President Trump declares U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran a "war," targeting nuclear sites, missile infrastructure, and Revolutionary Guard commanders after decades of Iranian aggression—citing 1979 hostage crises, the 1983 Beirut bombing (241 U.S. deaths), and proxy attacks like October 7. Offering Iranian forces immunity or death, he urges regime collapse while experts warn of unclear strategy, War Powers Act violations, and potential oil price spikes. Iran retaliates via cyberattacks and Strait of Hormuz threats, with nuclear expert David Albright calling its bomb-making progress "recoverable but not imminent." Congressional opposition mounts as the UN Security Council convenes, framing the conflict as a clash between deterrence and unchecked proliferation. [Automatically generated summary]
Refrain from further strikes, give up their weapons programs, and cease the appalling violence and repression against the Iranian people, who deserve the right to determine their own future.
In line with our long-standing position, this is the route to de-escalation.
And back to the negotiating table.
Thank you.
And we want to hear your voice on the situation in Iran.
Join us later today on Washington Journal to continue the conversation.
We're live this morning and every day, starting at 7 a.m. Eastern here on C-SPAN.
And welcome back to the program.
If you're just joining us, as you just heard from the President, the U.S. and Israel have begun massive strikes on Iran that started overnight, our time here in Washington.
It is ongoing now in Iran.
There have been retaliatory strikes against Israel and U.S. bases in the region.
And joining us to talk about that and to take your calls is Elise Labbitt.
She is a global affairs journalist and founder of the Cosmopolitics substack.
Elise, thank you for joining us today.
Thank you.
Just want to get your reaction real quick to the president's address.
Well, I think it is the kind of address in some ways that the American public and allies around the world were looking for.
There was a lot of rhetoric, a lot of tweets, a lot of threats about taking action against Iran.
But, you know, the argument for action is pretty clear, right?
Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism.
Iran is amassing a nuclear weapon.
They have long-range missiles.
They're a threat to the region.
They're a threat to allies and to U.S. security.
But I think the American people are accustomed to a debate before, you know, we're going to war with Iran.
This is not, you know, a little pinprick strike and this is done.
Do we know that at this point, though, Elise?
I mean, it could be a few strikes and then it's over.
You know, look, what do we call, what do we consider war, right?
Is war when we spend a long time bombing somebody?
Iran is already retaliating in the region against U.S. interests.
So war is, you know, two countries fighting one another, no matter, you know, we had a 12-day war in June.
So in the sense that the argument, and he made his case for why he struck Iran.
But I think what Americans want to know, and I think what's been kind of lacking, is what's the strategy here?
What's the end game?
Is this just to destroy the nuclear arsenal that he said that we obliterated in June?
They did make a lot of damage.
Let's be clear.
There was a lot of damage, but clearly there was more work to be done.
Is the goal regime change?
Is the goal containment?
Is the goal just going after those nuclear missiles?
Each of those actions has specific risks and consequences and durations and resources that the U.S. needs to put in.
And I think this kind of reminds me a little bit of, you know, Raleigh.
He's got the USA hat.
He's, you know, really kind of trying to rally the American public and the troops behind this mission.
But what I think we also need to have is, you know, I would have liked to see him in the Oval Office.
This is a very somber decision.
It's the most serious decision a president could take to send military action against another country.
And he did, we can talk a little bit more about what he was saying about, you know, this is time for freedom for Iran, talking to the Iranian people.
So you did say, you know, you questioned, is regime change an objective here of the United States?
I mean, didn't he make that clear that this is time for the, and this is the only time for the Iranian people to take that?
He said it's time for the Iranian people to launch regime change.
He didn't say we're targeting, and he wasn't even talking really about the targets.
You've heard from Israeli officials a little bit more about the targets, and you see that they went after the Supreme Leader's compound.
U.S. sent to Israel a pretty good intelligence.
He probably wasn't there, and they probably knew that, but still, it's a very symbolic gesture.
I think what they're trying to do is get rid of as many generals as they can so that it's hard for the Iranian military to respond.
Again, we could talk a little bit more about what the campaign could be, but he wasn't saying the United States is seeking to get rid of the Iranian regime like he did say, although it wasn't really regime change in Venezuela.
He said to the Iranian people, it's time for you to rise up, when we're done, take over your government.
We're prepping the battlefield for you.
Let's see how you respond.
This is the time for action for the Iranian people.
Not for us, necessarily.
And, you know, history shows that military action in strikes and drones and so forth is really not enough to get rid of a regime.
You're going to need boots on the ground.
And I think the president has been pretty clear that he doesn't want to put U.S. troops at risk here.
Now, there were supposed to be diplomatic talks with Iran on Monday, day after tomorrow.
I'm assuming those are off.
I mean, I think they're probably off, but we had heard in the days leading up to the talks and the strikes that the president could launch a little strike to, you know, get the Iraq to motivate the Iranians, give them, you know, an incentive, the carrot and the stick.
I think the talks are probably off.
I think the president realized that the Iranians are not really serious here about negotiating an end to their nuclear program, and along with Israel, decided to make the decided to go for it.
I don't think this is about coercion.
I think it's more about deterrence and really eliminating the Iranian threat, which is something this president said he wants to do.
Well, Elise Labbitt is with us in the studio, and we are taking your calls.
We will start with Charles, who's calling us from North Carolina on the independent line.
Hi, Charles.
Charles, are you there?
Yeah, I'm here.
First of all, I'd like to bring about the fact that according to the War Powers Act, the president has 60 days to do with the military whatever he wants.
He has to notify Congress after 48 hours.
And there's nothing they can legally do about that.
Now, he can also have it extended another 30 days after that to remove the troops safely.
But these people coming on and whining about why Congress doesn't do anything, it's because they can't.
They cannot legally do anything for 60 days.
All right, Charles, let's get a response.
Well, you know, Charles has a really good point.
You know, there's about what he could do and has to do, and then there's about what he should do.
And I think he did notify what they call the gang of eight, which are the senior leadership of both chambers and the intelligence, foreign affairs, military, you know, the relevant national security committees.
I think he did notify them.
But this goes back to what we were talking about earlier.
And, you know, Charles raises the War Powers Act.
Is this a war?
Is this a military campaign that's going to be done?
Or is he looking at an extended deployment of U.S. forces in the region?
So far, this president has not notified Congress, sought congressional approval.
And he's not alone.
I mean, not many people in this modern age do.
You know, Roosevelt did before World War II.
Johnson did when he escalated in Vietnam.
President George W. Bush did when he was going to Iraq.
But President Obama, President Biden, President Trump have not really consulted with Congress in the way that I think Congress would like.
And I think this is not going to be enough for many members of Congress, including even the Republicans, I think, that are happy about.
I don't think anybody that understands the Iranian threat thinks that there's no cause for action against Iraq, but how you do it, how long you do it, consultation with Congress, what's the, again, what's the end game, what's the strategy?
So Charles makes a good point that Congress is limited about military action, but if this is a long-term war, then maybe he should talk to Congress and have more consultations.
Joanna On The Court00:05:55
And I'm sure Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, and others will be on the Hill this week.
On the Republican line in Akron, New York, this is Michelle.
Hello.
Hi.
Where to start here?
I have a few comments because it's relevant, but I do support exactly what he's doing for various reasons.
First of all, I remember the Carter years, and I remember Terry Anderson coming home and us all waiting.
That was one thing.
And Terry Anderson was one of the ones that was captured.
It was horrible.
And I support people.
I don't mean to be all over the place.
I'm a little flustered.
First time calling.
It's morning.
It's also morning, Michelle.
Yeah, that's right, huh?
You're telling me, and I've been watching this up for a few hours to try to find out facts right from the horse's mouth, so to speak.
People keep wanting to attack him for everything, and he doesn't want to go any longer.
And I'm no Trump lover himself.
You know, I do agree with the one caller, too, it's civics that she said it should be taught more in school.
And, oh, God, I'm all over the place.
It's horrible.
And we had the Lackawanna Six here, which was a problem, which most of America doesn't know.
But I guess I'm just trying to say the most common Americans are only having today's view or listening to gossip and cherry-pick different facts and stuff like that.
My point is, I am a little bit savvy in civics and global stuff.
It's just not coming out right.
People don't understand that Russia is part of helping fund Ukraine, which is indirect with that, or Iran.
And they need to be put in their place.
It's not going to be a lengthy thing.
I really don't feel it's going to be because of the way it's already set up.
And everyone's making more out of everything than it is.
Netanyahu and all this money grabbing.
All right, Michelle.
Well, let's get to a lot to unpack, as Michelle said.
And she's right about the civics.
Like there needs to, there is a big movement now to increase civics and about like the things we're talking about, like Charles said, or, you know, how does government work?
What are the powers of the Congress?
What are the powers of the executive and things like that?
I think that this president, more than most, has been very decisive about he doesn't make threats.
And if he says he wants to do something, generally he does it.
You know, there's a lot of talk about, you know, Trump chickens out.
But I think when he made pretty clear that he was going to go after the Iranians, and he's done it.
He hasn't gone after Vladimir Putin as of yet, but he has gotten much tougher and given the Ukrainian weapons that they want.
So I think a lot of people are going to be, I think the American people will be genuinely happy about this.
But again, I think they would like a little bit more than what they saw on TV.
It'll be interesting to see how the American public reacts.
Well, let's hear from Joanna Fresno, California, Democrat.
Good morning, Joanna.
Hi, how are you?
Good.
Well, I kind of got a few things to say on Iran.
You know, we need, in my opinion, we need the rural court to step in because I feel like a lot of things recently that Trump has done really constitute a lot of war crimes, you know.
And, you know, Congress, as far as the Republican Party, I don't feel that they're stepping in and stepping up and putting checks and balances on Trump.
I don't feel like they're taking their responsibility as part of Congress to tell and enforce their part of our Constitution.
I feel like it's whatever Trump says goes, and nobody is standing up to stop him.
You know, they're barely even starting to speak out.
But more so than that, I feel like the head of the state and the problem is our Supreme Court.
I feel like from the head down, we need to go and have an independent investigation on Roberts, Thomas, Barrett, Kavanaugh.
They're all in those Epstein files, but more so than that.
All right, Joanna, sticking with Iran, she mentioned war.
I'll just say on the Supreme Court, just to kind of put that away, I mean, I think we saw that with the tariffs that, you know, and Kavanaugh as well, like, you know, I think this Supreme Court feels very strongly about executive power, but, you know, they just snapped him down on, you know, the tariff.
So I don't think it's 100% that they're in, you know, a lot of people think that, you know, Trump tells them what to do when they do it.
I don't think that's 100% the case.
But on the Iran aspect and, you know, what she said, what Joanna says about, you know, world court, if you think he doesn't listen to Congress, you know, the ICC, I think when she means the world court, the International Criminal Court, the U.S. is not party to the ICC.
It doesn't accept the legitimacy of it.
In fact, when you saw what they did with Israel in indicting Prime Minister Netanyahu, they launched sanctions against the court.
Several people of the court can't even come to the United States.
So, I mean, I think, you know, we are where we are in terms of there are a lot of concerns about that the president is using extrajudicial power, abusive power.
And it's really up to, you know, Congress and the courts to, that's why we have those checks and balances.
And I think we're starting to see a little bit more of that.
And as we move towards November, and, you know, members of the Republican Party get a little bit more kind of self-preservationist, if you will.
And then after the midterms, I think there'll be a little bit more of the Congress holding him to account.
Shaping the Battlefield00:03:38
Here's an update from Idris Ali, a Reuters reporter, who says several senior Revolutionary Guards commanders and political officials have been killed in the U.S.-Israeli strikes.
What impact do you think that could have?
Well, I think it could have a lot of impact because don't forget they killed a lot in June.
And so what I think they're doing right now is they're going, they're shaping what they call shaping the battlefield, right?
They're launching a lot of strikes against commanders, against air defenses, against runways, all the stuff that the Iranians can fight back with and retaliate, including personnel and including strategists like commanders.
And then they're going to assess how much damage did we do.
We're shaping the battlefield for further attacks.
It doesn't have to be long, but this could be a pretty significant attack.
You did see that the Iranians were ready with a response, right?
They went after the UAE where there are bases in Qatar.
They're going after U.S. allies in the region where the U.S. has interests.
So they were ready.
They're also striking back against Israel, not significantly, and Israel has been able to intercept those.
But the goal for what's going on in this first day is for them to kind of open the door or break down the door and do as much damage as they can so that Iran can't come back and then go again.
Well, so somebody who is positioning himself to walk through that door is the former crown prince.
This is the eldest son of the last Europe right now.
In fact, yes, he is.
And what do we know about him and what kind of a leader could he be?
Would the Iranian people accept him as a leader?
Listen, I mean, he's a controversial figure and also because of him or because of his father.
Because of his father and the whole history behind the Shah's rule.
But what he has been is you've seen over the last many years, the Iranian people can rise up against their government, but there's no unifying figure in the opposition.
It's always kind of been leaderless, unorganized, headless.
And they've done a lot of, they've shown a lot of resistance to the regime, but there's never been this unifying figure.
It looks as if Reza Pahlavi can be that unifying bridge figure.
I don't think he's the future leader of Iran, Mimi.
But I do think he's someone that people can rally around in terms of this is someone that could get us to that next phase.
Kind of like it should have been Hamid Karzai ended up being the president of Afghanistan for quite a long time.
But I think that's how people saw Hamid Karzai after the war in Afghanistan.
He could take the Afghans from war to this next phase and help them rebuild.
And then, you know, Afghanistan was hopefully going to be a democracy.
We saw what that happened.
You know, a lot of people say that they like him.
A lot of people say that they don't.
But I do think he's seen as somebody that people can look to to see a future without this regime.
Why Iranians Don't Capitulate00:06:22
And I just want to correct something.
I do think that he's in the United States.
I don't know where he is currently.
Well, he was exiled to the U.S. after leaving.
Oh, yes.
And also, I mean, listen, he, I think today he may be, and I mean, I know he's been in the United States.
Look, he's been at Mar-a-Lago.
He's met with a lot of U.S. officials.
I think he's met with Steve Witkoff.
And I don't know if he's met with Jared Kushner.
He's in with, you know, he's in with this administration.
I think it's possible that the administration looks to him if they're able to do something that the regime is toppled.
And again, I think it's going to be up to the Iranian people to topple the regime.
I don't think that the U.S. is going to do an Iraq-like occupation of Iran.
You're going to need troops and what we call boots on the ground for that.
I don't see that happening.
Let's talk to Ray in Illinois, Independent Line.
Hi, Ray.
You're on the air.
Hi.
Yeah.
I'm watching all this and everybody is saying, you know, we shouldn't do it.
We should do it.
I don't agree with a bunch of stuff Trump does, but this one I actually do.
Because if you put Iran on the border of the U.S. and they have the capability of putting a bomb somewhere, everybody, in my thinking, would say we can't let that happen.
So I am in total support of this.
Other things, no.
But we've been dealing with this for, what, 40, 50 years.
And sanctions, we all know, look at Putin.
We all know sanctions don't work.
They find ways around it, you know, negotiations.
Oh, this, this, this, and that, you know.
And this was a good call to me around the world that when our president or our government says something and says you have a limited time to do the right thing, now they know that you have a limited time.
And if you don't do it, stuff like this happens, and stuff like this needs to happen.
I mean, we are the global peacekeepers, not Europe.
We are.
So, Elise, I just want to talk about the timing because, you know, Iranian negotiators are known to just stall and to use diplomacy as a way to stall so that they can advance their nuclear.
I will say that the Imani foreign minister and the Imanis were leading, kind of mediating the talks, was just meeting with the vice president yesterday in Washington.
And I think today he's feeling this is not a show of good faith.
But he was in the room and he knew the negotiations weren't going bad, going well.
I mean, Steve Witkoff said the other day, I don't know why the Iranians just don't capitulate.
I think there's a lack of understanding in this administration about the Iranians themselves and why they don't capitulate.
And why don't they?
I mean, what's the misunderstanding?
The regime's whole essence is about not capitulating to the United States, not capitulating to the great Satan.
It's regime survival.
Those are a little bit antithetical because if it's about regime survival, they would not want this.
But they also not capitulating to the United States is really ingrained in them.
And that's why I think The old Iran nuclear deal that the Obama administration negotiated in some ways was very artful because a negotiation is about giving each party something that lets them walk away feeling, okay, I got something here.
The Iranians got a lot of sanctions lifted.
They did destroy some of their nuclear material.
We don't know what would have happened if President Trump didn't walk away from that deal.
It's possible that the Iranians would be able to rebuild.
The Iranians clearly were not willing to do what the administration wanted them to do in this deal, which was a total capitulation, a surrender.
Well, here is El Jazeera English posting on X that Iran's deputy minister of foreign affairs condemned U.S.-Israeli strikes, saying they came during negotiations on a nuclear deal and cast doubt on Washington's commitment to peace.
He said Iran reserves the right to self-defense and will respond to what it calls aggression.
Let's go ahead and play that video that he posted.
Iran strongly condemns these aerial strikes.
From our perspective, they constitute a clear violation of the UN Charter, especially the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and prohibition of use of force.
Military attacks on Iranian territory undermines international law and threaten regional peace and stability.
Iran has always emphasized that disputes should be resolved through diplomacy, not through force.
You know, the timing is deeply troubling.
Iran entered diplomatic contacts in good faith because we believe that dialogue and diplomacy are the most responsible ways to reduce tensions and avoid conflicts.
When military attacks take place through diplomatic engagement, it damages trust and raises serious doubts about the commitment to peaceful solutions.
Iran's response is based on the inherent rights of self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter.
When a state faces an armed attack, it has a right to defend itself and its people and territory.
At the same time, we deeply regret that human suffering caused by for the human sufferings caused by this escalation.
Iran is wrongly.
And that was the Iranian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs speaking to El Jazeera English.
Iran's Nuclear Ambitions00:15:32
Elise Labbitt is with us, and we're taking your calls throughout the program.
We will go to Chris in Catuza, Oklahoma, Republican line.
Chris, you're on the air.
Yes, so I'm calling in as a Republican and something that I believe is believing is a strong national defense.
But I also believe that accountability is needed and clear objectives when it comes to military action.
I'm a younger person, so I grew up watching, of course, the aftermath of the Iraq and Afghanistan during the Bush administration.
And we were told that there were weapons of mass destruction that didn't ultimately hold up the way they were presented, which then led to a conflict that lasted for most of my childhood.
So when new military action begins, I don't think it's unreasonable for Americans, especially younger Americans, to ask for solid evidence, transparency, and a clearly defined goal.
If the objective is deterrence, that's one thing.
But if it moves towards a regime change, that's something that the American public has shown deep skepticism towards after the last two decades.
And when there are still unanswered questions in cases involving the powerful elites like Epstein, it contributes to a broader distrust in institutions.
I'm not saying that everything is connected, but when transparency feels inconsistent, people start questioning whether they're getting the full picture.
For my generation, trust isn't something that's automatic.
It has to be earned, especially when lives and long-term consequences are involved.
Elise.
I can't argue with any of that, Chris.
I think that this administration is very big on, we did this, trust us.
There's very, you know, look at what happened with Venezuela, right?
There was very little evidence about these Fisher boats, any of these people that they killed in those boats, who they were.
We just have to take it on faith, basically, and trust that this administration was going after drug traffickers.
I'm not saying that they weren't, but they provided very little evidence.
They said they had it, but they didn't provide it.
And so I think, look, I think on Iran, the evidence is pretty clear.
I don't think it's what they're saying in terms of the contours of the Iranian nuclear program and how far, you know, was it the president that said that Iran is like two weeks from a nuclear weapon?
That's not true.
How much do we know about that, though, Elise?
As far as the United States in general, our intelligence.
Intelligence is that they're still building their nuclear weapons.
They have a huge nuclear stockpile still.
They are working on what we call weaponization, which is fitting a miniature nuclear warhead on a long-range missile, an ICBM, if you will, intercontinental ballistic missile that could hit the United States.
They're nowhere near that yet.
That's not that they're not working for it.
So the threat, I wouldn't say the threat is imminent, but the Iranians are working on it.
And, you know, the Israelis have always said, we want to do it before the train leaves the station.
And clearly, President Trump is in that.
I think, as I said, I don't think a lot of people are saying that Iran is this innocent country that didn't deserve military action.
But I think, as Chris said, that transparency about what we're doing, why, what the end game is, what the potential consequences are.
President Trump wants to reduce oil prices.
Oil prices are going to spike now, I would bet, on Monday.
How is this going to affect your own prices?
What about if I have a person in the military?
Are you putting boots on the ground?
I don't think he is, but I think the Americans, as Chris said, are looking for that transparency.
They want to trust their government.
There are a lot of reasons why they don't trust this administration.
I think this is one where they could if the president were willing to have that conversation with the American people or have Marco Rubio or another people in his administration have that conversation.
Well, we are taking your calls throughout this program on U.S. strikes on Iran that are currently underway in the region.
Tehran is responding on U.S. military bases in the region.
And President Trump did address the nation early this morning.
This is hearing his comments in their entirety.
Short time ago, the United States military began major combat operations in Iran.
Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people.
Its menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas, and our allies throughout the world.
For 47 years, the Iranian regime has chanted death to America and waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder, targeting the United States, our troops, and the innocent people in many, many countries.
Among the regime's very first acts was to back a violent takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, holding dozens of American hostages for 444 days.
In 1983, Iran's proxies carried out the Marine Barracks bombing in Beirut that killed 241 American military personnel.
In 2000, they knew and were probably involved with the attack on the USS Coal.
Many died.
Iranian forces killed and maimed hundreds of American service members in Iraq.
The regime's proxies have continued to launch countless attacks against American forces stationed in the Middle East in recent years, as well as U.S. naval and commercial vessels in international shipping lands.
It's been mass terror, and we're not going to put up with it any longer.
From Lebanon to Yemen and Syria to Iraq, the regime has armed, trained, and funded terrorist militias that have soaked the earth with blood and guts.
And it was Iran's proxy, Hamas, that launched the monstrous October 7th attacks on Israel, slaughtering more than 1,000 innocent people, including 46 Americans, while taking 12 of our citizens hostage.
It was brutal, something like the world has never seen before.
Iran is the world's number one state sponsor of terror and just recently killed tens of thousands of its own citizens on the street as they protested.
It has always been the policy of the United States, in particular my administration, that this terrorist regime can never have a nuclear weapon.
I'll say it again, they can never have a nuclear weapon.
That is why in Operation Midnight Hammer last June, we obliterated the regime's nuclear program at Fordau, Natance, and Isfahan.
After that attack, we warned them never to resume their malicious pursuit of nuclear weapons, and we sought repeatedly to make a deal.
We tried.
They wanted to do it.
They didn't want to do it.
Again, they wanted to do it.
They didn't want to do it.
They didn't know what was happening.
They just wanted to practice evil.
But Iran refused, just as it has for decades and decades.
They've rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions, and we can't take it anymore.
Instead, they attempted to rebuild their nuclear program and to continue developing long-range missiles that can now threaten our very good friends and allies in Europe, our troops stationed overseas, and could soon reach the American homeland.
Just imagine how emboldened this regime would be if they ever had and actually were armed with nuclear weapons as a means to deliver their message.
For these reasons, the United States military is undertaking a massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicked, radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests.
We are going to destroy their missiles and raise their missile industry to the ground.
Will be totally again obliterated.
We're going to annihilate their Navy.
We are going to ensure that the region's terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world and attack our forces and no longer use their IEDs or roadside bombs, as they are sometimes called, to so gravely wound and kill thousands and thousands of people, including many Americans.
And we will ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon.
It's a very simple message.
They will never have a nuclear weapon.
This regime will soon learn that no one should challenge the strength and might of the United States armed forces.
I built and rebuilt our military in my first administration, and there is no military on earth even close to its power, strength, or sophistication.
My administration has taken every possible step to minimize the risk to U.S. personnel in the region.
Even so, and I do not make this statement lightly, the Iranian regime seeks to kill.
The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties.
That often happens in war, but we're doing this not for now.
We're doing this for the future, and it is a noble mission.
We pray for every service member as they selflessly risk their lives to ensure that Americans and our children will never be threatened by a nuclear-armed Iran.
We ask God to protect all of our heroes in harm's way, and we trust that, with His help, the men and women of the armed forces will prevail.
We have the greatest in the world, and they will prevail.
To the members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, the armed forces, and all of the police, I say tonight that you must lay down your weapons and have complete immunity, or in the alternative, face certain death.
So, lay down your arms.
You will be treated fairly with total immunity, or you will face certain death.
Finally, to the great, proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand.
Stay sheltered.
Don't leave your home.
It's very dangerous outside.
Bombs will be dropping everywhere.
When we are finished, take over your government.
It will be yours to take.
This will be probably your only chance for generations.
For many years, you have asked for America's help, but you never got it.
No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight.
Now you have a president who is giving you what you want.
So let's see how you respond.
America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force.
Now is the time to seize control of your destiny and to unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach.
This is the moment for action.
Do not let it pass.
May God bless the brave men and women of America's armed forces.
May God bless the United States of America.
May God bless you all.
Thank you.
That was President Trump early this morning from Mar-a-Lago, and we are taking your calls throughout this program.
We've got Elise Labbitt with us.
She's a global affairs journalist and Substack founder, the founder of the Cosmopolitics Substack.
Elise, real quick, a reaction to that.
Anything jump out at you from that address?
Well, we were talking earlier in the hour about is this war and should the president go to Congress if to declare, you know, only the Congress really can give the president the authority to declare war.
He just called it a war.
He said people could be killed, troops could be killed.
This happens in war.
So he's calling it a war.
And if that's the case, there should be more involvement by Congress here.
I think declaring, you know, this administration, again, kind of does a lot of things but doesn't do them by the book.
That's fine in some cases.
But if you're actually considering a country at war with another, you know, just the president can't be involved in that.
So according to the War Powers Act, that means he's got 48 hours to notify Congress and then somewhere between 60 to 90 days to finish up unless he gets authorization by Congress.
Right, but is there a declaration of war?
He just declared it in that speech.
All right.
And so I think it was also interesting.
The other thing I think is interesting here is about what he's saying to the IRGC, which is lay down your weapons.
You'll have total immunity.
What does that mean?
Does that mean total immunity from the U.S. killing you?
Does that mean total immunity from prosecution by a future Iranian government?
It's not really clear what that means, which he can't necessarily promise because the Iranians will have to make that decision.
I would say you're not going to see, you might see one or a couple of IRGC.
Generally, the IRGC is pretty militant and will not, I don't see a lot of defections from the IRGC right now.
All right, let's go to calls and we'll start with Glenda in Dallas.
Line for Democrats.
Good morning, Glenda.
Good morning.
I have had a time listening to everything before I came on, but I'm not going to be distracted.
Glenda Loves America00:10:54
I first want to say good morning, America.
I love America.
I love C-SPAN because they allow us to hear things all around what's going on around the world today, globally.
But my concern is I want to go back a minute to when our president, it goes back when he taken our embassy out of Gaza and put it into Israel, which allowed Israel to be able to bomb Palestine.
Wait, hold on, hold on.
We never had an American embassy in the West Bank or in Gaza.
We had an embassy, Glenda, in Tel Aviv.
And during his first term, the president moved it to Jerusalem, which was very controversial because that's technically contested territory.
And he was recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of an Israeli state when that's still an issue technically that the Israelis and Palestinians are supposed to negotiate.
They're supposed to negotiate.
But I did see that now, getting a little off topic, the administration is now issuing passports for West Bank settlements, which is quite interesting.
Maybe a topic for another day.
All right.
Well, go ahead, Glenda, with your comment.
Yes, that's my point.
I appreciate you correcting that because truth is so important.
And how Netanyahu has really treated, you know, is it Palestinians?
The Palestinians?
The Palestinian people.
Okay.
And like a dictatorship.
And he's now moving on.
They say he has bombed more people over there than anyone.
He's bombing.
He acts like a dictatorship.
And it's supported by the America, by our government, our president here.
And what really concerns me and amazes me is that how our president talks so much like a dictator himself, the way he has just started talking to Iran, like he has, when he has seemed to have favor, you know, like interest in the dictatorship.
And like Putin and him not standing up, Putin, him not doing more for Ukraine.
All right, well, Glenda, let's not get off the topic and talk about Israel's involvement in this, in the strikes and in the decision, if we know anything about the decision to strike Iran.
So let's go back to October 7th, okay?
And when that happened, that was the largest attack against Israel since the Holocaust.
And the Israelis said, we are not going to leave ourselves vulnerable again.
And so not only did they go after Hamas in Gaza, but they went after all the Iranian proxies.
They went after Hezbollah in Lebanon.
They went after the Iranians.
They went after Hamas, which is also less so, 100% fully funded by Iran, but still a proxy of Iran.
They went after the Houthis in Yemen.
And then they went after Iran.
So Israel really wanted to not just respond for October 7th and protect the border with Gaza.
They wanted to reshape the Middle East with a new battlefield to weaken Iran and its proxies from doing anything to Israel and to present a threat to Israel again.
And so they see this as their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to finish the job against Iran.
And so the Israelis have been wanting to do this for years.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has wanted to do it for years.
Unfortunately, it took something like October 7th for him to say, this is the time.
And Iran has never been weaker.
You know, we've seen the regime has been weakened by these protests, and President Trump is like, I'm going to help us on the way.
It's a little bit questionable as to whether, you know, how much this had to do with the protests or just gaining leverage for negotiations or what we're seeing now.
But Israel has weakened Iran and its proxies in the region significantly.
It used to be that Iran was the dominant power in the region.
I would argue that Israel is the dominant power in the region right now.
What about Saudi Arabia?
Because they have historically had a very big problem with Iran.
You know, one is Sunni, the other is Shia.
And they've said, you know, you need to cut the head of the snake talking about Iran.
What do you make of where they are right now?
Well, it's kind of a mixed message.
They definitely are not fans of Iran, although they have, I think it was China that helped negotiate kind of a détente between Saudi Arabia and China a few years ago, between, sorry, between Saudi Arabia and Iran a few years ago.
And relations have improved a little bit, and there have been some talks between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
They're getting along a little bit better, but no doubt about it.
Everyone sees the threat posed by Iran in the region.
The Saudis faced attacks by the Houthis in Yemen, which are supported by Iran during President Trump's first term.
And you saw this morning that the Saudis have made statements more in favor of the United States than criticizing this action.
I think the Saudis and all of the Gulf partners are not unhappy about the action.
They just want to make sure they're in the blast radius.
They don't want Iran to retaliate against them.
And they want this to be done in a way that minimizes the risk to them.
All right, let's talk to Keith, who is in Dallas, Independent Line.
Hi, Keith.
Good morning, folks.
How's it going?
You know, I've been listening to you guys all morning.
I've been listening to Alicia.
I've been listening to Gary, who called in before.
And he had a good point here.
Americans don't want another foreign intervention somewhere else in the world like we saw earlier in 2003 with Iraq.
Israel has been saying this for the past 35 years.
Netanyahu, who stood in front of the world at the UN in 2012 and told us that Iran was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons.
And 16 years later, even today, it's the same exact story.
I'm sure the Iranian regime is horrible.
And whatever adjective you choose to say that, you're absolutely correct.
Nothing good comes out of there.
But I do have to say, this president, he loves his tweets.
And one of the ones that I went back to was from October 9th, 2012.
Now that Obama's poll numbers are in the tailspin, watch for him to launch a strike into Libya or Iran.
He is desperate.
This president, the timing of all this, I'm not saying it's fishy, but it's right in front of you.
You know, I support the Jewish people and I support their right to exist.
But going after Iran in the fashion that they have and the U.S. joining along, you know, I just can't get behind that.
Well, Gary, you kind of are saying that it's fishy, right?
I mean, it's, look, I don't think the timing, we knew it was going to happen.
You don't, he's been putting all this man.
You don't put that kind of firepower in the region unless you're ready to use it.
So it was just a matter of time, I think, before he would use it.
But, you know, Gary makes an interesting point.
And this president campaigned on, I'm going to end forever wars.
You know, his base, this MA, I'll be interested to see what his base, the MAGA bait part of the Republican Party says about these strikes.
They don't want, and they originally were not so happy about, you know, the idea that President Trump would launch a military action against Iran.
But then after it was so successful, they were kind of supportive about it.
But, you know, there is a wing of the Republican Party, Trump's MAGA wing, that doesn't that is more, you know, this America first, more isolationist, if you will, not against very against foreign interventions.
I'm looking to see what what they say, what they say about this, because we can hear what they say on our airlines, on our president.
But President Trump did say, I'm going to end forever wars.
We don't know what the blowback of this is going to be.
Let's talk.
I want to ask you about that because El Jazeera is reporting that multiple Arab states that host U.S. assets have been targeted in retaliation.
It mentions Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE.
It says that at least one person was killed in Dubai.
It says that in Qatar, they have thwarted several attacks on the country.
And it says that Syrian state media reported that a missile explosion killed four people and injured numerous others.
Besides hitting these bases around the Middle East, what else could Iran do to retaliate against us?
Well, especially if the administration launches these devastated Israel launched these devastating attacks against the military sites and the missile sites and the nuclear program, Iran has a lot of what we call asymmetrical power.
That's not about conventional weapons or missiles or anything like that.
They're very good at cyber attacks.
We could see cyber attacks against the United States.
Iran are masters of disinformation and spreading through bots and stuff.
And we may not see it immediately, the Iranian hand in what happens, but it could be a cyber attack.
It could be a disinformation kind of psychological attack.
And it could also be meme terrorist attacks against Americans.
You've seen what Israel, a lot of terrorist attacks against Israelis have been at the hands of Iranians.
Several years ago, about 10 years ago or so, there were attacks against an Israeli bus of tourists in Bulgaria that is believed to be done by the Iranians.
Iranian Meme Threats00:03:39
So there are cells.
I don't know that there are cells in the United States, but there are cells around the world.
And what they do is they could be looking for what we call soft targets.
And soft targets are targets that are not hard military or government fortified facilities, but American tourists, American schools, American organizations around the world.
And so American interests are not just military or government facilities.
They're people and interests around the world.
Let's hear from Louise, a Republican in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
Good morning, Louise.
Good morning.
First, I want to say that I hope that the soldiers, the Navy, the pilots, I hope they're all safe.
And God loves them.
And my thoughts are with you.
Second, I want to ask about Kosovo.
Is that war still going on?
There's still wars going on there.
And didn't the Clintons bomb Kosovo?
I mean, bomb Serbia.
And let's see.
How about Libya?
Let's get into Clinton.
Didn't the Obamas decide about Libya?
And how about Biden?
Didn't he make the decision to go into a forever war with Ukraine and Russia?
I mean, come on.
Let's give this a chance.
Let's see what happens.
And let's don't prejudge it because we're very good at prejudging and speculating and postulating that this could happen and that could happen.
But forget this.
Let's just wait and see how it plays out, period.
And that's a favorite expression of President Trump.
We'll wait and see.
We'll see what happens.
And that's it.
Thank you so very much and God bless the soldiers.
Well, like Louise said, you know, a lot of times people criticize the military action, but you have to think about American soldiers and American families of military.
And, you know, like what happened with Venezuela, like, you know, you could criticize the move, but the actions of U.S. military and their families are very heroic, and we all have to remember that.
Louise makes an interesting point about Serbia.
If you remember, the Clinton administration was kind of supportive of the Serbian people overthrowing Milosevic.
That wasn't really military action that they, you know, and I mean, although they were, I think, behind the scenes helping out.
Kosovo is a little bit different.
The Kosovars were fighting, and the U.S. was not interested in regime change there.
And that's still going on, by the way.
And then in Libya, look, the U.S. took action in Libya during the Obama administration, supposedly to protect hundreds of thousands of civilians from being slaughtered.
It did end up being regime change.
They were supporting those Libyan opposition forces.
But, Louise, look at what happened in Libya, like you didn't anticipate what happened is it became this like hotbed of extremism, and then you saw the Benghazi attack.
So you don't really know when you open up this can of worms, like when you say the president says, we'll see.
Command and Control00:15:17
You know, my grandma used to just be like, we'll see.
And, you know, you have to think of the we'll see.
You can't just be like, all right, well, whatever happens, happens.
I don't, I think what's really missing from this conversation is a real understanding and discussion with the American people about the potential consequences.
That doesn't mean that at the end of the day, the American people feel that it's worth it.
Maybe they do.
But, you know, we need more information about what the end game is here because that'll determine the length, the scope, the scope, and the kind of resources and commitment of the U.S. On the Line for Democrats in Birdstown, Tennessee.
Daniel, good morning.
You're on with Elise Labbitt.
Good morning, Mimi.
Always an honor to speak with you and a privilege to speak on the Washington Journal.
I'm listening to Elise.
She sounds like the perfect journalist for this program this morning, a true journalist.
A little context here, 71 years old, military family, proud military family, going back to World War II.
What we have here is the biggest shiny object I've seen in my 71 years on this earth.
I mean, I remember Lyndon B. Johnson and the general over there in Vietnam who was anyway.
I remember them lying about Vietnam.
Then I remember Colin Powell and George Bush lying to us about weapons of mass destruction.
So I just want to know, I just want my MAGA callers that are some of the callers seem to be gung-ho for war.
I just don't want their sons and daughters to be the pat Tillmans of this war.
Now, I wanted to also jump over to Jimmy Carter and the situation back when he lost his election.
Do people understand that Reagan had his political operatives over there in Iran delaying the release of the hostages so it would look good and sway the election that year?
Now, he who leads by tweet is a twit.
All right, Daniel.
Daniel, how do you really feel?
Look, thank you for your service and for your family's service.
You know, again, really have to have that discussion with the American people about what it means to go to war, what the consequences are.
And, you know, trust and accountability is a big thing, as one of our callers said earlier.
Michelle said earlier about civics.
Like, you know, there's so much trust and accountability issues right now.
And so we do need more, you know, kind of forthrightness and honesty with the American people.
You know, the president doesn't seem to trust the American people that they'll understand why he's doing what he's doing.
I think when it comes to Iran, it's going, in my opinion, covering Iran for 30 years.
I'm going to date myself here.
Iran is the biggest impediment threat to stability, to peace, security in the Middle East.
At some point, the threat needed to be dealt with.
This president said he wanted to deal with it.
Let's hope and pray that he deals with it in the right way and with minimal casualties and minimal disruption to the region.
But the timing, you know, I think you could question the timing, but I think if it wasn't President Trump, it would be another president.
And I think he did come into this administration regardless of the timing.
And he did try during his first administration to deal with the Iranian threat.
So I think this has been something in his crosshairs for a while.
All right.
Well, that is Elise Labbitt.
She is global affairs journalist and founder of the Cosmopolitics substack.
Thank you so much for being here.
Get on with your day.
Thanks very much.
We are joined now by Benem Ben-Talibu of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
He's the Iran Program Senior Director.
Benham, welcome to the program.
Great to be back with you, Mimi.
Can you hear and see me okay?
Yes, we can.
And thank you for joining us on short notice.
Your reaction to the president's announcement of strikes against Iran.
Well, it was a very powerful announcement, but also just based on what is being reported right now, the scale and the scope of the operation, as well as already within a matter of hours, the scale and the scope of the Iranian response, both things, and I want to stress for the audience, both things are unprecedented in the 47-year history of rivalry and enmity between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America.
It seems like, again, based on open source reporting that the president in a joint operation with Israel is striking major Iranian missile and military targets as well as other regime targets.
And the Islamic Republic now is at war with its neighbors.
I want to stress that is at war with its neighbors.
The Islamic Republic has struck at least four or five different bases in the CENCOM area of operations.
Many have been doubting the statements from Iranian political, military, and even religious officials that in response to any strike by the U.S. in this current phase, that they would go big and they would go wide.
And indeed, based on the responses that we've seen militarily against air bases, against naval bases, against major barracks, this was a big and wide response by the Islamic Republic.
So I'm waiting on right now news of casualties.
I'm monitoring the situation closely, what is going on on the street in Iran.
Thus far, reportedly, the internet is not cut, but if passes prologue, that could be.
But this is, I think, history in the making, especially based on how President Trump chose to end his speech, which is with a reference to the Iranian people.
Because you could say part of this joint operation is a defanging mission against the missiles.
You could say part of it is a decapitation operation against regime elites.
But also, it could be paving the way for the Iranian people to go back onto the streets after all the fighting is done to take back their government.
And that is what President Trump alluded to.
Talk about the Iranian people and how they might be responding to this.
I know that it's a bit early to kind of get an idea of how they're reacting.
They're probably not in the streets as the president said that it's not safe right now.
But what do we know about what they're expecting from the United States military?
You know, it would be no overstatement to say all eyes are on the skies.
That's actually what we heard in late January after what was the biggest three and a half week nationwide uprising against the Islamic Republic in its history from late December to early to mid-January.
Those protests were coterminous with, as you know, a 20-plus day internet outage nationally in the country by the state against the street, where anywhere from 36 to 43,000 Iranians were killed just in a matter of days.
And the scale of this crackdown has left so many Iranians, one of the most nationalistic populations, not just in the Middle East, but on planet Earth, looking for foreign military intervention and looking for foreign military assistance to help level the playing field from the street against the state.
So right now, no doubt, you've seen dribs and draps of things coming out on Iranian social media that amplified this sense of hope, that amplified this sense of happiness even.
But as we saw during the 12-day war, what could begin with a sense of hope?
What could signal a little bit of happiness may with the realities of war change?
It's too soon to tell at this exact moment.
But nonetheless, this is a big day for the people of Iran, which have been waiting and have been trying for quite a while.
Even though regime change is the pejorative word here in Washington, where we live and work, it is exactly what the Iranian people have been trying to do on their own since at the very least December 2017, if not 2009, if not earlier.
You wrote a piece for Foreign Affairs, Benham, with the headline, what it will take to change the regime in Iran.
You said the U.S. military must go big and then let Iranians do the rest.
What will it actually take, Benam, to change that regime in Iran?
It will take a lot.
We have to not pull our punches here.
The record of air power alone for regime change is not a great record.
But what the Iranian people bring to that record is, again, their decade-plus nationwide national uprisings, which every couple of months between 2017, 18, 19, 20, have been basically turned on.
The Iranian people looking for every single opportunity to take to the street against the state.
This was a population which was willing to at least give Tehran's theocrats a chance.
Ironically, in the 90s and 2000s, despite being an Islamist autocracy, Iranians tried to go to the polls to incrementally change things, to signal their dissatisfaction at rates that were even greater than some Western democracies.
So we didn't get here by accident.
And the same applies, the same thinking, the same logic applies to the U.S.-Iran relationship.
We also didn't get here by accident.
Despite the Islamic Republic projecting this enmity onto America, you've had, you know, in the diplomatic record, everybody from President Reagan on trying to find a way to deal with this regime, trying to find a way to talk with this regime, trying to find a way to bring it back in from the cold.
As much as President Trump has been sanctioning the regime and talking about military strikes, he's also been talking about a deal.
But at some point, the cookie is going to crumble.
So I think right now we're at that point.
Benham, you said that airstrikes are not enough for regime change.
Does that mean the track record is not good?
Does it mean it's impossible?
The three good, the three most popular regimes are Japan, ground troops, do you believe that ground troops are going to be necessary or that we're going to end up after airstrikes, we're going to end up with the same regime and the same problems we've had?
It depends very much on the nature of several things.
One, how long those airstrikes go on.
To if the president and/or the Israelis can move from the thinking, the thinking of massive military operation to low-intensity campaign.
Because if the goal is not decapitation or defanging, if the goal is to pave the pathway, as I've articulated in that piece you mentioned, if the goal is to move from the military targeting to the political targeting, the nature of the weapon is going to change.
For example, a heavy bomber is a good tool to collapse an Iranian missile base.
However, a heavy bomber is not a good tool to provide close air support to protesting Iranians, nor is it a good tool to go after the command and control of the Islamic Republic in various barracks across the country's 31 different provinces.
For that, you should be looking at drones, standoff weaponry-like cruise missiles, and perhaps even A-10s for that close air support.
But make no mistake, the army on the ground, for lack of a better word, is the Iranian people.
They are the ones who can actually try to add the street power to the air power, the local power.
And of course, if you sandwich the security forces after drilling down level 2, 3, 4 of their command and control, if you shatter the national security state, if you gut command and control, you actually incentivize the kind of defections and the flipping of the armed forces that have traditionally mattered in this part of the world.
And what that will take after military operations, it will take volume from the streets to be able to get to do that.
It is risky, but I would also say 47 years of living with and even coddling an Islamic Republic has brought us to this point.
Benam, we're hearing reports of senior commanders in the Revolutionary Guard being targeted and killed.
We saw that the Supreme Leader, Khamenei, his compound, was attacked.
We don't know his situation as of yet.
Who is running Iran right now?
Where are the power centers in that country?
This is an excellent question because while this title of supreme leader is meant to be taken rather literally, Mimi, the power structure of Iran doesn't necessarily look like a pyramid.
Yes, he's the decider, and yes, he has the ultimate veto, but he has actually institutionalized his power across the system, which is likely why, if the administration moves, as well as with the Israelis, towards larger, towards sustained political targeting,
the kinds of things they're going to be targeting are the state security institutions, and in particular, this newly created body called the Defense Council, as well as this other body that functions as the regime's most important national security decision-making body called the Supreme National Security Council that has a secretariat.
I'm guessing that the Israelis or the Americans would be going after that secretariat as well, as well as the staff of this other military body called the AFGS, the Armed Forces General Staff.
And then that is the peacetime authority for command and control for Iran's two forces, the Artesh, the National Military, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the parallel ideological military.
And then the wartime iteration of that of the AFGS is called Khatam al-Ambiya.
That's the central headquarters.
I assume that would be targeted as well.
Previously, the Israelis had taken out not one, but two of the commanders of that other wartime authority.
So I would be looking to see if those institutions, as well as those persons who staff those institutions, would be targeted in these strikes.
Much also depends on any kind of intelligence that the Israelis or the Americans might have been able to get from the ground.
Lest we forget during the 12-day war, the Israelis quite literally operated a drone base against the Islamic Republic from Iranian territory, going after surface-to-air missiles as well as transporter erector launchers from Iranian territory.
So one wonders if they are also collecting or have collected or reconstituted that network to enable this kind of much more localized targeting.
But make no mistake, Khomeini has institutionalized his power.
You know, it's kind of odd to think of an 86-year-old being able to decide which missile to fire at which target.
So there's quite a bit of mid-level devolved national security decision-making authority.
And before, between the protests and before the strikes, there were a whole host of reports from the New York Times, as well as I think from the Wall Street Journal, talking about Khamenei delegating and coming up with a chain of command in case exactly what we're seeing now unfolds.
Anti-Ship Tactics Revisited00:15:11
All right.
Well, we have callers that are on the line, and we'll go to Michael in the York Independent line.
Michael, you're on the air.
Yes.
How you doing, Amy?
It's a first-time caller.
And I'd like to say that I think it's about time that we've took revenge on Iran for when they killed 200 Marines in the base of Beirut.
And I think Reagan should have took care of it back then.
And all the Americans they've killed since then.
And I think I listen to these people that call in, and somebody's conspiracy fantasies are so far out, I don't understand people.
But that's all I got to say.
Thank you.
Venom, your reaction to that?
Yes, thanks, Mimi.
Actually, what the caller was hinting at was the track record of, unfortunately, it's a long track record of Iran-sponsored or Iran-backed terrorism since the 1979 revolution against not just U.S. interests and assets, but against U.S. lives in the region,
whether one is looking at the Khobar towers in the mid-1990s and Saudi Arabia attack, or whether the Marine barracks and the embassies there in Lebanon in the early 1980s, that was right around when the regime was creating its most potent proxy, Lebanese Hezbollah, as well as, of course, what they did to U.S. service persons both in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
And that track record really doesn't stand when you compare it to the kind of strategic competition that America has with other countries to kind of let the other side inflict this growing incremental number of casualties and no large, no massive military response.
For example, the amount of restraint the Americans have shown against Iran over the past four decades, whether from the hostage crisis or from the string of terrorism or even from the growth in its missile and nuclear program is actually unprecedented.
I remember during the mid to late Bush administration where the Americans ended up finding out where the copper, I want to stress this, where the copper mine in Iran was that was furnishing the copper for the IEDs and EFPs where they were killing Americans and coalition service persons in the scores in Iraq in the mid to late 2000s.
And no action was taken against that.
So I think what the caller is getting at is this larger unresponded to track record.
And you don't have to take it from me.
There's a really interesting declassified CIA report from the late 1980s, right about the time when the Iran-Iraq war, which was the longest conventional war of the 20th century, was ending.
And the assessment is talking about Iran's strategic and growing use of terrorism.
And it says that if this is not responded to, this is going to be a major problem for us.
And you could just see how Iran has unfortunately been able to scale up those attacks.
It's evolved.
It doesn't necessarily carry it out itself directly anymore.
It has in the region, as you know, this axis of resistance, this constellation of terror and proxy forces that has been carrying it out as while it's turned the region into a war zone.
And abroad, whether that's Europe or North America, it's worked through a whole host of lone wolf radicals, as well as this thing called transnational criminal networks.
And in America, in the past 10 to 15 years, the regime has tried to kill people on U.S. soil by working by with and through everything from Mexican drug cartels to European mafias to even Canadian biker gangs.
Fortunately, all of those plots have been thwarted, but this is what we're talking about when we're talking about the persistent and long arm of Iranian terror.
And no one knows that better than the region and the Iranian people themselves.
But geographically, unfortunately, it's a much wider spread.
And if you're on the line, please do stay on the line.
We're going to go ahead and play the President's remarks from early this morning out of Mar-a-Lago announcing strikes on Iran.
Here it is in its entirety.
A short time ago, the United States military began major combat operations in Iran.
Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people.
Its menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas, and our allies throughout the world.
For 47 years, the Iranian regime has chanted death to America and waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder, targeting the United States, our troops, and the innocent people in many, many countries.
Among the regime's very first acts was to back a violent takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, holding dozens of American hostages for 444 days.
In 1983, Iran's proxies carried out the Marine Barracks bombing in Beirut that killed 241 American military personnel.
In 2000, they knew and were probably involved with the attack on the USS Cole.
Many died.
Iranian forces killed and maimed hundreds of American service members in Iraq.
The regime's proxies have continued to launch countless attacks against American forces stationed in the Middle East in recent years, as well as U.S. naval and commercial vessels in international shipping lands.
It's been mass terror, and we're not going to put up with it any longer.
From Lebanon to Yemen and Syria to Iraq, the regime has armed, trained, and funded terrorist militias that have soaked the earth with blood and guts.
And it was Iran's proxy, Hamas, that launched the monstrous October 7th attacks on Israel, slaughtering more than 1,000 innocent people, including 46 Americans, while taking 12 of our citizens hostage.
It was brutal, something like the world has never seen before.
Iran is the world's number one state sponsor of terror and just recently killed tens of thousands of its own citizens on the street as they protested.
It has always been the policy of the United States, in particular my administration, that this terrorist regime can never have a nuclear weapon.
I'll say it again.
They can never have a nuclear weapon.
That is why in Operation Midnight Hammer last June, we obliterated the regime's nuclear program at Fordeaux, Natance, and Isfahan.
After that attack, we warned them never to resume their malicious pursuit of nuclear weapons, and we sought repeatedly to make a deal.
We tried.
They wanted to do it.
They didn't want to do it.
Again, they wanted to do it.
They didn't want to do it.
They didn't know what was happening.
They just wanted to practice evil.
But Iran refused, just as it has for decades and decades.
They've rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions, and we can't take it anymore.
Instead, they attempted to rebuild their nuclear program and to continue developing long-range missiles that can now threaten our very good friends and allies in Europe, our troops stationed overseas, and could soon reach the American homeland.
Just imagine how emboldened this regime would be if they ever had and actually were armed with nuclear weapons as a means to deliver their message.
For these reasons, the United States military is undertaking a massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicked, radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests.
We are going to destroy their missiles and raise their missile industry to the ground.
It will be totally, again, obliterated.
We are going to annihilate their Navy.
We are going to ensure that the region's terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world and attack our forces and no longer use their IEDs or roadside bombs, as they are sometimes called, to so gravely wound and kill thousands and thousands of people, including many Americans.
And we will ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon.
It's a very simple message.
They will never have a nuclear weapon.
This regime will soon learn that no one should challenge the strength and might of the United States armed forces.
I built and rebuilt our military in my first administration, and there is no military on earth even close to its power, strength, or sophistication.
My administration has taken every possible step to minimize the risk to U.S. personnel in the region.
Even so, and I do not make this statement lightly, the Iranian regime seeks to kill.
The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties.
That often happens in war, but we're doing this not for now.
We're doing this for the future, and it is a noble mission.
We pray for every service member as they selflessly risk their lives to ensure that Americans and our children will never be threatened by a nuclear-armed Iran.
We ask God to protect all of our heroes in harm's way, and we trust that, with his help, the men and women of the armed forces will prevail.
We have the greatest in the world, and they will prevail.
To the members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, the armed forces, and all of the police, I say tonight that you must lay down your weapons and have complete immunity, or in the alternative, face certain death.
So, lay down your arms.
You will be treated fairly with total immunity, or you will face certain death.
Finally, to the great, proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand.
Stay sheltered.
Don't leave your home.
It's very dangerous outside.
Bombs will be dropping everywhere.
When we are finished, take over your government.
It will be yours to take.
This will be probably your only chance for generations.
For many years, you have asked for America's help, but you never got it.
No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight.
Now you have a president who is giving you what you want.
So let's see how you respond.
America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force.
Now is the time to seize control of your destiny and to unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach.
This is the moment for action.
Do not let it pass.
May God bless the brave men and women of America's armed forces.
May God bless the United States of America.
May God bless you all.
Thank you.
And President Trump posted that video statement at 2.30 a.m. Eastern Time this morning.
And our guest is Benem Ben Taliblou of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Benham, anything surprise you in that video statement?
To be honest, it was quite comprehensive.
There had been talk in the press for about a week and a half to two weeks before this statement, before the operations, about America considering a series of limited strikes, holding away, seeing if the regime would respond before going for the juggler or before going even for a larger deep-hanging mission.
The president's statement, as well as the scale and the scope of the joint attacks already over the past six to eight hours, are the surprising part because they are not limited.
The president talked about the 47-year history of enmity and of bloodshed between the regime against America, the urgent national security threat there, as well as, of course, the opportunity for something different with his references to the Iranian people.
What I would actually stress, because as you know, doing more in the Middle East is often not popular.
Certainly it hasn't been.
That was the wave the president rode twice to enter the White House, both in 2016 and then much more recently in 2025, sorry, in 2017, and then much more recently in 2026.
But the president did not mince words, shall we say, when it came to the potential for casualties.
This is war.
This is a regime that has been saying death to America for 47 years.
This is a regime that has been saying death to Israel for 47 years.
It has put state resources behind that.
It has internationalized much of the conflicts that it believes and projected it onto at least two or three different continents.
You know, Iranian drones are on two or at least three to four continents today.
The regime has sponsored terror attacks on at least three to four continents.
So, Benham, that's my question to you.
You know, since this is an existential threat to the Iranian regime, what are they capable of doing beyond hitting military targets in the Middle East?
I mean, will there be, do you anticipate terrorist attacks against Americans?
Do you anticipate cyber attacks here in the U.S.?
Certainly, the Israelis and the Americans have knocked off at least two of the three legs of the traditional pillars of deterrence.
You have the local terrorist cells, the proxy networks, what we call the Axis Resistance.
You have the threat for nuclear escalation, and then you have the long-range strike capabilities.
Israel and America since October 7 have been shaving away at those first two that we mentioned.
Now, there still are quite a bit of transnational terror actors in the region.
You know, the Houthis actually have significant long-range strike capabilities, like anti-ship cruise missiles, like anti-ship ballistic missiles, like medium-range ballistic missiles, like long-range one-way attack drones.
The Hezbollah, right now, it's an open question as to how involved they might be if the Israeli element of this conflict continues to deepen.
So, one is within the region, those terror groups have some capability to project power, but a diminishing one.
Houthis' Long-Range Strike Capabilities00:17:11
Two is abroad, I am sure the regime has tried to cultivate a host of these assets.
We've talked previously in this segment before the president about working by, with, and through local criminal syndicates.
That's something that law enforcement, as well as the national security apparatus, as well as the intelligence apparatus of each of these states that have experienced these things before, that have prosecuted these things before, need to be very vigilant on right now.
And then lastly, you mentioned cyber.
Cyber, as well as the maritime domain, particularly threats to shipping in the Persian Gulf, in the Strait of Hormuz, and right after, could be other ways that the regime may look to try to punch back.
But I would say, given how off guard the regime was, and given the overwhelming military capabilities America and Israel bring to the table, the ability to launch those in time and to land a blow meaningfully, I would say, is small,
especially when during peacetime, the ability for the U.S. to detect and actually prevent some of these terror and kidnapping attacks in North America or for European or British authorities across the European continent has been good.
So certainly there are other options the regime has, but make no mistake, its main tool are going to be long-range strike capabilities.
And actually, the more successful it is in using them, the more actually it will move the knife closer to the jugular.
For example, I think the Iranians thought that if they struck bases and killed Americans, that that would spook the president, that that would spook oil prices, and that would foster restraint in U.S. targeting.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
And it's proof that that is why this regime has had such a caricature view of President Trump.
Because if there is one through line through how he treats things and foreign policy crises, is that if you touch it American, if you spill a drop of U.S. blood, President Trump is going after you.
All right.
Well, let's talk to Robert, a Republican in Nicholasville, Kentucky.
Robert, you're on the air.
How are you doing today?
Good.
Go right up.
Yes, I just have a couple of opinions.
Well, for one, I think that the Democrats are just out for themselves because they don't do what's right for the people.
I mean, if you go back to where the president had his speech, he just had one basic thing that everybody could agree on, and they couldn't even agree with that.
And that's what struck a nerve with me.
Now, as far as the attack on Iran, I think that, I mean, Israel is one of our biggest allies.
And if we can't support our ally that has a threat towards the United States as well, then that's another thing that the Democrats can't agree on.
They think that they're owed everything and an explanation for everything.
There's just some things that just has to be done that people just don't agree with.
And that's just what people's opinions are.
And a lot of these people that called in, they just made no sense at all for whatever they were talking about that made no sense what was going on today.
I mean, they're just bringing up stuff from the past that didn't make any sense to what was going on for today in Iran.
All right.
Any comment there, Benem?
I would just say on the partisan file, briefly, best for folks on the left to the right not to make this partisan.
When the Islamic Republic sponsors terror attacks, it does so without care or cause for concern about affiliation, party affiliation, or political orientation.
This is a war of choice that the Islamic Republic launched against Americans decades ago and potentially has the opportunity to come to a close.
We shouldn't give the Ayatollah any abilities to land blows politically or militarily at this late stage in the game.
Michael in Cabot, Arkansas, Democrat, you're on the air.
Yes, I was just listening to the last guy.
And, you know, I just, this is a, I agree with what Kirk did.
I think that didn't have a nuclear weapon.
I think the current just said, you know, could you imagine what they would if they had nuclear weapons?
So I understand all that.
But my real question is to everybody: is just take a second and really think about our world and the situation that we're looking at and just everything.
And just you feel how different it feels.
That's a spiritual awakening that's going on.
And this spiritual awakening, some people are going to make it and some people aren't.
And it's going to get real bad.
I mean, it's going to be take the Bible, the book of Enoch, and the carriers of the God and replace the aliens with fallen angels.
And it's basically our history right there.
All right, Michael, let's get a response on, you know, what if Iran were to get a nuclear weapon?
What would the region look like?
What would the world look like?
You know, there are some theorists, academics, and even some Iran watchers who believe that this would calm down the regime, that the regime has been so paranoid because of real external threats.
But unfortunately, some of those analysts, some of those Iran watchers, some of those academics seem to miss the cause and effect behind the reason for those threats.
So if the Islamic Republic actually got a nuclear weapon, not only do I think it would not calm down, it would have had a sense of immunity to prosecute that low-intensity war against the region, against Americans, against American assets and interests, as well as against Israelis.
And perhaps most importantly, it would have that sense of immunity against its own people, particularly if that nuclear weapon came this year or next year or the year down the line, perhaps by its 50th anniversary, for example.
Because the longest-suffering victims of the Islamic Republic are actually the Iranian people themselves.
And that sense of lock-in for this Islamist autocracy would have been akin to that sense of lock-in for the Kim dynasty, the Kim regime in Pyongyang, which is part of this larger constellation of Axis of aggressors in North Korea that is also a partner of the Islamic Republic.
So it would have that sense of immunity and invincibility.
And not only would it not foster restraint and a sense of calming, it could actually foster escalation and more risk-taking, be it by the proxy forces, be it by the regime's own armed forces, in particular the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who would be the custodian of the bomb within the Iranian national security space, by the way.
And of course, it could set up a cycle of events in the region that could lead to more U.S. partners hedging when it comes to non-proliferation strategy.
Partners like Saudi Arabia, for example, partners like Turkey, which is a member of NATO, for example, or in terms of simply nuclear deal making, cause more challenges down the line when we're looking at making sure the programs in South Korea and Vietnam are purely civilian and there are no domestic full fuel cycle capabilities.
On the independent line in Michigan, Dennis, good morning.
Yeah, how are you doing today?
Good.
Good issue I have is I look at a Trump administration.
We are selecting which one of our allies we want to stick with anymore.
Israel has enough power over there that they can take over the Middle East.
They don't need our help.
Who are we helping?
Are we helping the rest of the Middle East?
They can defend themselves.
If they want to get rid of Iran, why don't they step in and do it?
Why do we send our aircraft carriers, destroyers, battleships, and everything over there to get rid of Iran?
Saying that it's a really nuclear weapons.
We can't have nuclear weapons.
But now all of a sudden, regime change.
We need a regime change.
What do we really want?
United States is just picking on everybody that they know right now they could beat Venezuela, Iran, Cuba.
All right.
Well, let's get an answer to that, Dennis Benham, as far as does Israel have the capability to do this on their own on their own with respect to the full range of operation?
No.
I mean, even if you look at the multiple kind of iterations of the Israeli war against Gaza, against Hamas and Gaza post-October 7, after that Iran-backed terrorist attack from Hamas there, no doubt, if you're looking at munition stocks, if you're looking at defense capabilities, the Israelis may, in terms of the conventional balance, outmatch a non-state terror actor, but they run through those.
They have burned through much of those.
Many countries in the world actually don't have the capacity to sustain large-scale industrial conflict.
You know, war is won today, not just by strategy or tactics or intelligence, but also logistics, logistics that actually are based on the capacity and capabilities of your state.
But to the callers, you know, the heart of the caller's question, why us, why now, why such a massive operation, I have no qualms with the U.S. being a selfish actor on the world stage.
Every American should want any move that is done by the U.S. military to first and foremost serve the U.S. national interest, the public good, and to defend American lives and American interests.
And there has been no state in the past four and a half decades in the Middle East that has posed such a consistent and persistent threat to those interests, to those assets, and to those lives in that part of the world than the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran itself.
I mean, again, let's run through the diplomatic track record.
Everybody from President Reagan sending a Bible and a cake in the shape of a key to try to open relations with Tehran's theocrats to Obama's famous line in 2009 when he was inaugurated talking to the Islamic Republic.
He said, if you unclench your fists, I'll extend my hand.
No doubt everybody has tried, even in tweets, President Trump in his first term and on Truth Social Post in his second term has talked about the urgency and the imperative of diplomacy.
But at every single juncture, the Islamic Republic chose.
And this is why precisely the conflict that we're in right now is a war of choice, but it's a war of choice brought to us by a considerably weaker actor, the Islamic Republic of Iran.
And I don't fault the president for seeing that imbalance, for seeing the opportunity, and actually trying to do something about it so that future presidents don't have to be in this tight spot.
All right, let's talk to Ron in Kentucky, Republican.
Go ahead, Ron.
Good morning, Mimi.
Thank you for taking my call.
Mr. Talibu, what an excellent guest you are.
You're extremely professional, very knowledgeable.
And those last sentences you have where you used the word the Iranians chose.
That's exactly what they did.
They chose to bomb Beirut.
They chose the USS Coal.
They chose what they're doing.
And they are getting payback in kind and unmercifully.
Thank God for President Trump, his strong leadership.
And you're exactly right.
These folks have killed Americans for 46 or 47 years.
Enough is enough.
We've had enough.
We want to protect our allies, make sure they have no bomb.
And most importantly, we want to protect Americans.
Thank you all.
Appreciate you taking my call.
Comment, Venom?
Yeah, thank you very much for the kind comments.
Again, that chronology, if one is looking to do a little bit of psychologizing, and I have to say, I'm not a medical doctor, nor do I have a psychology degree, but to kind of psychologize how President Trump, the man, the person, has approached this very critical moment.
I am sure that that long track record, whether he knows it personally, and again, the comments, if you go back to 1979 and to the present, you can put this into your favorite AI tool of choice.
Look at President Trump's comments from the early days of the Islamic Republic and then fast forward all the way to the present.
One of the through lines is that he believes that this regime has killed Americans and he sees that as a humiliation.
Everything from the hostage crisis to the Beirut bombing to the Cobar Towers to the support for transnational terrorism, unfortunately, he sees the Islamic Republic as having bested America in those multiple contests.
And unless it's stopped, it's going to keep going, kind of like the Soviet Union.
It will press in a way that'll force the challenge of responding to that press onto us.
And I think President Trump today tried to rise to meet that challenge.
Time will tell if he can take a political win after he takes a military win.
But nonetheless, I think he has responded to those multiple iterations of strikes, of death by a thousand cuts.
And again, as the caller said, Iran's war of choice, or better yet to say, the Islamic Republic's war of choice against America for the past four and a half decades.
All right, Iran Program Senior Director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Benem Ben Taliblou.
Thanks so much for joining us today.
Pleasure.
Thank you, Mimi.
Joining us now is David Albright.
He is the president of the Institute for Science and International Security.
Mr. Albright, thanks for joining us.
Good to be here.
Well, you worked with the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect Iraq's nuclear program back in the 90s.
I wonder what your reaction is to the strikes on Iran because of their nuclear program.
Well, the nuclear programs are very different.
I mean, Iraq had a very robust nuclear weapons program in the 1980s into about 91 when the war stopped it.
And then the inspection effort run out of the UN Security Council, headquartered at the IEA, dismantled it.
And so if you roll forward to 2002, 2003, I think there was a consensus among the nuclear inspectors there was no program there.
Meanwhile, over in Iran, at the same time, there was a very robust secret nuclear weapons program that's been well documented in particularly in the last 10 years.
And that program, due to various factors, including the U.S. being in Iraq next door, shut down or at least reduced in size, gave up trying to actually build nuclear warheads for ballistic missiles, which they were well on their way to doing in 2003.
And so since 2003, they've been struggling with a program in Iran that is, in a sense, went from actually trying to build nuclear weapons to being prepared to build them.
And that's part of the frustration from a technical point of view.
They're always pushing and pushing their capabilities forward.
And one of the reasons there's airstrikes today is that even after much of their, in fact, most of their program was destroyed in June, they've started to do recovery operations, hide things, refuse to reveal anything to the International Atomic Energy Agency that's inspecting the nuclear program under an international treaty, the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
So they're in blatant violation of their international obligations on nuclear nonproliferation.
They look like they're rebuilding a program, although at my institute, we don't think they're anywhere close to building an actual bomb.
Well, but that's what I wanted to ask you about.
Like, where do you assess their ability to get to a nuclear weapon?
How far away are we?
Well, I think we just finished a study.
It was a fairly lengthy study over several months to try to understand.
It's really what's the probability that they would build a nuclear weapon.
I mean, we don't have very good certainty about what they're up to.
And they have a history of cheating and doing things successfully in secrecy, but often they're caught.
But nonetheless, we don't have good sense eyes into the program today.
But our feeling was if they tried to go.
First of all, we don't think the regime has decided to build bombs.
So we think that before this bombing campaign, we didn't think they had even were 50% certain to order the building of the bomb.
But if they went to build it, our assessment was in the short term, they would probably fail.
Very low probability they would succeed in building a nuclear weapon.
But if you give it- But why is that, Mr. Wright?
Why would they not want one?
And why would they fail if they tried?
Well, I think we know from history that Iran, Iranian regime, has clear desire for a bomb.
And it made a decision to build five bombs in the early 2000s, but ended before, ended it before they could.
And partly why they ended it is they feared a U.S. invasion.
They feared detection by the international community.
It's a highly secretive program, and it took years to uncover all of it.
But they do respond to international pressure, and they also worry very much about the impact of building nuclear weapons on the region and what could happen to what other countries may do.
So it's a balancing act for the regime.
Israel's Nuclear Dilemma00:03:22
And I think given that Israel and the United States have made it clear that going for a bomb could lead to military strikes, I don't think they want to do it.
Now, in terms of actually building it, Israel did a lot of damage to their program.
The U.S. did a lot of damage to their program.
And so they still have some highly enriched uranium, which could be relatively rapidly turned into weapon-grade uranium for use in a nuclear weapon if they could organize the centrifuges to enrich it, which we think is a bit of a stretch for them right now.
But what Israel did was it punched big holes in their program to build the bomb itself.
And building the bombs is, you have to go through a series of steps.
And each step is critical if you knock that step out.
And it could be a piece of equipment that you only have one of.
It could be scientific knowledge or really engineering knowledge and you don't have a lot of that of how to do it.
It could be other aspects of building the bomb and all its components.
And so they have gaps and bottlenecks that they have to overcome.
And in a rush program, we think they would probably fail.
Given time, they can recover and increase the probability of on a technical level succeeding.
But let me add one thing.
What we found, though, in this study is, you know, people talk about a choice to have a bomb program.
What we found in this study is that Israel and Iran are, particularly now with the U.S., are locked in a dynamic that they can't escape.
And from Iran's point of view, it does want to build the bomb, but it doesn't want to get attacked.
And so it has to figure that out.
And it's obviously having a hard time.
But from the Israeli point of view, the situation is only going to get worse.
I mean, eventually the military threats will decrease.
The Democrat will come in who's not into that or something else will happen.
And so from Israel's perspective, it's only going to get worse.
So the sooner you make a decisive strike, the better.
And certainly they want the United States on their side leading the way.
And so I don't think this isn't, to me, this isn't really a war of choice.
I mean, this is a war created by a dynamic that neither side can escape.
And I would put most of the blame on Iran for refusing to do some things that, if they don't want nuclear weapons, are no sacrifice at all.
They don't need their uranium enrichment programs, essentially destroyed.
Remnants are there that could be reconstituted into a program to make some weapon-grade uranium from existing enriched uranium.
But as a centrifuge program that was there in May of 2025, it's gone.
And so if they just gave up the rest of it, gave up enrichment, they would escape a lot of the stress that they created in the United States and Israel and Europe.
And we want to hear your voice on the situation in Iran.
Join us later today on Washington Journal to continue the conversation.
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Congress returns as the Homeland Security Department remains partially shut down for a third week.
Democrats and the White House continue talks to attempt to reach an agreement to end the shutdown.
The Senate returns on Monday at 3 p.m. Eastern.
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Later in the week, senators are expected to vote on a war powers resolution by Armed Services Committee Democrat Tim Kaine to block U.S. military action on Iran.
The House returns on Tuesday and plans to take up a similar measure later in the week on Iran by California Democrat Roe Khanna and Kentucky Republican Thomas Massey.
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The United Nations Security Council met following U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran.