The president paused to gather his thoughts, then continued. “A nuclear Iran may well prompt other nations in the Mideast to go nuclear. Iran’s leaders are unstable men. Ahmadinejad is a megalomaniac, and God whispers to Khamenei. It’s within the realm of possibility that they could go on a nuclear jihad to wipe out Israel and conquer the Middle East.”

“We can’t attack those nuclear sites,” Schulz said. “If we do, we are likely to release a cloud of radioactivity that will drift God knows where. The Israelis did it and got away with it, but if we do it, the political fallout in this country will be awe-inspiring. Every tree-hugger, green weenie, peacenik and left-wing radical between Canada and Mexico will go ballistic. The firestorm will be even worse in the Middle East; it’ll bring down every pro-Western government, shatter the Middle East like Humpty Dumpty. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men won’t be able to put the Middle East back together, not in our lifetimes.”

The president glanced at Schulz, measuring him, perhaps. “No doubt you’re right,” he said, “but I’m not going to sit on my thumb doing nothing while those religious crackpots nuke Israel. When we know precisely what the threat is and how much time we have, then we can figure out the best way to get this mess unscrewed.”

“How much time do we have?” Sal Molina asked the CIA director, who was frowning at his cereal, which tasted, Wilkins thought, like ground-up cardboard.

“I don’t know,” Wilkins said. “Six months, a year, two years…” He shrugged. “Getting good intelligence out of Tehran is extremely difficult.”

“We need it in spades this time,” Jurgen Schulz remarked.