United Islamic Republic

In Tom Clancy's fictional book Executive Orders (published in 1996), the United Islamic Republic was a nation formed by the union of Iran and Iraq. In the book, the President of Iraq, assumed to be Saddam Hussein, is assassinated by an Iranian agent who was infiltrated among his bodyguards in the days of the Iran–Iraq War. The remainder of Iraq's military leadership is bribed to leave the country for Africa, and trucks and shiploads of humanitarian supplies arrive in Iraq from Iran immediately thereafter. The unification of the two nations takes place under a new flag that emphasizes their shared religious tradition.

It is eventually revealed that the creation of the UIR was a plan years in the making, conceived by Iranian leader Mahmoud Daryaei, who dreams for the "unification of Islam". His ultimate goal is to conquer the entire Persian Gulf and, over time, absorb Central Asia, thus creating an Islamic superpower with control of over half the world's oil. (India and China secretly agree to support the new superpower).

In the novel, the UIR eventually puts its plans into action by first releasing a biological attack (based on the Ebola virus) in the United States of America; then, believing the superpower crippled and incapacitated, it invades Saudi Arabia, hoping to conquer the entire Persian Gulf before anyone has the time to react. However, the UIR ultimately underestimates the U.S. military; its army is stopped by a reserve force of American armored and air assault units, backed up by the Saudi and Kuwaiti military. Once the UIR troops are defeated, President Jack Ryan ends the war by killing Daryaei with two smart bombs delivered to his home. Later books refer to this conflict as the Second Persian Gulf War.

Government structure

The UIR seems to be an absolute one-man dictatorship, ruled by the Ayatollah Mahmoud Haji Daryaei, who ruled Iran before orchestrating his country's merger with Iraq. Beneath him is a legislative body called a majlis, in which representatives are elected in proportion to population. A small council of religious figures, similar to the Guardian Council in real-life Iran, is also mentioned in passing. Fundamentally however, both of those bodies have little real power, as Daryaei's rule is absolute and he tolerates no dissension.

"Executive Orders " states that the majlis elections will be held within a year. However, since the UIR only exists for a few months, it can be assumed that this legislature was never fully assembled.

Aftermath

After the death of Daryaei, the United Islamic Republic collapses, and individual sovereignty is returned to Iran and Iraq. In the last chapter of the book, reporters state that Iran has a provisional government that is seeking diplomatic relations with US. The status of Iraq after the partition of the UIR is not explained, although "The Teeth of the Tiger" implies that the Iraq War does take place in the Ryanverse continuity, possibly meaning that the Baath regime returned to power in Iraq after the dissolution of the UIR.