President Bush and I don’t get to spend much quality time together. I go to Camp David for the occasional peace talks, but it’s always work and no play. You give me Lebanon’s south I give you Iraq’s north, you reconstruct Beirut I wreck Basra then we switch – that sort of thing. But I don’t know what football team he roots for. I don’t even know where he keeps his famed stamp collection. We sat together once at the dinner table and as I tucked into my pesce lesso, George turned to me and said, “The thing is, you never know what your history is going to be until long after you’re gone. To which I answered, “And you never know what you’ve done until you’ve done it. The profundity of that brief exchange precluded any small talk. So we sat for the rest of the night in silence.
George was going to call. I just knew it. Now that I had Nellie, the president had no choice but to suck up to me. He might even give Yuri the Karkuk contract he was unfairly denied. It was only a matter of time.
A few days ago, I was driving to the beach to show Nellie the new cities we have on the north coast, some of which would be good landing sites for a UN force intervening under Chapter 7. Others are utterly unsuitable and we should be ashamed of them. Living in a region where countries get invaded every other month comes with certain responsibilities. What do we say to the world media when they arrive by the thousands to send live footage of the tragedy? What excuse do we have? “Sorry, we didn’t think they were invading this year? How pathetic!
Nellie examined one sorry beach resort after another and took notes in the pink diary I gave her. “That one is good, I pointed proudly to an earth-coloured resort done in countryside Mexican and she took a snapshot. Don’t get me wrong, but if you’re going to take on the world, you have to expect the world to pay you a visit. Every great country knows that. Ask France, England, Germany, or even the U.S. This is why they keep their shores clean and orderly. This is why I sell designer clothes when I am not dealing arms. Be stylish and be prepared.
Then the phone rang. “No, it’s not a bad time at all, Mr. President, I expected George to ask about Nellie, who started to fidget when she guessed who the caller was. But all he talked about was my D-Model fridge. A nice touch, I thought. Rumsfeld must have put him up to it. Soft diplomacy: break the ice, and then talk shop. But George wasn’t interested in ice-breaking, rather in ice-making as it turned out.
In 1910, General Electric produced an amazing fridge, which was designed by a French monk a few years earlier. Of the few thousand D-Models produced back then, only a dozen or two survived, and all are now owned by powerful people, including the president and myself. The only problem is they break down constantly. “You’re cooling is kaput? What a shame. I commiserated, waiting for George to come to the point.
George was really into his D-Model. His dad, he said, cooled Champaign in that same fridge the night he was elected, and ever since then that particular fridge meant a lot to the entire family. Now the thermostat wasn’t working, which for some reason George was blaming on the Iranians, my “so-called friends. Suddenly, he started blaming me for supplying the Iranians with shawls and turbans.
“No, I don’t think my turbans have anything to do with their attitude. I defended myself briefly before ending the call. George may be a great world leader, but I hate it when people badmouth my customers.
Nellie could no longer suppress her giggles. As soon as she calmed down, she started explaining. Twenty or 30 years ago, the Iranians bought the rights to the compressor technology that went into the D-Models. Iranian scientists found the mechanism so inspiring, that they used it to develop their now much-coveted centrifuges. Nellie went into some technical details, but the part you’d be interested in is that the feud between Tehran and the U.S. had nothing to do with Tehran nuking Israel. “Why would anyone nuke a ridiculously narrow strip of land that is self-destructive anyway? Nellie said. “And, it would be like killing the goose that lays radical eggs.
The whole U.S.-Iranian quarrel was about the D-Models. The Iranians have a franchise on fixing all D-Models, an immensely lucrative business, as it turned out. The money coming from fixing the D-Models, the Americans claim, goes into Muslim charities, which allegedly use them to stockpile hair gel and pesticides with the express purpose of eliminating the American way of life. In secret talks held between the two countries, the mullahs were adamant, “either we make all the centrifuges we want, or your president can kiss his D-Model goodbye.
“So if I talk the Iranians into fixing Bush’s fridge, the whole Iranian-U.S. confrontation would die down? Is this what you’re saying?
“You have two choices. Either you get the Iranians to fix the fridge and resolve the Iranian crisis. Or you get Hezbollah, who have the same technology, to do it and resolve the Lebanese crisis. Or you might decide to talk simultaneously to both Hezbollah and Iran, which would drive a wedge between them but defuse Sunni-Shiite tensions. Alternatively, you can get the Syrians to abduct a Shiite repairman from South Lebanon and send him to Washington, which would boost peace prospects for the Syrians but undermine Lebanese stability, at least in the short run.
“You’re good, Nellie. Do you by any chance know what football team George roots for?
