Joel C. Rosenberg. Damascus Countdown. Tyndale, 2013.

Damascus Countdown is the third in Rosenberg’s trilogy about CIA agent David Shirazi. We have reviewed the first two. This is a solid final installment in the ongoing saga of the Twelfth Imam. A lot happens here. Even though the first two books focus on Iran, the third, while also mostly in Iran, switches focus to Syria towards the end. There is indeed a countdown near Damascus.

We meet most of the same characters as in the other two books. We did not read the books in order, but we did not miss much. Each book does stand alone, but since all three focus on the character who calls himself the Twelfth Imam, the Shiite messiah, this is probably not the volume to read first.

Muhammad Ibn Ali in the two previous books, The Twelfth Imam and The Tehran Initiative, has come on the scene, performed a few miracles, and has been declared to be the Twelfth Imam. He has also managed to unite most of the world’s Muslim majority countries under his authority. Even though the Twelfth Imam is not part of Sunni eschatology, most Sunnis recognize him as well.

Perhaps the biggest deal in uniting the Muslim nations happens in this novel. Yes, previously Saudi Arabia, home of the Muslim holy city of Mecca, recognized him. Now Pakistan will recognize him. Pakistan is neither Arab nor Shiite, but it is a nuclear power. The Twelfth Imam will have the two hundred or so nuclear missiles (the numbers vary in the novel depending on who is talking and for what purpose).

Ali has already declared that his caliphate will rule the whole world. The Great and Little Satans, America and Israel, stand in his way, but now he has the power to obliterate them.

Ali is quite clever, but also perhaps a bit paranoid, accusing loyal followers of treachery. As they said in France, revolutions devour their own children.

In the previous novel, we learned that Iran has successfully built between five and ten atom bombs and are in the process of mounting them on missiles aimed at Israel. Partly thanks to Mr. Shirazi, Israel and the United States learn where six of them are. Israel take preemptive action and destroys them. Not until Shirazi through several clever and dangerous plots learns the truth, does anyone outside of the top-secret Iranian nuclear program and the Imam’s inner circle know where they are.

There are some plot lines that continue from the first two stories. All Shiites respect the blind Shiite scholar Dr. Alireza Birjandi. He has done the most research on the Twelfth Imam and even the Imam himself respects him. However, he has a crisis of belief. Although Muhammad Ibn Ali is an effective and charismatic figure, there are a number of Shiite prophecies about the Twelfth Imam that he does not fulfill. Is he really who he says he is?

Shirazi, an American citizen but native Farsi speaker, is so deeply embedded in Iran at this point that he wonders if he will ever return home. While he is overseas, his mother dies, but he cannot come for the funeral. Many of the family friends and relatives consider him no good for that reason. To them, he works for a German telecommunications company. Certainly he could fly home from Germany for a few days. He also recognizes that he is in love with Marseille, an old family friend. We learn more about her background here.

But the countdown is in Damascus. The Imam is about to do something really big. Can the CIA or the Mossad thwart his plans? There are safe houses, disguises, covert agents from various countries, terrorist attacks, drones, fighter jets. The action does not let up.

While this trilogy is nothing like the Left Behind series (and better told in this reviewer’s mind), the author makes use of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish end times prophecies. This is a novel and a work of fiction, not a theological treatise (Rosenberg has tried that), but these things are in the background, perhaps having a hand in the events. See, for example, Isaiah 17:1 or Jeremiah 49:24-27. It’s like Clancy, Ludlum, or Brad Thor, but with a prophetic twist.