Eagle, I don't want to form an alliance anymore.

At 1 p.m., the Iranian regular navy dispatched its last remaining forces.

HMAS Sahand – a 1540-ton Alvand-class frigate built in the UK and commissioned in 1972 – is sailing at full speed from Bandar Abbas to support the remnants of the Revolutionary Guard that are under attack.

It was spotted shortly after leaving port by a formation of A6Es that took off from the Enterprise, and two A6Es each dropped two aerial bombs and one guided bomb.

As expected, the Sahand sank to the bottom of the Persian Gulf after burning for four hours. At the same time, another Alvand-class frigate, the Sabalan, also attempted to leave port to engage the enemy, but was hit by a laser-guided bomb from an A6E destroyer at the stern, damaging its smokestack and propulsion system, and was rendered powerless and paralyzed on the water outside the port.

In the following hours, all the remaining Iranian naval vessels—even those anchored in port—were sunk by the U.S. forces, and Iran’s missile positions deployed along the coast failed to break through the full-scale firepower of the U.S. Navy.

That evening, Tehran attempted to organize an air counterattack. Several F-4 fighter jets took off from their base in Isfahan, armed with air-to-ship missiles, to attack the US fleet in the strait.

However, these F4s had been flying for nearly ten years without original spare parts, and engine overheating, radar malfunctions, and avionics system flickering occurred. Two of the four that took off were forced to return mid-flight due to technical malfunctions, and the remaining two were shot down directly after being locked on by the radar of the F-14s when they approached the strait.

The Iranian sky and sea were quiet that night.

The world is focused on this, and everyone wants to know whether the United States will back down or send ground troops to invade Iran.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Late at night on December 18, Tehran.

Iran’s Supreme Defense Council held an emergency meeting at Khomeini’s residence.

The Revolutionary Guard ultimately had to yield to reality. Iran's domestic economy was already in dire straits, and public opinion was unstable. If it were to take a hard line and force the US military to land, the domestic opposition might defect!

Ultimately, a plan was drafted under the leadership of pragmatic leader Rafsanjani.

On December 19, the Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a statement:

"The Islamic Republic of Iran has demonstrated to the world its ability and determination to close the Strait of Hormuz by imposing war control measures on it."

This action, which forced the UN Security Council to pass a ceasefire resolution, fully demonstrates the strength of Iran's just stance. In response to widespread requests from the international community, Iran has decided to suspend war control measures in the Strait and restore freedom of navigation—but reserves the right to reinstate them if necessary.

The 44-day blockade has ended, but the story of Iran is not over yet.

In the early hours of December 21, two large explosions occurred at western targets in Kuwait City. One was a café near the French embassy, ​​and the other was an office building of an American oil company.

No organization has claimed responsibility, but intelligence agencies in Kuwait and the United States know who did it—the Revolutionary Guard's overseas operations division is using a terrorist attack to demonstrate that "failure to blockade does not mean the Iranian threat is over."

They will come back.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Now it's Moscow's turn to settle accounts.

On December 22, Ryzhkov chaired a routine meeting and laid out the assessment data from the Foreign Trade Bank and the Ministry of Finance on the table.

"From September to December, over the next three and a half months, our gas pipeline exports to Europe were completely unaffected. During the Straits blockade crisis, the panic rebound in international oil prices lasted for six weeks, with Brent crude oil surging from about $22 before the crisis to over $35!"

The additional revenue from our oil exports settled at higher prices over those six weeks was approximately $1.8 billion, plus the gains from the foreign trade banking system established before the crisis—”

He paused, looking at the numbers on the table, as if he didn't quite believe what he had just said.

"The total revenue over three and a half months is about seven to eight billion US dollars, while the expected loss from Saudi Arabia's price cuts in September to the end of the year is about six billion dollars."

He raised his head.

"We filled it in, and we even made a profit!"

The whole audience applauded.

After a moment's thought, Director Nian interrupted the sense of accomplishment that was building in the air:

"But I must remind everyone that the war risk premium is borrowed money that must be repaid sooner or later. Oil prices have already fallen after the blockade ended. Next year, Saudi Arabia and Iran will desperately increase production to raise funds for reconstruction, and the oversupply will be even more severe than it is now!"

What we have secured is a window of opportunity, and we must complete the industrial restructuring and export diversification within this window.

If we're still living off tensions in the Gulf three years from now, then all this work will have been for nothing.

On December 23, during a routine screening of signal intelligence, Director Nian discovered an anomaly.

Over the past three months, communications intercepted between the U.S. National Security Council, Israel, and Iran have been rapidly increasing in frequency.

Perhaps Israel is selling arms to Iran, perhaps someone in Washington is secretly contacting Tehran, or perhaps both.

This is tantamount to treason.

Just as many Soviet agents chose to betray the Soviet Union because they could not accept some of its foreign policies and actions, American agents also engaged in this behavior.

On the 25th, Soviet agents managed to contact CIA official Aldridge Ames. He had recently been transferred to the department organizing operations within the Soviet Union, thus giving Ames access to the personal data of all American agents within the Soviet Union.

Since Ames began working for the CIA, he had been a heavy drinker and suffered from depression. He told Soviet agents that he was disappointed with the status quo of American foreign policy.

Therefore, he would provide intelligence services to the Soviet Union after the Soviet Union paid a certain amount of money to repay all the debts he had accumulated over the years.

PS: The Soviet Union's use of tanks to suppress Czechoslovakia and Hungary and its invasion of Afghanistan shook the faith of many KGB agents. Many spies defected to the enemy because their faith was shattered, not because of the torture and money offered by the United States.

KGB Chairman Chebrikov immediately agreed to this great opportunity, and within a few days, Eldrich Ames received $5 in cash from the Soviet Union and began working for the KGB under the code name "Lyudmila".

On Christmas Day in 1985, 27 CIA agents located in the Soviet Union were arrested, including several long-time spies who had been a headache for the KGB's counterintelligence department for years:

Major General Dmitry Polyakov worked for the Americans for nearly twenty years, codenamed Top Hat;

KGB Colonel Alexei Kurak, under the cover of the United Nations, passed on a large amount of intelligence on Soviet nuclear weapons technology to the CIA;

There were also Valery Martynov and Sergei Motorin, two KGB officers working at the Soviet embassy in Washington who were spies...

Ames defected due to disillusionment with American foreign policy, coupled with alcoholism and debt, while the famous Soviet spy Polyakov defected due to disillusionment with the Soviet system.

The two superpowers each cultivated people disillusioned with their own systems, and then used money and ideology to weaponize them.

In a sense, traitors among spies are a byproduct of the system's failure.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

In early January 1986, Gorbachev led a Soviet delegation on an official state visit to the French Republic.

French President François Mitterrand, a Socialist who won the 1981 general election as a coalition left-wing candidate, is one of the few Western leaders in the conservative-dominated political landscape of Western Europe and the United States who has room for dialogue with Moscow.

However, having room for dialogue does not equate to friendship. Since the Soviet Union's intervention in Afghanistan, Franco-Soviet relations deteriorated sharply. Mitterrand repeatedly criticized the Soviet Union's human rights record in public, and French foreign policy wavered between Atlanticism and European autonomy.

During his meeting with Mitterrand, Gorbachev put forward the concept that Europe is the common home of Europeans.

The essence of this concept is a Soviet version of de Gaulleism: emphasizing the independence and unity of Europe, with the United States playing the role of an outsider in European affairs, while the Soviet Union and Western European countries are the true inhabitants of this common home.

“We all live in Europe,” Gorbachev told French television viewers. “We live under the same roof, although some people enter the house through one door and others through another.”

We all need to cooperate; we all need to communicate with each other in this house.

Mitterrand was more cautious in his wording, stating that "it is too early to talk about ending the arms race and easing the current situation in Europe before the United States and the Soviet Union make mutual concessions."

France would only choose the Soviet Union if the United States collapsed.

Such empty talk from both sides won't give the media any juicy stories; the subsequent press conference is the real highlight.

...

The press conference was held in the press room of the Élysée Palace.

As originally scheduled, Foreign Minister Shevardnadze was supposed to answer questions from French journalists on behalf of the Soviet Union, but Shevardnadze suddenly became "unwell" an hour before the press conference.

When Director Nian ran into him in the corridor, he was whispering something to his secretary in Georgian, and his expression was very awkward.

Because our foreign minister can't speak English or French!

Facing a group of French journalists known for their sharp and scathing remarks, Cheval de Nader was not confident he could avoid making a fool of himself.

His thirteen years of experience as a secretary in Georgia were completely useless here. The journalists in Paris were not Soviet cadres, and he could not dismiss them with "Comrades, we will study this issue carefully."

What should we do now?

Wheelchair! Here!

"Comrade Minister, should I go?" Director Nian's tone was suggested, but it was actually a notification.

Shevardnadze nodded with a sigh of relief.

When Director Nian entered the press room, there were about 150 reporters sitting inside. In the few seconds it took her to walk to the podium, the number of flashes was enough to shoot a fashion magazine spread.

After all, the mere fact that a silver-haired Soviet female diplomat wearing sunglasses appeared on the news was enough to shatter everyone's stereotypes about Soviet bureaucrats.

Director Nian took off his sunglasses and began speaking fluent French, which surprised the French journalists present, as they had never expected a Soviet diplomat to speak French so well.

"Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon."

Foreign Minister Shevardnadze is unwell, so I will answer your questions on his behalf.

I am Nadezhda Ivanovna Ivanova, Deputy Foreign Minister of the USSR. Before we begin, I have a request—

Please reduce the frequency of your flashes. My eyes are quite sensitive to bright light. If you blind me, the subsequent diplomatic negotiations will have to be conducted in Braille, which I don't think is in anyone's interest.

A burst of good-natured laughter came from the audience. Everyone assumed that Director Nian's silver hair was due to some kind of genetic disease, such as albinism, and that it was normal for his eyes to be more sensitive to light. Moreover, in the Parisian news circles, a sense of humor is a currency that is even scarcer than information.

The first question came from Le Figaro, asked by a middle-aged journalist:

"Ms. Ivanova, the General Secretary has put forward the concept of a 'common European home,' but the Soviet Union's role in this 'common home' seems more like that of an uninvited tenant—after all, you have hundreds of thousands of troops stationed in Eastern Europe. How do you respond to this criticism?"

The director maintained his smile.

"Sir, you used a very interesting analogy. But I would like to remind you that in this 'European Common Home,' between 1939 and 1945, there was a tenant who claimed to be the landlord who attempted to evict and even eliminate all the other tenants—"

And it was that country you called the 'uninvited tenant' that paid the price of 27 million lives to subdue that violent landlord, and of course, it was also thanks to the concerted efforts of all the tenants.

So if we're going to discuss who has the right to live in this house, perhaps we should first thank the 'neighbor' who helped you save your house.

The room fell silent for a moment, then more flashes of light and more hands raised.

The second question came from Le Monde, a journalist who asked a question everyone was waiting for:

"The human rights situation in the Soviet Union—political prisoners, prisoners of conscience, dissidents... Mr. General Secretary avoided this topic during the talks. How many political prisoners are there in the Soviet Union? Some reports say the number is as high as four million. Is this number accurate?"

There are no four million. According to the Muda cosmological constant, it should be thirty million, and according to the truth standard of the Old White Theater, it should be three hundred million.

"Madam, the total population of the Soviet Union was 280 million. Four million means that roughly one in every seventy Soviet citizens was a political prisoner—if that's true, then the Soviet prison system was probably the most efficient institution in the world."

I suggest that governments around the world learn from our advanced prison management experience.

Historically, the number 450 reduced the value of this topic to zero. At that time, France had not yet experienced the later internet bloatware bombardment, and for everyone, the number 4 million was so absurd that it was not even worth discussing seriously.

Director Nian continued, "But to be honest, this number reminds me of a propaganda tactic."

Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels once said, "A lie repeated a thousand times becomes the truth." What is the source of the figure of four million political prisoners? Which research institution conducted the survey? Is there verifiable data? Or was it simply fabricated by someone and repeated so many times that people believe it to be true?

"The Soviet Union certainly had a problem with dissidents, as does every country, and I won't pretend it didn't exist here. But to discuss a serious human rights issue using such an absurd number as four million, I must say—"

This isn't news reporting; this is Nazi propaganda.

The reporter who asked the question blushed, because there was indeed no reliable source for the figure of four million; only heaven knows the truthfulness of what the US and the Soviet Union said when they were exchanging barbs.

The third question came from Radio France Internationale: "Ms. Ivanova, what exactly were the Soviet Union's objectives in the Gulf? Was it to protect freedom of navigation or to seek profit—using the blockade crisis to drive up oil prices?"

"The former was our country's objective, and the latter was the result of the war. We cannot use such a statement to smear and slander our country."

"Protecting freedom of navigation is our moral responsibility. Two Soviet sailors sacrificed their lives for this. At the same time, isn't it normal for an oil-exporting country to benefit from the rise in oil prices due to the Gulf War? The United States is also an oil-exporting country. Why don't you ask President Reagan?"

But let me ask you this in return—among the French journalists here, is there any who would dare to ask the French president the same question?

Is France's military presence in the Afro-Franc zone protecting the security of former colonies or protecting French economic interests? Can anyone tell me the answer?

The young journalist who asked the question was of Algerian descent, and the historical animosity between Algeria and France made him quite satisfied with the answer.

The press conference lasted an hour. Director Nian, with her wit, her humor, and her ability to walk a tightrope between diplomatic rhetoric and the truth, transformed what could have been a one-sided interrogation of a French journalist interrogating a Soviet bureaucrat into a dialogue that was rewarding for both sides.

The French media, in their reports the following day, unanimously shifted their attention from the meeting between Gorbachev and Mitterrand to the annual press conference.

Gorbachev was somewhat displeased, feeling that the leader's brilliance overshadowed him, but the meeting had yielded good results, and he couldn't say anything.

On January 24, the 27th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was scheduled to be held in February. This would be Gorbachev's first full-party congress since coming to power, and a stage for him to formally present his reform program to the whole party and the world.

One of the core documents of the congress was the new Communist Party Program of the Soviet Union.

The current party program was adopted at the 22nd Party Congress chaired by Khrushchev in 1961, and that program announced an ambitious goal:

By 1980, the material and technological foundation for communism will be established.

It's already 1985, and communism hasn't arrived. And the "potato and beef communism" of Mao Zedong's "potato and beef stew" only shows potatoes, not beef. Socialism itself is teetering on the brink of collapse!

That party platform is still written there, like an IOU that hasn't been repaid for twenty-four years, reminding everyone:

We made a promise about a future that we could never deliver.

The drafting of the new party program began during the Andropov era, with the Soviet Union's brightest theorists and economists spending nearly three years working together to answer one question:

What historical stage is the Soviet Union currently in? Where are we going? How do we get there?

There are three completely different opinions within the party regarding this issue.

The first group comes from orthodox conservatives who want to restore the classic definition of the present era—the era of struggle between socialism and capitalism.