340: Chapter 340 The War of Eighty-Nine Votes

"We are not enemies," Greenberg looked into Abramovich's eyes, his voice gentle, almost elegant, "unless they choose to become enemies."

Two days later.

Washington, Capitol Hill. The Senate Chamber.

At exactly ten o'clock in the morning, the resolution to declare war on Persia entered a full floor vote.

The Chamber was packed to capacity. The gallery was filled with solemn-faced members of the House of Representatives, foreign diplomats, and media reporters, while the aisles were crowded with congressional aides who couldn't find seats. CN and Fox's live cameras were in position, the red lights flickered on—this vote was being watched simultaneously by over thirty million households across the USA.

The Majority Leader's speech before the vote lasted less than five minutes, but he quoted President Te's unfinished sentence from the Dallas rally. On the screens to both sides behind him, photos from the scene in Dallas and close-ups of the Persia documents left on the warehouse rooftop were shown in rotation. The cited intelligence source was noted as a "joint assessment by the CIA, DIA, and Mossad."

A tiny minority of senators who tried to issue statements of opposition had their speaking time strictly controlled to under three minutes. One progressive female senator held up a list of evidentiary discrepancies compiled by her team at the podium, but before she could finish reading her doubts, she was politely interrupted by the Majority Leader on the grounds that it "involved ongoing classified intelligence assessments and was not suitable for discussion in a public session." Another Republican senator with libertarian leanings, while being interviewed by Fox News before the vote, had just said "We need more time to review the evidence" when the live signal was cut to breaking news footage.

At 10:37 AM, the final voting results were announced: eighty-nine in favor, nine against, and two abstentions.

The House of Representatives passed the same resolution by an overwhelming majority that afternoon.

At 4:00 PM, the new president signed an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House, officially declaring that the United States of America had entered a state of war with the Islamic Republic of Persia. The signing ceremony was broadcast live on television. The pen the president used in front of the Lens was the one President Te used to use—this detail was meticulously designed by the White House Communications Office to create a symbolic meaning of "inheriting his legacy." After the signing, the president gave a brief speech, emphasizing that the goal of this war was to "destroy the regime that supports terrorism," "restore peace and stability to the Middle East," and "fully support our ally, the Squid Nation."

At the same time, the Pentagon issued an execution order to Central Command. Within an hour of receiving the order, frontline troops launched the pre-deployed first round of strikes within Persia—Operation "Persian Thunder" had officially begun.

Naypyidaw, the secret room of the Presidential Palace.

Zhang Cheng and Li Lanzhi sat side by side on the sofa, watching this global broadcast together. When the signing ceremony ended and the news anchor's audio track cut back to the studio commentary, Li Lanzhi reached out for the remote and muted the sound. Only silent images remained on the screen: reporters on the White House South Lawn were hurriedly packing up their equipment in the cold wind, and a photographer's scarf was blown away by the wind, tumbling across the grass.

She put down the remote. "Eighty-nine votes to nine. This is what they call democracy."

"The full definition of democracy should be an equal distribution of voting rights plus an equal distribution of the right to information," Zhang Cheng said slowly, his hands crossed over his knees. "When the right to information is monopolized by a few, the right to vote becomes a rubber stamp. This isn't a failure of democracy; it's the way democracy is bypassed—and bypassed quite beautifully. They don't even need to tamper with the voting machines. They only need to make the voters believe that the vote they cast is to avenge the assassinated president. The legal procedures were all in compliance, the constitutional clauses were cited one by one, and the War Powers Act passed during the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower era grants Congress the power to declare war—they followed it all. They just decided on the people within the process before they followed the process."

Li Lanzhi was silent for a moment: "What about us? What's the difference between us and them?"

Zhang Cheng turned his head to look at her. She didn't avoid his gaze. This question wasn't an interrogation, a doubt, or a challenge. She just wanted to know the answer. One reason he married her was that she would ask such questions, and at the most inopportune times.

"The difference is that we don't pretend to be elected," his voice was very low. "When the North Myanmar Joint Autonomous Region was established, I didn't hold a free election. When every one of my Death Soldiers was redeemed from the system, they didn't raise their hands, vote, or speak. They are simply absolutely loyal. This loyalty doesn't come from deception, but from creation. I created them, so they are loyal to me. But they—" he pointed toward the White House on the screen, "they created an information cocoon and called it democracy."

Li Lanzhi looked at the screen and said nothing.

Zhang Cheng stood up, walked to the map, and pressed a button. The situation map of the Middle East unfolded on the screen: in the Red Sea, two USA carrier strike groups had entered combat deployment positions; at the exit of the Persian Gulf, a third strike group was rapidly approaching; toward the Arabian Sea, the amphibious assault ship formation had completed its deployment, and the Marine Expeditionary Brigade on board was loading the last batch of amphibious assault vehicles. In the border area between Iraq and Kuwait, six Army Brigade Combat Teams were drawing heavy equipment from prepositioned warehouses. Satellite photos showed hundreds of m1a2 tanks and bradley fighting vehicles lined up in neat columns in the vast desert assembly area. On the tarmac of Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the belly bomb bays of B-2 Stealth Bombers were open, and ground crews were performing final ammunition checks. Their target coordinates had long been entered into the navigation computers by Central Command—Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant. Every coordinate corresponded to tons of bunker busters and cruise missiles.

On the other side of the map, the blue controlled zones of Gaza and Yemen remained still, like the eye of a storm.

"We won a round, making them suffer on the ground and at sea. Then they killed a president and started a war," Zhang Cheng said, his fingertip tracing over the light blue control line of Gaza, the shadow of his finger dragging faint static noise across the electronic sand table. "They will never give up the Middle East because the Middle East cannot be lost. It's their blood-making machine. From the overthrow of Mossadegh in 1953 until now, it's been seventy years. They've built countless military bases, propped up countless regimes, and fought countless wars on this desert. Every war is a loss, but the stock prices of arms dealers have never dropped. Because war isn't a business; war is a fuse. Without this fuse, the entire system would burn out."

He withdrew his finger and tapped twice on the edge of the sand table. On the tactical screen, new intelligence was scrolling and updating: a USA nuclear submarine had entered the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz, its specific location listed as top secret; the Northern Command of the Israel Defense Forces had issued a reserve mobilization order, expected to assemble two armored brigades within the next forty-eight hours.