A President's Promise: Mohebi Agrees to Operate
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Debbie warns Dr. Mohebi not to touch anything as he waits in the outer Oval Office.
Bartlet enters and delivers urgent medical updates about the Ayatollah's son, pressing Dr. Mohebi for answers.
Bartlet and Dr. Mohebi move into the Oval Office, where they discuss the boy's critical condition and Mohebi's refusal to operate.
Mohebi expresses his resentment and fear for his family in Iran, while Bartlet insists on the humanitarian nature of the mission.
Bartlet offers protection for Mohebi's family and appeals to his father's legacy as a science teacher, persuading Mohebi to reconsider.
Mohebi agrees to go to Baltimore and prepare for the surgery, marking the resolution of their confrontation.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Not physically present; emotionally present as an invoked authority — reverent and stabilizing in memory.
Raji is not present but invoked by both Mohebi and Bartlet; his identity as a science teacher and father functions as a moral touchstone that Bartlet uses to persuade his son toward duty and healing.
- • As invoked by Bartlet, to remind Mohebi of scientific duty and moral courage.
- • To serve as an ethical counterweight to fear that paralyzes action.
- • Science and teaching inculcate responsibility to society.
- • Moral courage in small acts (a surgery, teaching) leads to broader social change.
Calmly urgent — a controlled moral anger that channels impatience into persuasion rather than escalation.
Josiah Bartlet enters the Outer Oval, reads a note, confronts Dr. Mohebi with clinical facts, rebuts political objections, offers explicit protection guarantees, invokes Mohebi's father and moral duty, and orders the boy to be brought to Baltimore.
- • Convince Dr. Mohebi to examine and operate on the boy.
- • Secure the surgeon's agreement without politicizing the operation.
- • Protect Mohebi's family from retribution.
- • Preserve U.S. credibility and humanitarian standing.
- • The President has the authority and duty to define who is the 'enemy.'
- • Medicine and humanitarian action can and should be separated from geopolitics when a child's life is at stake.
- • Personal guarantees backed by state power can mitigate risks to individuals abroad.
- • Invoking personal history (family, teacher) can unlock moral action.
Implied desperation and political defensiveness — represented through the risk his son's survival poses to regime image.
The Ayatollah is not in the room but his political position and the danger posed by his hard-liners frame the stakes; his son's illness drives the diplomatic urgency and Mohebi's fears of reprisal.
- • Get his son a life-saving operation without sacrificing political authority.
- • Maintain plausible distance while accepting foreign aid via intermediaries.
- • Publicly denouncing foreign interference protects political standing.
- • Private actions (through intermediaries) are permissible when survival is on the line.
Defensive and anguished; outwardly resolute but internally torn between professional duty and fear for kin.
Dr. Essan Mohebi stands in the Outer Oval and resists scrubbing in, enumerating abuses in Iran and refusing to 'aid the enemy.' He questions the voluntariness of organ donation and fears for his family's safety. After Bartlet's guarantees and personal appeals — including a mention of his father — Mohebi reluctantly concedes and agrees to go to Baltimore.
- • Avoid enabling or legitimizing a regime he regards as brutal.
- • Protect his family in Iran from retribution.
- • Ensure any surgery he performs meets ethical standards of voluntary donation.
- • Preserve his moral integrity as a physician.
- • The Iranian regime commits human rights abuses and cannot be trusted.
- • Performing surgery on the Ayatollah's son could be construed as aiding an immoral state.
- • Personal and family safety outweigh institutional or diplomatic pressures.
- • Medical ethics require certainty about consent and donation.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The delayed transport plane is referenced as carrying the critically ill boy; it functions narratively to create urgency and to justify immediate action and potential diversion of medical resources to Baltimore, pressuring Mohebi toward a quick decision.
Debbie's computer is active in the Outer Oval as she types and monitors information; it anchors the room's administrative reality, provides the physical moment when Debbie warns Mohebi not to touch items, and supports the flow of documents and notes that bring medical data to Bartlet's attention.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
Baltimore is named as the definitive surgical destination Bartlet orders — the tertiary city that will host the complex heart-and-lung transplant and the protective infrastructure the President invokes. Its naming raises the scale of the operation from isolated act to national-level response.
Smith-Lansing is invoked by Bartlet as the immediate medical staging area where Dr. Mohebi should return to examine the boy. It functions as the proximate clinical site that will host assessment and, potentially, preparatory intervention before transfer to a tertiary center.
Organizations Involved
Institutional presence and influence
Doctors Without Borders is invoked by Bartlet to vouch for the voluntariness of the organ donation and to provide moral and procedural credibility for moving forward with the surgery; the organization's name functions as ethical cover for the President's appeal.
The Swiss Embassy is invoked as the neutral diplomatic intermediary capable of making guarantees and preserving distance between Tehran and Western actors; Bartlet cites 'the Swiss' as part of the protective assurance for Mohebi and his family.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Abbey Bartlet's assertion of a doctor's ethical obligation informs Bartlet's argument to Dr. Mohebi about the moral necessity of the surgery."
"Abbey Bartlet's assertion of a doctor's ethical obligation informs Bartlet's argument to Dr. Mohebi about the moral necessity of the surgery."
"Bartlet's refusal to politicize the transplant mission is mirrored in his personal appeal to Dr. Mohebi, emphasizing humanitarianism over politics."
"Bartlet's refusal to politicize the transplant mission is mirrored in his personal appeal to Dr. Mohebi, emphasizing humanitarianism over politics."
"Bartlet's successful persuasion of Dr. Mohebi directly leads to the surgery being performed on the Ayatollah's son."
"Bartlet's successful persuasion of Dr. Mohebi directly leads to the surgery being performed on the Ayatollah's son."
Key Dialogue
"MOHEBI: "I won't aid the enemy.""
"BARTLET: "I'll use every power of the office to protect you and your family, of course I will.""
"MOHEBI: "It's not your family that's still there. My family's there. If the procedure isn't successful...""