Being Bad in Islamabad

Back in early 2018 I was trying to drive a start-up in the ammonia synthesis business. It was one of those strange gigs in my later career that is hard to explain in hindsight, but seemed to make sense at the time. The technology we were championing was potentially earthshaking. I do not make that statement lightly. Ammonia is arguably the most consequentially important industrial chemical in human history… the case for that is strong. The single biggest reason is that ammonia is the foundation of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer. Before the Haber-Bosch process (developed ~1909), agriculture was limited by available natural nitrogen from manure, guano, and crop rotation. Haber-Bosch takes atmospheric nitrogen (inert N₂) and hydrogen and forces them into ammonia under high heat and pressure. That ammonia becomes fertilizer. It is estimated that roughly half the nitrogen atoms in your body passed through a Haber-Bosch plant. Without it, Earth’s agricultural system could probably support 3-4 billion people. We have about 8+ billion. The other 4+ billion people exist on this earth largely because of ammonia. Industrial uses beyond food include explosives and munitions, plastics and synthetic fibers (nylon precursors), cleaning products, refrigeration (it was the dominant refrigerant before CFCs and is returning as a low-emissions alternative) and pharmaceuticals. And now, ammonia is now being seriously considered as a hydrogen carrier for clean energy (it’s easier to store and transport than hydrogen gas, and can be “cracked” back into hydrogen at the destination). Green ammonia as a cornerstone of future energy infrastructure was what our start-up was all about, using an electrochemical process. Few chemicals sit at the intersection of food, energy, war, and climate the way ammonia does, and the Middle East is a central venue for ammonia due to phosphate and oil resources that are plentiful in the region.

One of the countries very interested in our process was Pakistan. They had nationalized a few of the old Haber-Bosch plants set up by big multinationals like Exxon and given the passage of time, they were looking to upgrade to stay in the hunt for this critical chemical resources. We had a connection through the ex and, at the time, future Pakistani ambassador to the UN. He got us a series of meetings in Pakistan to pitch our project and seek a funding partnership with the Pakistani government. We started with some business meetings in Karachi, then went to a large Haber-Bosch plant in Punjab, where we had to be escorted by AK47-toting escorts…just to be safe. The trip then took us to Islamabad, where we me with one of the Generals who was the power behind the civilian government. Let’s be clear, the military doesn’t technically run the country…but then again, it calls a lot of the shots for many decisions due to their control of major foundations and a large segment of the Pakistani economy. as the head of our little delegation, I was seated to the left of the Generalissimo and I pitched my heart out, describing the benefits of our electrochemical process and the science behind it (or what we believed was the science), then talking about the benefits to Pakistan in partnering with us to put them on the leading edge of the technology, and finally to ask for the funding commitment to set up a pilot plant and buy the old Haber-Bosch plant in the center of the country. The good news was that General Big-Wheel agreed to make the investment and sealed the deal by handing me a silver statue of a ram that was about a foot tall and in a plexiglass box. The ram is not a national symbol of Pakistan, but it seemed to be some special symbol for the military junta. From my perspective, the silver ram was supposed to be a symbol of our partnership, but that never came to pass. It seems in Islamabad, a man’s word may or may not be his bond. We never heard from the General again.

When I heard about the big J.D. Vance trip to Islamabad last weekend to meet and negotiate with the Iranians, it was hard not to harken back to my trip just eight years ago. The palaces and meeting halls look the same. The cast of characters from the Pakistani diplomatic community looked very similar (who knows if it was the same guys or not) and the disingenuous nature of the whole affair felt very familiar. I have done a good deal of good business in the Arab Middle East, but there is something about the Iranian Plateau to the east of the Persian Gulf. The Persian Plateau is one of the most consequential pieces of real estate in human history. It’s a vast elevated landmass stretching roughly across modern Iran, Afghanistan, and parts of Pakistan, flanked by the Zagros mountains to the west, the Elburz to the north, and fading into Central Asia to the east. The plateau has been inhabited since at least the Middle Paleolithic Era with Neanderthal remains found in the Zagros caves. The plateau sits at a crossroads where the Fertile Crescent’s agricultural revolution met the pastoral cultures of Central Asia. Elam, Sumeria, Bablyon…these are the names that come from these Mesopotamian civilizations for nearly three millennia. The advent of Islam over the following centuries, combined with the Caliphates of Persia produced an extraordinary cultural flowering but the Mongol invasion by Genghis Khan in 1220 was one of history’s great demographic catastrophes for the plateau. Cities like Nishapur, Merv, and Herat — among the world’s largest and most sophisticated — were essentially annihilated. Population estimates suggest Iran lost half to two-thirds of its population. The irrigation infrastructure that had sustained civilization for millennia was destroyed and in some areas never fully recovered. The Safavid dynasty is the pivot that created modern Iran in its essential form. Shah Ismail I conquered the plateau and made Twelver Shia Islam the compulsory state religion — a decision with enormous consequences that permanently differentiated Iran from the surrounding Sunni Ottoman Empire. It created the sectarian geography of the Middle East that persists today. It created a distinct Iranian national-religious identity fusing Shia Islam with Persian culture, and yet setting up the rest of the Plateau with a Shia/Sunni rift.

The through-line across all of this is remarkable: the Persian Plateau has been conquered repeatedly, by Alexander, Arabs, Turks, Mongols, and has absorbed or outlasted every conqueror while maintaining a continuous cultural identity stretching back over three millennia. That civilizational resilience is itself one of history’s most striking phenomena…and despite the tenuous Pakistani/Iranian relationship and the Trump threats to end that civilization if Iran didn’t bow to Modern King Midas, it only took 21 hours to send J.D. and his two little dogs (Jared and Witkoff) packing with their tails between their legs…and yet the civilization has amazingly persisted for a few more days. Meanwhile, while the mice were away in Islamabad parlaying with Islam, the cat in D.C. was busy being Christ the Redeemer by putting Pope Leo in his place and having himself depicted on Truth Social as the Savior himself…with Pete Hegseth and his Angels of War backing him up. It turns out there was worse shit going on than J.D. being bad in Islamabad.

Pope Leo

Pete Hegseth