. Perhaps there was only one sight that warmed American hearts - a collection of Muslim, Iranian-American troops whose parents had fled Khomeini had given his mausoleum a visit, where they placed a tiny office American flag stand above him as if to tell even his corpse that those whom he had exiled and impoverished had their vengeance. Khomeini’s body would eventually, by a decree of local Shia clergy, be ‘banished’ and while its ultimate fate remains unknown, the general consensus is that it was cremated and thrown into the Persian Gulf. Needless to say, Iran’s international airport, or anything else, is no longer named after Khomeini.
President Bush had, in his own admission, fallen into depression as a result of the conflict and cursed himself, regardless of the reassurances of friends or family, that he could have done something to stop 9/11 and stop this whole catastrophe from unfolding. He could look out of the White House and see riots almost every weekend, every once in a while a student would accidentally be killed by the police and a new outrage would unfold. Week after week he would have to look into the eyes of family members who had lost their sons, brothers, and indeed sometimes even their daughters and sisters, needing to reassure them every time that there was no other way, when he wasn’t even sure of it anymore. His approval ratings were not good for a President in war, only 40%, but while his own supporters (and most of the war’s supporters) were generally shy in their support and thought that even though the war was necessary that it wasn’t something to be happy about, the still divided but highly motivated anti-war group was drowning out the airwaves, and had the overwhelming support of young Americans who felt infuriated and personally betrayed by their elders for ‘sending them to die’ on top of a ruined economy to look forward to after the war. While there were similar anti-war protests in Britain, France and more, none were as intense as in America due to the added incendiary of the draft. Other leaders pleaded for America to do more of the heavy lifting owing to their own constituents' anger over the war, leading to Bush on more than one occasion snapping that, actually, America was doing by far most of the work in this conflict and that it was them that should be doing more. Personal relations Bush had developed began to sour, even with Tony Blair, who had to deal with a left-wing challenge in the Lib-Dems for their opposition to much of the wars being fought.
Onward and onward the Coalition army went into Tehran, with the Iranian army fighting to the last bullet before surrendering, and the IRGC not surrendering even after running out of their last bullets. Finally, after wrecking Tehran from one side to the other, on June 2nd, Tehran was officially declared secure. The Battle of Tehran alone had cost the Americans 8,000 dead (with 4,000 dead from the remaining members of the Coalition), making it the single deadliest battle the US Army had undertaken since Okinawa. A further 40,000 were seriously wounded. The Iranians had lost 50,000 men killed in the battle, with another 150,000 wounded. Roughly twenty-thousand Iranian civilians died.
The battle mind-broke both the Americans and Iranians alike. While much has been made of the American response to the battle in contemporary pop culture, it was likely the Iranian experience that was much more profound. As one Iranian army member recalled, ‘It was like we had woken from a beautiful dream, only to find that we had simply fallen asleep at the wheel of a now shattered car, with us burning inside’. The Fall of Tehran was a serious wake up call to the Iranians, to see their beloved capitol city in flames and now under foreign occupation in a war they knew they could not win conventionally. With vanishing support for the war in the United States too, the thought of a prolonged occupation seemed a fantasy anyway. Following the capture of Tehran, the trickle of Iranian Army surrenders became a torrent. One reporter recalled, ‘I remember seeing an image of this Iranian soldier, looking like he was late teens or early twenties, coming up to this slightly older looking American soldier, unarmed and saying in his best English ‘I surrender’. Then, as if the shame of the statement overtook him, he collapsed to his knees and began to cry. Then, to my shock, the American soldier dropped to his knees, holding back his own tears and saying in his best Farsi, ‘You have nothing to be ashamed of - none of you do’. I never thought that a war could bring two peoples together, but I guess I was wrong.”
At the same time, the war was a national trauma in the United States. The deaths of so many draftees shattered not just the families and friends of the deceased, but thousands who felt that Americans had lost an innocence that the Pre-9/11 world had which they could no longer reach. There was no triumphalism - the New York Times front cover reporting on the victory was simply a black page. The anger of the anti-war movement had grown tenfold, with many cities’ downtowns now seemingly shut down nightly due to the riots and protests. Some cities like Seattle and Portland fell into recession simply because the city centre became the sight of nightly battles between protestors and the police, neither of whom acted with all the responsibility they should have. Bush’s approval ratings cratered into the 30s, with some members of the Anti-War side of Congress like Dennis Kucinich demanding Bush’s impeachment mid-war. Forty percent recorded ‘strong disapproval’ of Bush, while Bush’s own support was soft.
Then came the news no one expected. In a speech from the Oval Office on June 4th officially commemorating the capture of Tehran, Bush gave the update no one expected: he would not stand for re-election.
Excerpt from President Bush's 'New Greatest Generation' Speech
“Since that terrible September day nearly two years ago, this nation has been pulled into a bloody and costly fight against the forces of evil. Against those who massacred our citizens right here at home, against those who have committed genocide against their own citizens and against those who have threatened the peace of the world. And in that time, the United States has defended the values for which it has always stood - of democracy, justice and the God-given freedom which we have been blessed with. It was a war that no one wanted, but one we cannot back away from now until absolute victory.
“However, the post-war situation, as we all know, will present its own challenges, its own dangers. We cannot liberate people from dictatorship, only to have their freedom sift through their fingers like grains of sand when we leave, only to return to where we are today. This will require tremendous focus, tremendous effort, and tremendous patience, all the while American families face challenges and struggle at home. Of family members serving their country in far off lands, bills to be paid, children whose questions need answers. And faced with those incredible tasks, both at home and abroad, I have made the decision that there is no time for the President of the United States to focus on anything but the unprecedented challenges that this country finds itself in. And as a result, I am announcing that I will not be seeking, nor accept, my party’s nomination for President of the United States for a second term.
“This has been both a simple decision, and a hard one, but it was the only choice that I could make. As the War on Terror comes to a close, and a world free of Hezbollah, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong-Il and Ayatollah Khamenei comes into being, a new world order needs to be created. A world based on the values of liberty, self-determination, and co-existence between faiths and nations. I ask for your help in helping finish this war, so we can bring our boys and girls home. And my successor, whoever he or she may be, will likewise deserve your support and understanding for the challenges they will face in creating this new world. But regardless of the challenges, we will still have the most reliable resource in the world - not our weapons, nor our resources, but the American people themselves.
“Earlier this week, I was talking with my father. He was part of the Greatest Generation, the generation that served in World War Two. After Pearl Harbour, he joined the Navy and fought in the Pacific. He was brave, and surrounded by men he considered even braver. I was talking to my father, and I asked him what he thought of our boys nowadays. How they compared to the guys he knew back in the 1940s. And he told me, ‘You know, they called us ‘The Greatest Generation’, but I think these boys are giving us a run for our money.’ He talked not just about the bravery, the strength and courage of the American boys and girls fighting overseas right now, but their compassion, humanity and sense of justice. This will be their legacy, as a New Greatest Generation. As it was written some two thousand years ago, and ever truer today, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”.
“Goodnight, and God Bless America.”
Excerpt from ‘Broken Dreams: How the War on Terror Changed America’ by Linda Reins
Bush’s announcement shocked many political commentators and threw the 2004 Presidential race into yet further turmoil. With Dick Cheney forswearing the nomination battle, a brand new fault-line opened up in American politics. The main contenders were Bush’s main rival in 2000, Arizona Senator John McCain, Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, and Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. Their policies for the War on Terror was little different, though Huckabee seemed more willing to play the Christian card and imply that the wars in Iran and North Korea represented ‘a need to fight Jihad and atheism abroad as well as at home’. McCain had the most credibility on the subject of war owing to his internment and torture by North Vietnam while his gung ho rhetoric was met with increasing scepticism by the broader public. Romney played for the most moderate contingent of the party, raising the spectre of a Wellstone victory being ‘Too high a risk to pick any but the most tolerable candidate’. But unfortunately, the one who made the most rash decision owing to Bush’s announcement wasn’t anyone in America at all, but a deranged murderer in the Korean Peninsula.
Kim Jong-Il, despot of a society where any sign of weakness was seen as an opportunity for others to take advantage of, was reportedly ecstatic when he saw Bush’s announcement, now more certain than ever that just one push was all that it would take for the Americans to surrender entirely. Warped not only from living in North Korea, but in being at the very top of North Korea, Kim was certain that the loss of life that America had experienced was finally getting to them. Kim had finally gathered the inner-strength to pull his final trump card. While he had failed in developing a nuclear weapon on time, he had succeeded in gathering a large stash of radioactive material. With Pyongyang already poisoned, he felt no hesitation in resorting to his final gambit - detonating a dirty bomb inside Pyongyang. With the final remnants of his most loyalist Juche footsoldiers to enact his final act of Black magic, his plan was to get the 'weak-willed Cowboy' to relent and call for terms, again supposedly with the ROK meekly falling line behind them. Though the nuclear reactors had long since been destroyed, nuclear waste did not vanish, and there was more than enough cobalt and caesium to consecrate the demonic brew.
On June 12th 2003, a series of explosions lit up the rubble of Pyongyang. Initially taking no interest, it wasn’t until June 13th when reports of radiation burns started reaching ROK and UN officials. It was that night in Washington when the news no one wanted was confirmed. Secretary Powell had to look President Bush in the eye and confirm, yes, that a dirty bomb or series of dirty bombs had indeed been activated in Pyongyang. Powell recalled, “The President sank back into his chair, before putting one hand over his face and whispering gently to himself saying, ‘Goddamn it’. At that moment, I wouldn’t have wished my worst enemy was sitting in that chair, let alone my friend.” To Bush, he had no choice. He had pushed off escalation as far back as he could, but this pushed him over the edge. He was now about to do something that would put an asterisk by his name in all Presidential texts for eternity.
On June 14th, President Bush would announce North Korea’s latest action to the nation, and to the world. He said that there was only one appropriate form of retaliation, and that it was coming soon. He called upon North Korea to get their citizens out of a number of cities, as one or more of them was going to be hit by a nuclear weapon. If there was anyone still left, that was on North Korea, not them. Global shock greeted the announcement, with stocks plummeting and many preachers saying it was the beginning of the Apocalypse. The Anti-War protests reached their loudest crescendo yet, all over the world, demanding Bush stand down on his threat. China and Russia publicly called and privately begged the administration not to open the nuclear Pandora’s Box. Bush, however, was dead-set. To Bush, his whole Presidency would come down to this, to prove that America meant what it said. If that meant he had to go down in infamy, that was enough. To him, hearing the first reports of radiation-exposure deaths in Korea, this was the only way. The straight and narrow where few trod and many strayed. This was ‘The Week the World held its Breath’, and the only time the Doomsday Clock was ever officially measured in seconds.
And for every night of that week, Bush said a prayer. “Please God, don’t make me do it.”
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Well, it looks like the grand climax of the TL is coming, especially as this is giving me "Al-Qaeda just nuked Stalingrad in DoR" vibes.
I assume both it and the USS Pueblo (whose fate similarly has gotten unmentioned) got blown up as a final f**k you to the Americans, unless @Sorairo says otherwise.
I am right up there with Bush when I say “Please God, don’t make him do it!”
God dam @Sorairo this update is just a string of Hope Spots and Tear Jerkers but then we get to this paragraph:
And you just punch us all right in the gut, you really are a good writer.
And This line:
And you just punch us all right in the gut, you really are a good writer.