Washington Journal (03/01/2026) dissects the fallout from U.S.-Israeli strikes killing Ayatollah Khamenei, sparking Iran’s retaliatory missile attacks on 10+ regional targets and Dubai. Experts like Stephen Cook warn of prolonged retaliation, citing Iran’s "axis of resistance" (Hezbollah, Hamas) and 30,000 protester deaths in January, while callers clash over Trump’s motives—some hail regime-change potential, others accuse him of Epstein-related distractions or oil manipulation. Michael O’Hanlon dismisses hopes for a quick Iranian collapse, citing 47 years of theocracy resilience and past U.S. failures (Iraq, Beirut). With three U.S. fatalities reported and Congress demanding oversight, the debate hinges on whether targeted strikes can dismantle Iran’s nuclear/missile programs or risk deeper chaos. [Automatically generated summary]
Presidency, in the month of February, I would just like to express my thanks on behalf of the delegation of the United Kingdom, to members of the Council, the Secretary General, and members of the Secretariat for all their support this month.
The meeting is adjourned.
We want to hear your voice on the situation in Iran.
Coming up, it's today's edition of Washington Journal.
Join the conversation.
Washington Journal starts now.
Good morning.
It's Sunday, March 1st, 2026.
The U.S. and Israel are continuing their strikes against Iran today.
The attacks, which began on Saturday, have killed Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
President Trump is calling for regime change in the Islamic Republic and telling the Iranian people this.
When we are finished, take over your government.
It will be yours to take.
This will be probably your only chance for generations.
The Iranian government is retaliating, firing into Israel and launching strikes against U.S.-linked locations throughout the region.
We'll spend all of today's extended show on this still developing story.
We'll have experts over the next few hours and are looking for your comments and questions.
Our phone line for Democrats is 202-7488000.
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For Independents, that number is 202-748-8002.
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If you'd like to contact us on social media, we're at facebook.com slash C-SPAN and on X at C-SPANWJ.
Now, this is still a developing story.
Let's look at the latest here from the Washington Post, which reports, Israel announces a new wave of strikes as Iran vows to avenge Khamenei.
Strikes in the Middle East continued on Sunday, with Israel saying it had launched a fresh wave of attacks in the heart of Tehran, and Iran mounting attacks across the Persian Gulf as the regime pledged to avenge the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran's supreme leader, who'd been a vocal opponent of Israel and the West since coming to power in 1989, was killed in U.S.-Israeli attacks on Saturday, along with other top Iranian leaders.
Social media showed scenes of both mourning and celebration in Iran, where the government has declared 40 days of mourning and the elimination of top leaders has thrown succession plans into question.
Iranian retaliatory attacks included for the first time a strike against Oman, which had served as a mediator in discussions between Washington and Tehran ahead of the strike that killed Khamenei.
Now then, going on to say President Donald Trump, who has urged Iranians to rise up against their government, called for Iran's Revolutionary Guard and police to merge with the Iranian patriots and said that heavy and pinpoint bombing would continue throughout the week or as long as necessary.
Eight Arab countries have reported missile attacks, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Oman, and Qatar.
Israel's emergency service reported one person killed in a missile strike in Tel Aviv and more than 100 injured by retaliatory strikes.
Now, as I mentioned earlier, Iran has pledged revenge for these attacks, but the president has responded to that comment as well, saying that if there were revenge, that Iran would see a response from the United States like they had never seen before.
For more on this story now, we're going to hear from Elise Abbott, who's an American University School of International Service professor and the writer of Cosmo Politics News, a substat.
Welcome back to the show, Elise.
Good to be with you.
So there have been just so many developments over the evening, including the confirmation of the death of the Supreme Leader.
How big of a moment is this in this ongoing conflict?
Well, I mean, it's an earthquake in the region, really, for, you know, more than 40 years or about 36 years.
The Ayatollah, the Ali Khamenei, has been not only kind of the moral and supreme leader, if you will, as he's called, but also in control of Iranian foreign policy, in control of all of domestic policy, in control of the security services.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is the main kind of security force, if you will, in the country, is in very close coordination with the Supreme Leader of Iran.
And so, really, you can't underestimate how important it is.
Now, we can talk about when we talk about regime change, this doesn't really change the regime because Iran is a revolutionary system.
It's a whole system of different apparatus in Iran.
You have the supreme leader, you have the guardian of experts, the assembly, all of these types of bodies that work together in terms of policy for Iran under the Supreme Leader.
So, changing the regime would be different.
This isn't a one-man dictator, as I'm saying.
This is a system.
And, you know, as you could compare it to cutting off the head of a snake, maybe.
But what grows back with that body of the snake is really an unanswered question.
Israel has said that in addition to killing the supreme leader, they've also killed potentially dozens of other Iranian leaders.
Does that make a dent in sort of the regime and who steps in to fill the vacuum?
Well, it does make a dent because what the U.S. and the Israelis are doing is trying to go after all levels of the leadership.
So then they can't make really these decisions to retaliate or to reform, to continue the governance of the country.
The hope is that the Iranian people will kind of rise up and the regime will topple.
I think that's pretty unlikely.
You've already seen the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps out in the streets.
You have people celebrating, but you also have the security services trying to quash those protests, going after people that are protesting.
I think it's unclear who's going to take the supreme leader's place.
There is some speculation that someone from the IRGC, who's even more hardline, can consider it like a military junta.
It could be someone very hardlined that doesn't even pay any attention to the small, you know, theocratic norms that the clerics would.
Of course, this was a very brutal regime, but what comes next could be even more brutal.
There has been talk, you know, and the Iranians did know that these strikes could be coming.
The Supreme Leader was very old.
He was very sick.
So there has been, you know, talk about secession.
There was Ari Larajani, who was a commander in the IRGC, could be taking over.
There is some talk about the Supreme Leader's son perhaps being, there are some few figures that are floating around, but we really don't know.
This is really a period of uncertainty.
I want to talk a bit about Iran's response to these attacks.
We've seen Iran retaliating with strikes against Israel, strikes at U.S. bases throughout the region, also at some airports and hotels.
What do you think of Iran's response thus far and what else might we see?
Well, this is a regime that has nothing to lose.
The whole idea of the regime's actions, not only to be in defiance against the great Satan, the United States and Israel, is really survival.
And so if they know that this is a regime change war, if you will, they have nothing to lose and they're going to fight till the end.
That's why you've seen attacks across the region, Israel, U.S. bases in the region, in Bahrain, for instance, which is the heart of the Fifth Fleet of the Navy.
It's really the heart of the Navy in the Middle East.
They attacked there.
They attacked other Kuwait and also civilian targets in the United Arab Emirates.
They've also gone after Saudi Arabia.
So really, Iran is kind of fanning out across the whole region because this is a regime that is retaliating against any U.S. allies, U.S. interests, and they have nothing to lose now.
So they will fight to the bitter end.
I think we also have to be concerned about what we call softer targets, which is U.S. facilities, U.S. interests around the country and here in the United States that are not fortified.
Iran is, as we know, has a lot of proxies around the world.
There are sleeper cells throughout the world of terrorist cells.
And so we have to be concerned about terrorist attacks.
After an Iranian, in I think it was 2012, there was a bus attack in Bulgaria against a bus of Israeli tourists, which obviously had nothing to do with the Middle East or Iran.
But you can see the really far reach of Iran around the world.
So, you know, everyone's on a heightened alert right now, not just in the region, but I think around the world.
In addition to those attacks you mentioned in retaliation that Iran has done so far, Iran is promising even more response to the United States militarily.
And in response to that, President Trump said, this was a post on his website, Truth Social, early this morning.
Iran just stated that they are going to hit very hard today, harder than they have ever hit before.
They better not do that, however, because if they do, we will hit them with a force that has never been seen before.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
What should we be watching for today as this story continues to develop?
Well, again, if Iran has nothing to lose, it's just going to kind of be unleashed.
And so those attacks will continue.
I think the goal of the first amount of strikes, the first round of strikes over the last couple of days, is what, in military language, they call shaping the battlefield, which was trying to destroy Iranian air defenses, Iranian military defenses, the leadership, so they can't really retaliate.
But if you saw after the 12-day war in June, after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran, the response was pretty muted.
This is pretty spectacular in terms of the amount of attacks that we're seeing.
So I think we're going to continue to see that.
I think at some point, maybe Iran will perhaps run out of missiles, run out of munitions, but that's only because they're going to use everything they have right now if they feel that their survival is threatened, if they feel that they could be killed and they have nothing to lose.
They're going to inflict as much damage as they can.
What about the response from the rest of the world from especially countries that Iran might consider to be allies or friends like Russia and China?
You really haven't heard that much from Russia and China except to say that they were not in support of these attacks.
I don't think at this point you're going to see any help for Iran from Russia and China.
Russia's really bogged down in Ukraine right now.
China doesn't want any more instability.
So there's going to be an emergency meeting.
There was an emergency meeting at the Security Council where they may say, this is an affront to international security, but I don't think you're going to see any help for Iran.
You're not going to see any help for the United States and Israel, obviously, from those countries.
But one thing, Kimberly, that I think that Iran made a mistake here is that these Arab countries and U.S. allies were very skeptical of these strikes.
They knew that they were in the blast radius, if you will, and they didn't want to see the huge regime change action because they knew that Iran would retaliate against them.
So they were against the attacks.
If they didn't go after these countries, there was an opportunity perhaps to drive a wedge between the U.S. and its Arab allies.
Instead, now, you see all these countries that Iran retaliated against yesterday, including big countries like Saudi Arabia and also about the UAE and Qatar making strong reactions against Iran and in solidarity with the United States.
So Iran has very few friends right now.
Thank you so much for sharing your expertise this morning.
Elise Labbitt is the founder of the Substack Cosmo Politics and also a professor at the American University School of International Service.
Really appreciate your time this morning.
You bet.
All right, let's get to your calls with your thoughts on U.S. and Israel strikes against Iran and the ongoing conflict there.
We're going to start with Tony in Buffalo, New York on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Tony.
Good morning.
First of all, why is our supreme leader creating a problem that never existed?
15 years ago, President Obama and his fine staff had a treaty of compliance where we were regulating and checking out anything that was done with atomic energy in Iran.
As soon as this president came in, he tore that treaty up.
And in so doing, you wanted to ask Obama.
Historic Treaty Tearing00:09:49
That's my opinion.
Why is Israel deciding what the United States foreign policy is going to be?
I thought this country was dictated by Congress.
Second, another one thing.
When are the brutes going to have to go on the ground in that country of Iran?
Do you know that they have 92 million people?
They're just not like Iraq.
Another thing is, when are the United States going to realize that the Iranians are going to close the Strait of Harris, which is the place that oil goes to?
Wait till the rule we rule today that the price of oil goes up because of what this so-called president does.
Another thing is, look at the money.
Boris Kushner in the East.
Why is he a representative of the United States government?
He has no official title, and yet the money is flowing in to his pockets and his families.
This is an economic battle, too.
Thank you.
Tony mentioned oil shipments in the Strait of Hormuz, and there have been several reports about international shipments already being suspended through that strait, through which about a third of the world's oil supply can often pass.
Let's go to Steve in Clifton, New Jersey, on our line for independence.
Good morning, Steve.
Good morning.
How are you?
I actually just came back from Israel, and I wish I was there right now.
And right before I went to Israel, I went to a protest at the Iranian embassy to free the Iranian people.
What is happening now is historic.
It's not a war.
It's a rescue mission.
We are rescuing the people of Iran.
We are rescuing freedom.
And honestly, if you listen to the people who are against this, they're only against it for one reason, because they don't like Donald Trump.
That's it.
There is no other rational reason to be against this.
You know, because of Iran, we have terrorism has prospered all over the world, all over the world.
It's no accident.
And even when you're talking, what are we saying?
Oh, we're worried about Iranian terrorist cells all over the world striking back.
That is exactly why we're striking Iran.
I mean, when people say they're going to kill you, when people say they're going to annihilate you, we believe them, or we should believe them.
Negotiations we've had for decades, and nothing has worked.
So thank God for Israel.
Thank God for the United States.
And thank God, I mean, we are making this world freer for our children and our grandchildren.
This is truly historic, and hopefully, if things go well, we will have a much freer and better world.
All right.
A little bit more information about the impact of this on the oil shipments that caller referenced.
This is a story in the New York Times.
Shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz plummets after the attacks on Iran.
One of the world's most vital maritime arteries saw a 70% drop in vessel traffic.
That story going on to say, commercial ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway on Iran's southern border connecting the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and one of the world's most vital maritime arteries slowed sharply on Saturday after strikes by the United States and Israel on Iran.
According to industry experts and maritime data analyzed by the New York Times, the ship tracking platform marine traffic showed a 70% drop in vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz as of late evening in Iran.
According to Dmitries Apazidis, a senior risk compliance analyst at Kepler Marine Traffic's parent company, the majority of vessels in the area had done U-turns, diverted to alternative routes, or begun idling in the Gulf of Oman, he added.
Some vessels, however, continue to traverse the waterway, and the Iranian military cautioned vessels on Saturday to avoid the strait, saying that the passage was currently unsafe.
Back to your calls.
John is in California on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, John.
Good morning, Kimberly.
Good morning, everyone.
What a historic day.
First of all, I'd like to get past all the fear-mongering.
And, you know, the Strait of Hermuz will open up again.
I don't believe that we bombed their oil capabilities, so the oil will still flow.
But what I called about is I just want to say that what a difficult decision, what a courageous decision that our President Donald Trump made to do this.
Previous presidents couldn't do it.
My son, who is 45 years old, has always lived in fear of a dirty bomb coming into LA or a dirty bomb coming into New York from Iran.
And I'm so glad that somebody put an end to this.
You talk about fear-mongering.
Iran has put fear into the whole world for too many years.
And this is just a checkmate.
And we are, you know, I can't be more proud of America.
But what I wanted to talk about is how stupid the Iranians were because they fired off missiles at all the surrounding Arab countries.
Now everybody hates Iran.
So the possibility of an Abraham Accord is really on the table right now.
We can join and make the whole Middle East bring it up to the modern world and have peace and prosperity.
So the long-term game is peace, and the long-term game is shaping up to peace.
And these fear-mongering Democrats, they don't get the picture.
The reality is, is it doesn't matter who they put in because the new regime will not have nuclear weapons and they will not have missiles.
So they will be very, very contained.
And my final comment, I guess, was that I hope that the new regime has a woman in charge.
And because they can put things straight over there and free the women of Iran and free the Iranian people.
And I hope that everything turns out well, and I'm sure it will.
And this has been the precision, the build-up, this has been such a magnificent operation that we should all be proud of.
And we have checkmated country in the world.
You mentioned that Iran has potentially made more enemies in its own neighborhood.
The New York Times also has a map showing the different areas where Iran has launched retaliatory strikes.
And as John was just mentioning, it's quite involved, including the United Arab Emirates, where there was a strike on a Dubai hotel in Qatar, a U.S. Navy base in Bahrain, in Saudi Arabia, in Jordan, as well as several strikes in Israel and also Kuwait.
Let's hear from Melvin in Richmond, Virginia, and online for Democrats.
Good morning, Melvin.
Good morning, Kimberly.
Kimberly, thank you for taking my call.
May you live long and prosper.
Kimberly, if you could just give me a second to get to the main point here.
As always, and this is how I see America, is that we are a divided country, no doubt about it, okay?
As we see even with your program, it's set up to be people on one side, Democrats and Republicans, okay?
And of course, we on the Democratic side just want to be equal while the Republicans want to deny us whatever.
So Republicans, as I've always said, Republican Party is one that is a party of races.
Now you'll say, well, what has that got to do with the war in Iran?
Well, the question is, how did we get here?
We got here because Trump is a product of American racism.
The America had voted in a black man twice to be the president of the United States.
And the Republican Party, based on being a racist party, Melvin, I would like you to bring it back to Iran specifically.
Well, okay, so but the whole point is everything that Trump does is to is number one is for money.
You know, the gentleman who called earlier about the Straits of Hormuz and everything being closed down, how much do you think that Trump has invested in calls on the price of oil and the price of gold because he knows what he's doing is going to change the market for those things.
And everything that he does is about money.
World Turning To Shame00:02:30
So it's not so much about it's not so much about firing bombs and killing Itolas.
That stuff is just collateral damage.
All right, I think we have the idea.
Let's hear from Frank in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on our line for independence.
Good morning, Frank.
Good morning, Kimberly.
Thank you for taking my call.
Right now, I'm just praying for the people of Iran and all over the Middle East that lost kids, women, mothers, fathers.
That's where my heart is.
I don't take no pleasure in enjoying someone's death.
Right now, the world is serving Satan, and we don't have any love in our hearts for anybody else.
And it's a shame how this world is turning.
This is pure evil.
There's no love left in the world.
We don't justify murder for any reason.
Kids are not safe.
Nobody's safe these days.
Just pray.
Pray, because God is coming back because he will set things right.
Frank mentioned some of the casualties in Iran.
There's a story in The Guardian that the death toll from the Iran school bombing has reportedly risen to almost 150.
A strike on a girls' elementary school in the south of Iran has killed 148 people and injured 95 others, according to Iranian state media.
This story going on to say that Mizan News Agency, the official news outlet of Iran's judiciary, has reported that the number killed in Saturday strike on a girls' elementary school in Manab in southern Iran has risen to 148 killed with 95 wounded.
The school which was struck on Saturday morning appears to be the worst mass casualty event of the U.S.-Israeli-led bombing campaign on Iran so far.
Video and photographs from the aftermath of the strike, which has been verified as authentic and geolocated to the site, show hundreds of people gathered around the partially collapsed smoking building with rubble strewn across the street and men digging through it for victims.
Let's get back to your calls on the ongoing conflict in Iran.
Ongoing Conflict In Iran00:14:51
Skip is in Octagon, Michigan on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Skip.
And I have to comment about the call regarding Republicans being racist.
We have heard that for so many years.
It's the same thing over and over again.
But what I wanted to talk about is where was America back in 1937 when Hitler already came in and talked about his hatred for Jews?
We were all talking like the Democrats.
Oh, we can't get into the European war.
And then what happened, of course, years later, millions of Jews were killed.
If we would have got rid of him in 1937, we would have been good.
In 2006, Kimberly, I don't know if people realize this, that's when Kim Jong-un in North Korea was developing interconnected.
Thank you, Kimberly, missile that could attack and bomb any place in America.
But what did we do?
We did nothing.
President Trump finally went and says, enough's enough.
We're going to stop it before it gets too far.
But my final comment, Kimberly, is listen to the rest of the Washington Journal.
The Democrats, we've heard already with our two or three calls, the whole thing is like we've had a call.
They just don't like Trump.
They have TBS.
It has nothing to do with what is going on right now.
It's an anti-Trump comment.
Don't believe me, Kimberly.
Listen to the following calls on Washington Journal from the Democrats.
It's always anti-Trump.
What he did was stopped and the fear that we would have once they did get a nuclear weapon.
Thank you, Kimberly.
Thank you, C-SPAN.
I admittedly am a C-SPAN addict.
I watch it throughout the day and constantly.
But have a good day, Kimberly, and God bless America.
Joy is in Potsdam, New York, on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Joy.
Hi, how are you this morning?
I just wanted to say a couple of things.
Yesterday, all I heard from the Republicans was how this was in retribution to things that happened decades ago.
Well, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of.
And well, Joy, if I can pause you there for a moment, I'm going to let you finish your point.
But since you were referencing things that happened decades ago, I actually want to go through a few key moments in the history of U.S.-Iran relations.
There's an article from history.com looking in particular at seven tense moments in U.S.-Iran relations.
The tensions between the one-time allies have escalated at various points since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Let's kind of go back even a little bit before that to 1953 when the CIA orchestrated a coup in Iran.
Then in 1979, in response, there was the Iranian revolution.
From 1979 to 1981, the very famous Iran hostage crisis, where people from the American embassy were taken hostage.
In 1988, the U.S. shot down an Iranian passenger plane.
In 2002, President George W. Bush included Iran in its axis of evil.
Then in 2020, the United States killed Iranian General Soleimani in a drone strike.
That was during President Trump's first administration.
And then, of course, earlier, just a few months ago, in 2025, the U.S. bombed Iranian nuclear sites, also in President Trump's administration.
So, Joy, just because we were talking a little bit about the history, I wanted to give that recap.
Please go ahead.
No.
No, I appreciate all those, excuse me, I appreciate all that information.
But when they, I think what they were referring to is what it happened back in the early 80s, which I agree, Iran is a terrible country, a terrible regime, but Trump should have gone to Congress.
I mean, this is a major, major conflict.
And just because he doesn't like the way a country is run, to me, that does not give him the right to just go in and try to change things.
He did it with Venezuela.
He recently tried to do it with Cuba by not giving them the oil so they could survive.
He just can't do it.
He is not the ruler of the entire world.
He's the president of the United States.
He can't just, to me, he can't just do what he wants because he doesn't like how something is run.
Well, Joy, since you mentioned Congress, there's a story in Politico that Congress rushes to get in the loop as critics denounce the Iran strikes.
Efforts are underway to set up member briefings next week.
But Democrats want the Trump administration to go further.
That story is saying that Congress is scrambling to learn more about President Donald Trump's overnight strikes on Iran.
This is a story from yesterday.
And his long-term strategy for the Middle East as votes to restrain further military action loom next week.
Trump administration officials will brief staff on key congressional committees on Sunday.
That's today, according to two people granted anonymity to disclose plans with the House Intelligence, Armed Services, and Foreign Affairs panels expected to take part.
Staff on the Senate Foreign Relations and Intelligence Committees will also be briefed this weekend, according to congressional aides.
And then going on, Democrats want the administration to go further.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said that in addition to a classified briefing for all senators, members of the administration need to testify publicly before committees.
And there have been several members of Congress that have responded to the strikes on Iran as well as the killing of the Iranian leader.
Senator Tom Cotton said yesterday, today the Ayatollahs learned the hard way that President Trump means what he says.
Ursula von der Leyen, this is in Europe.
She said, I spoke with King Abdullah of Jordan.
We stand in full solidarity with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan following yesterday's Iranian strikes.
With Khomeini Ghan, there is renewed hope for the people of Iran.
We must ensure that the future is theirs to claim and shape that response from Europe there.
Jay is in Alabama on our line for independence.
Good morning, Jay.
Thanks for taking my call.
After listening to a lot of these callers, Americans are divided in a big way, aren't they?
And it seems the only hope we have is for the younger generation that see things through a different paradigm, a different lens.
If you just kind of just take a look at the propaganda in this country, the way we were educated, especially the high schools and such, we aren't radically propagandized.
School books were controlled from people can find out.
But if anybody really want to find out how Iran feels a little bit, I think one of the things we lack in this country is understanding the other, having understanding.
The caller couple callers back talked about a lack of love in this country.
There absolutely is a lack of love of any decency for somebody that's different than us.
Take a look at a map on Iran or just Google how many U.S. military bases dot the Iranian border.
Take a look.
There's like 30, guys.
There's about 30, maybe 30 plus U.S. military bases that surround Iran.
Now, what if there was just one military base, say, Iran put in Mexico?
What would we hear from the U.S. media?
All I'm trying to say is Americans have to get to a place where they stop criticizing everybody.
Everybody wants the same thing.
Our cities are falling apart.
Our president's selling watches on TV.
When has that ever happened before?
He put his name on the Kennedy Memorial in front of it.
Everybody should say, hey, that's ridiculous.
You know, president's done that before.
So I think it's going to be the younger generation that's going to come help us a little bit to get to see things.
And maybe a president would rise up that suffered a little bit in his life, that's actually can connect with the people that are really suffering in these cities and go to the cities.
Don't go get in your plane and go out of the country.
Go to the cities.
Talk to the people.
Be like an old president used to be, from the trains to every city dotting the country.
Take a look.
It's deteriorated.
Our money seems like it's being siphoned away.
I don't know what's going on.
Everything is privatized.
Iran has a reason for what they're doing.
Rather than being so arrogant and thinking that we're always right, we're always right, we're always right, and we're always a victim.
How about just one time a president can come and say, let's listen.
They were negotiating at the negotiating table.
They were negotiating.
So it's like a tactic that other countries are going to see that don't even want to negotiate with us anymore because they'll use it as a game.
While they think you're negotiating, we're behind stabbing them in the back, planning an attack.
So that's why I want to say thanks for listening.
Hope you guys heard what I said.
Hey, I don't know the answer to this, but I know that everything seems controlled.
There's a lack of organic rising.
Anything that's really organic seems to be crushed.
They won't allow us to have a voice.
Thanks for listening.
So Jay was mentioning the nuclear negotiations that were ongoing.
In an interview with CBS's Face the Nation on Friday, the Omani mediator involved in those talks between the United States and Iran was saying, and this was as recently as Friday, that the two sides were making good progress.
Say the heart of the deal.
Iran has said this has to be nuclear only.
What have you actually agreed upon?
Can you give us any sense of why there should be more time?
Because if the ultimate objective is to ensure forever that Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb, I think we have cracked that problem through these negotiations by agreeing a very important breakthrough that has never been achieved any time before.
And I think if we can capture that and build on it, I think a deal is within our reach.
What has Iran agreed to to you that they have never done before?
Can you give us any sense?
The single most important achievement, I believe, is the agreement that Iran will never ever have A nuclear material that will create a woman.
This is, I think, a big achievement.
And that was on Friday when those negotiations were still ongoing before the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran.
Let's go to Harold in Tennessee on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Harold.
Yes, ma'am.
Thank you for taking my call this morning.
I thought this like three or four months ago that their nuclear stuff had been oblivated and sat back for years and years about them having a nuclear bomb.
Come on, this right here is just all about the Epstein files and stuff and getting it off.
What do you think at all?
The news channels have been talking about this morning if this hadn't happened.
They'd have been talking about Bill Clinton and Donald Trump and the Epstein files.
That's all this is all about.
This ain't about nothing but that.
And besides that, there's 100-something, I think you said 100-something little kids killed over there this morning.
That is pitiful.
We're spending this money over there.
We can't even help our people have health insurance.
Things are so high here that we can't be afforded.
But, you know, like I said, make no mistake about this, ain't nothing but about the Epstein files.
Trump and Clinton have had a bad week, and it's only going to get worse if the Republicans up there will get around and release all those files.
That's what this is all about.
We've went to war.
We're going to put American boys, most likely before it's over with, on the ground over there in danger just because Donald Trump and Bill Clinton went down there and peddled with a bunch of little old young kids.
That is awful.
But we need to get back to our stuff here.
People are suffering from this insurance thing.
I mean, they're suffering bad.
But I thank you for taking my call, and you fellas have a great day.
Harold was referencing there the strikes in 2025 on Iran nuclear sites and the fact that at the time the president said that they had eliminated the ability of Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.
There's some information on this from PolitiFact and PBS News that Trump said the U.S. sought to make a deal with Iran after bombing three of its nuclear sites in 2025, but that Iran rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions and we can't take it anymore.
This is from the president's statement justifying these strike, these recent strikes.
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.
Trump's statement is contradicted by a 2025 federal government assessment that said Iran is years away from the ability to produce long-range missiles.
Nuclear policy experts also cast doubt on the idea.
After Trump used similar language in his State of the Union address days earlier, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters he wouldn't speculate how far away Iran is from having missiles that could reach the United States.
Tom is in Connecticut on our line for Republicans.
Barack's Iran Card Warning00:11:32
Good morning, Tom.
Yeah, the only problem I see is the rise of a new regime, a new Ayatollah regime within after all of this.
And the only way that can be stopped is internally.
The Iranian people have to form a freedom fighters group to just encourage the new terrorist groups that might rise in Iran after this bombing.
And they have to, right now, is a good time to form a delegation of a new government for them to form a new constitution.
Probably working on Amendment 1 and 2 for the first thing and then a form of three Arms of government, justice, executive, and the Congress.
But that's what they should be working on.
They should organize right now to form a new birth of freedom, if you will.
And that's all I have to say.
All right.
Omar is in Brooklyn, New York, on our line for independence.
Good morning, Omar.
Hi, good morning, C-SPAN.
Good morning, America.
I wanted to say thanks for taking my call.
I wanted to also say that I notice every single time there's something coming out about the Epstein files and Donald Trump.
There's some kind of major thing that this president does.
The last time he took over Venezuela, this time it's attacking Iran.
From what I just heard, they were having good, decent talks or what have you.
But this is just an example of white supremacy telling us to look over there, look at the war, look at whatever Donald Trump wants to point the cameras at, and not look at what's going on with these Epstein files.
And I also wanted to point out, last month was Black History Month, and C-SPAN did a horrible job in pointing out any type of 28 days or anything.
It wasn't very well done, but I think hopefully they'll improve that with Washington Journal.
But as far as this thing with Iran, they've always been doing this.
Ever since I was a kid in the 80s, they've always been saying somebody's got some kind of mass weapons of mass destruction or something every all the time.
And then they say, oh, well, China's coming after us or Russia's coming after us.
Somebody's always coming after us.
And it's always the white supremacists saying, oh, we're being under attack, but look at the black people.
They're the worst people.
Look what's happening in Chicago, Chicago, black-on-black crime.
There's a lot of white-on-white crime going on right now.
Look at Iran and, I mean, not Iran.
Look at Ukraine and Russia.
That's white-on-white crime.
There's a whole lot of white-on-black supremacy.
So, Omar, there's actually an editorial in an opinion piece in The Guardian that echoes some of these points that you were raising earlier.
The headline, Trump wants to distract Americans from scandals at home with a diversionary war.
The Iran strikes in an attempt to hijack the global narrative and drown out Epstein and tariffs with the thunder of cruise missiles.
And this is by Christopher Chuvas.
In 2003, the United States invaded Iraq without deciding whether it should.
The George W. Bush administration failed to ask whether the costs, risks, and likely consequences of regime change justified the gamble.
The result was tragedy for Iraq, for the Middle East, and for America.
Donald Trump's attack on Iran now follows the same pattern, but with an even narrower logic of performative power.
In the run-up to Iraq, Washington devoted enormous energy to planning the invasion.
Almost no attention was given to the more important question: was war necessary and could it realistically produce a stable political outcome?
Now history is repeating itself.
Having torn up the Iran nuclear deal and escalated pressure, the president now has initiated a military campaign explicitly aimed at a regime collapse.
Yet there has been no serious public reckoning with the risks, much less the plausibility of the political end state he claims to seek.
By weaponizing the military for the sake of the attention economy, Washington has traded grand strategy for the immediate gratification of the news cycle.
Garrick is in Montgomery, New York on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Garrick.
Hi, I just wanted to say that there's been no history of us being able to change a regime.
And this is very similar to Afghanistan, very similar to Iraq.
And to go over there and blom an 86-year-old man and the Republicans and the rest of the people celebrate the death, it's not going to change the regime, just like it didn't change the regime in Venezuela by taking Maduro.
And another thing I wanted to point out that I'm a Democrat, most of my friends are Republican and Independent, and we should all be able to have honest conversations.
As a Democrat, I'm not for defunding the police, and I can say that to people.
And Republicans have to be able to say, it's not okay to send ICE agents to kill people in the American streets, and it's not okay to depict the Obamas as apes.
You've got to be honest with each other.
We're on the same side, but it starts with the people.
No president is going to lead us.
But we can't have one side, Democrats always for something that might not be great, like defund the police.
We can't say Republicans are saying, well, it's okay to kill Americans in the street, and it's okay to depict a former president of eight years as apes.
We have to be honest.
We have to have decency and morals.
And I think that's what's missing.
It's not about Donald Trump.
It's about us.
And we got to be honest.
You can be pro-police and pro-gun and still know it's not okay to shoot a man in the street or a woman in the street of Minnesota.
And you can be for civil rights and say it's not okay to go after police or defund the police.
And it's not okay for all of America to smell like weed.
Okay?
That's all I'm saying.
We need honesty among all of us.
We're all the same.
Half of us are dating each other.
We're marrying each other.
We live next to each other.
And we work with each other.
All right, I think we got your idea.
Garrick, let's go to Clinton in Sandwich, Illinois, and our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Clinton.
How are you doing?
Thank you for taking my call.
It's a great day.
We finally got the hell of a snake.
And thank you, Donald Trump.
I've been waiting for this in 1979, since the Hazes crisis.
And thank you, Donald Trump.
Thank you, everybody here in the United States, and goodbye.
All right.
Next up is Lewis in Pensauken, New Jersey on our line for independence.
Good morning, Lewis.
Good morning.
To respond, that Republican guy that called and said we should implement a government, we don't need to do that.
The Iranian people need to do that.
And as far as getting those guys out that were in positions, I mean, I know a lot of Democrats don't know about this because it was reported on CNN and the yellow thing.
You know, they killed close to 30 to 40,000 people in the past month that were uprising against the government there.
All right.
And the other thing is the Iran's Iranians, they weren't negotiating in good faith.
They were just trying to buy time.
All right.
They were evil.
And it just goes to show how evil they were.
They attacked other countries that weren't even shooting at them.
And thank God for Trump because Obama Chuck is in Charleston, West Virginia, on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Chuck.
Yes, good morning, Kimberly.
It's been 42 days since I last called.
I hope you're having a good day.
Listen, early, I had to call in after I listened to a Republican caller named John earlier this hour, and he was just falling all over himself to blatter Donald Trump saying, oh, this decision to attack Iran was so difficult, and it was so courageous.
And I'll tell you what, the irony here is so thick you could cut it with a knife.
I'd like to remind John about stuff that Donald Trump said back around 2012 and 2013, because back then he was warning repeatedly that Barack Obama might attack Iran to appear tough or distract from political weakness.
And he was urging the Republicans not to let Obama, what he called, play the Iran card.
His argument was pretty simple that Barack Obama in political trouble might reach for war to reset the narrative.
So now you have Donald Trump who's facing economic strain, terrible polls, on and off tariffs, inflation, and of course the pesky Epstein files.
And he's just ordered airstrikes inside Iran.
And this is exactly what John was warning, you know, had forgotten that, you know, Donald Trump was warning that Barack Obama might do exactly the same thing.
Back in 1997, there was a film out called, it was a satirical film called Wag the Dog.
And I think people might want to go back and rewatch that film.
It was about a president who manufactures a foreign crisis to distract from scandal.
So once again, Donald Trump was warning that Barack Obama might attack Iran to appear tough.
And now, ironically, it's Donald Trump doing the exact same thing.
Just want to read a little bit more information about what Chuck was referencing there.
There's a story about it in the Independent.
It's on the website of Yahoo News.
But Trump's tweet saying Obama will start a war with Iran to distract from domestic failures come back to haunt him.
This is that in 2012 and in 2013, Trump repeatedly insinuated that then President Barack Obama would start a war with Iran to shore up his reelection effort and to distract from his supposed faults as a leader.
Obama never did attack Iran.
That cannot be said for Trump, who has now attacked the Middle Eastern Republic three times across his two terms in office.
Specifically, on January 17th, 2012, Trump wrote on social media that he believed Obama would, quote, attack Iran in order to get re-elected.
He repeated his prediction in August of that year, insisting that Obama would, quote, in some form, attack Iran before the election.
Howard is in Locust Valley, New York on our line for independence.
Why We Left Google00:14:09
Good morning, Howard.
Good morning, everyone.
Thank you so much for taking my call.
I want to talk about the Founding Fathers.
These men put together a constitution.
They put together a Bill of Rights.
And a lot of people have said a lot of things about the Founding Fathers.
They've called them sexist, racist, but no one has ever said they were not extremely intelligent.
These were intelligent men.
And the way they built the Constitution, they built it in a way that Congress declares war.
And there's a reason for that.
That means if the war goes the wrong way, we are all at fault.
And we all made the decision because our representatives from Congress decided to do it.
We did not declare war in Vietnam.
We did not declare war in Iraq or Afghanistan.
And it's almost as if the Founding Fathers saw this and saw the problems and the ramifications of what can happen when we don't declare war.
When you act unilaterally, you have no one to blame.
But we are all to blame because we're all Americans and believe whether you want to admit it or not, it's our tax dollars that just took out an elderly man.
And it's our tax dollars that are doing the bombing.
If we are going to do that, we should at least have our congresspeople decide that so that we will take the blame because we're going to take the blame anyway.
But we'd also have the responsibility, which is ours.
Thank you very much for listening.
Annie is in San Rafael, California on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Annie.
Good morning, Kimberly.
I get really nervous talking, and I have to do deep breathing while I'm waiting.
But listening to everyone, it's hard to listen to everybody.
And people are really passionate.
I have a friend who's living in Iran.
He used to have a restaurant here.
Anyway, I'm trying to stay on track so you can help me.
But the thing I think is why Israel is involved, there's so much, quote, bad blood, unquote, between Israel and Iran that this is just kind of like a slap in the face, I kind of feel.
And I feel like why we can go in and extract Maduro, but we're bombing children's schools.
I think the Donald has a lot of anger.
I think his, I know his brother, Fred, died of alcoholism before, I believe, age 40 or just around age 40.
And I think he has unresolved anger.
I know that sounds kind of California-ish, but I don't understand why they would have to bomb, and it's scary.
And I will say also the reason I'm a Republican is because George Bush scared the Jesus out of me, or whatever word you want to use.
And I registered Republicans to go beneath the radar.
So I know that sounds a little kooky too, but I just feel like, you know, the gentleman who called in and said that we should pray, that's probably the closest thing I would say.
And I'm sorry he's feeling so much, it sounds like almost like despair about people and how we could get together.
So I just feel like I feel like the healing of this country needs to happen with the reparations for black people and giving the Indians back their land and things like that, Kimberly.
So thanks for calling in.
Willie is in Pooler, Georgia on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Willie.
Good morning.
I will say before I start, I trust everything is well.
Instead, I would say I'm going to pray for those people in Iran, those families.
I'm going to pray for the United States of America.
I heard the call up from Tennessee, and I heard the call up from Alabama to the most excellent commentary that could have been.
I witnessed Obama in the situation room when he took out the Terrant bin Salman bin Laden, and he had all the war generals and all the staff around him.
I witnessed George Bush in the situation room.
Today, we witness the president down in Mar-a-Lago in a rat-infested home with people around him not doing it.
At least George Bush had Joyce Tennett, had Kamli Sarai, had run fair, had Cheney, he had colon power, he had his central staff around him, and he had people of color in the room with him.
This is the most racist, this is the most disregard for human humanity president in the history of the United States of America.
This gentleman has distracted all concept of Epstein because there was something coming out about him and a young girl.
So he decided to go bomb a country.
just told us in June that he obliterated the whole Iran stockpile.
There'll never be a weapons of mass destruction no more.
What provoted him to go at the time that you played a few minutes ago about the negotiating on Friday with the Iranians and the United States?
And then gentlemen said we have reached some major accomplishments.
What gave him the right to go bomb them people just to bomb them because Epstein filed.
This is nothing.
This is not a moment of weapons that are going to destroy the American people.
We've heard this over and over and over again.
I'll say this again.
And C-SPAN has been one of my most important reasons for calling C-SPAN because my voice can be heard around the world.
And I thank y'all so much for your commentary.
But let me tell you this.
This president here have turned back the tide, have turned back the country, have turned back everything that we supposed to be.
War, supposed to be an act of Congress.
So, Willie, I want to follow up on the point that you mentioned about developments in the Epstein files.
There's a story in the Hill from just a couple of days ago, just because this has come up several times, that GOP senators warned the Justice Department to release all Epstein files mentioning Trump.
This was from a story from February the 26th that Republican senators are putting pressure on Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Justice Department to release all files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that mention President Trump's name, warning the issue won't go away until there is full transparency.
GOP senators are urging the Justice Department to fully comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act in the wake of media reports that the department hasn't released records dealing with claims a woman made in 2019 against both Epstein and Trump that related to an incident from the 1980s.
Now back to your thoughts on the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran.
Shakur is in West Palm Beach, Florida on our line for independence.
Good morning, Shakur.
Good morning, senators.
A lot of people mention Epstein files.
And I don't think there's a distraction with the Epstein files.
I think that the Epstein files is the reason that Trump has to do what he had to do on Israel's behalf because what they have on top of him.
You know, it's like somebody said before, I think they dangled a little bit.
It seems like they'll put out, hey, this is going to come out.
You do this.
You know, Mike Huckerby was on TV with Tucker Carlson, and he was saying that Israel can basically, they have a God-given right to take this whole region.
And this is their white supremacy that the previous callers have been talking about.
You know, they try to justify murder, pillaging, taking resources.
And the Republican callers have been told that, you know, for the most part, because most of them appear to be white people, and they think that we're smarter than these people.
We have a right to take their stuff.
You don't have a right to take the people's stuff.
They said in Iran, like 80 kids got killed in the strikes.
I got daughters.
They're going to say, how can I have daughters and hear stories about kids getting blown up?
And then these racist Republicans say, you know, there's going to be a better life for them.
Who are you kidding?
These same Republicans don't even go across the street in their own cities to interact with the different communities in their own city.
You know?
It's not a distraction.
It's because the man he's got to do this.
He's got to.
And they got to divide the country and to divide the people so that people will support this stuff.
But they're all the same.
Clinton was in the same.
It is what it is.
Peace and thank you.
Chris is in Churchview, Virginia on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Chris.
Good morning, Ms. Kimberly.
I just wanted to say that, you know, here we can walk out our door with a sign and protest.
There, they just killed 32,000 people.
The people here that are protesting are against Trump because they're against Trump.
It's all just a flash of cards, who's pushing whose agenda and all this racist crap.
Here, we don't have that problem down here.
We all get along.
You push your agendas to cause the race.
People just need to grow up and face reality.
You want your freedom, don't you think they want theirs?
They're tired of the Islamic regime.
We need a lot of change.
We need it fast.
And the only way it's going to happen is for things to happen, like what is happening?
Accountability.
We have no accountability here.
We have rapes, murders, molesters, people getting stabbed on the subway, and then people appraising them.
People need to bring their morals and their standards up.
And that's about all I got to say.
I appreciate the time.
Thank you.
Chris and several other folks have mentioned the scale of the reaction by the Iranian government against protesters over the last few months.
There's a story in Time magazine about it that the Iran protest death toll could top 30,000, according to local health officials.
And this was a story from back at the end of January, and there have been reports of even more crackdowns since then.
As many as 30,000 people could have been killed in the streets of Iran on January 8th and 9th alone, two senior officials of the country's Ministry of Health told Time, indicating a dramatic surge in the death toll.
So many people were slaughtered by the Iranian security services on that Thursday and Friday.
It overwhelmed the state's capacity to dispose of the dead.
Stocks of body bags were exhausted, the officials said, and 18-wheel semi-trailers replaced ambulances.
Henry is in Michigan on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Henry.
Good morning.
Three points.
First of all, two war criminals, one in Tel Aviv, one in Washington or in Mar-a-Lago, put their heads together.
One in Tel Aviv, who is under scrutiny for having committed genocide.
The other, who is a pedophile and a trafficker.
They put their heads together and they said, we're going to attack Iran to take away the public's focus on our crimes.
Make no mistake.
Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump have no intention of leaving office.
Both of them are going to use whatever leverage they have, whatever power, the power of the military, to continue to keep the people under their thumbs.
In America, a company called Anthropic has an AI tool of unmanned weaponry called Claude.
They refused to allow the Pentagon to use Claude without safeguards.
So, Donald Trump has blacklisted that company and they're trying to ruin that company.
Everybody forgets that Donald Trump said out of his own mouth that he and Jeffrey Epstein were the best of friends for 15 years and they fell out because Epstein stole a 15-year-old girl from Mar-a-Lago working in Trump's locker room.
That means, people, that Donald Trump was employing 15-year-old girls and maybe less in his locker rooms at Mar-a-Lago.
So, Henry, we're about out of time for this segment.
Did you have any other thoughts on Iran?
Yes, I do.
Iran is a victim.
Iran was in the negotiating room at the negotiating table, but they were with two people who had absolutely no business negotiating for the United States of America.
One was Trump's son-in-law, Jared, who is a criminal, and the other is Steve Witkoff, who is a real estate person.
All right, Henry, we're about out of time.
Continuing The Iran Discussion00:03:15
I think we've got your idea, and thank you to everyone who called in.
We are going to continue on this topic throughout the rest of the show.
At about 9:15 a.m., we're going to have a conversation with retired Marine Corps Colonel Mark Cancian from the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
But first, after the break, Stephen Cook, a senior fellow for the Middle East Studies at the Council for Foreign Relations, will be right back.
Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold original series.
Today, with our guest three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author Rick Atkinson, author of in-depth Revolutionary War and World War II trilogies, and whose other books include The Long Gray Line, Crusade, and In the Company of Soldiers.
He joins our host, renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein.
Wasn't one book enough?
Because when you say you're going to write a trilogy, if you're tired of the subject after the first book, you got to write the second and the third.
So, did you ever think maybe you should have just say, I'm going to do one at a time?
I had two small epiphanies.
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And the other epiphany was that you could tell the story as a triptych, three panels.
The liberation of Europe starts in North Africa, and then it evolves 100 miles across the Mediterranean to Sicily and Italy.
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A vocal critic of Adolf Hitler, Einstein fled to the United States with his wife in 1933 and became a U.S. citizen in 1940.
He had visited the U.S. where he taught, then was set to return to Germany and realized, I can't go back.
Spent time in Belgium.
A Nazi hit squad tried to assassinate him in Belgium, in Belgium.
His wife pled with him not to take his daily walks because there was a $5,000 bounty on his head.
He said, I didn't know my head was worth that much, and continued his walks.
goes to England where he's threatened, comes to America where he believes he's finally safe, an ocean away from the Nazis, until he learns that the shadow of the Nazis is darkening America itself.
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Reaction To US-Israel Strike00:15:04
Washington Journal continues.
Welcome back.
We're going to continue our discussion about the ongoing Israeli and American strikes against Iran with Stephen Cook, who is the Middle East and Africa Studies Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Welcome back to Washington Journal.
Thanks for having me.
Can I first get just your reaction to the size and the scope of this operation by the United States and Israel?
Well, there's really nothing surprising about the size and scope of the operation.
The United States has spent the last month flowing unprecedented numbers of military forces in the region, at least unprecedented in the last two decades.
It is a huge, huge amount of force in terms of aircraft and naval assets.
We have two of three operating aircraft carriers in the region right now.
And it's been unprecedented that the United States and Israel have launched from the same air bases.
There seems to be a division of labor between the United States and Israel in the attacks.
The United States going after Iran's nuclear facilities or what remains of them after the strikes last summer, its ballistic missile manufacturing capacity and its inventory of ballistic missiles as well as other military assets, while the Israelis have been focusing on regime assets.
Senior leadership, there was a report in the Israeli press that in the first minute or so of the attacks, Israelis eliminated 40 senior leaders of the military and security services of Iran.
So the president has made clear that this is a days-long event, not kind of a one-day, two-day type of event.
In addition to degrading Iran's military capabilities, such as they were, it's clear that there is a continuation of what was an Israeli strategy during the 12-day war in June 2025, I'm sorry, which is to create a pathway for Iranians to rise up and bring down the regime.
It's very, very unclear whether that can be successful.
This is a regime that has proved itself to be more durable and resilient than anybody had ever imagined.
And it's very, very hard to undertake regime change from the air from many thousands of miles away.
I want to pick up on those last two points you raised about the capacity of the Iranians themselves to actually engage in regime change as well as sort of who steps in to fill the vacuum and the continuity of the revolutionary government.
Let's take the Iranian people first.
You know, I just was reading a story from Time magazine about upwards of 30,000 people being killed in the protests, probably a lot more.
How much capacity is there for the protest movement in Iran to take advantage of this moment?
Yeah, this is the question that people have been asking themselves.
The Iranian people, or a large part of the Iranian people, have been in open revolt against the regime, not just since December when this most recent round of protests began.
Which were mainly about the economy at first.
They started about hyperinflation.
They started within a core constituency of the Islamic Republic, the Bazaris in Tehran, who have been suffering under tremendous economic mismanagement and hyperinflation.
It then led to demands for change in the regime.
But as I said, Iranians, large numbers of them, have been protesting the Iranian regime, demonstrating every few years, so in these spasms of huge demonstrations of people power going back to 2009, the so-called Green Revolution, which didn't bring down the regime.
But it's clear that it is extraordinarily unpopular with vast numbers of Iranians, which is why the regime needed to use heavy weapons and killed as many as perhaps 30,000 people in just a number of days in December and January.
Do they have the capacity now to bring down the regime?
Again, these are questions that we won't know the answer to unless people try.
There haven't been big protests yet.
There have been celebrations in cities around Iran at the news of Ayatollah Khamenei's death, but there hasn't been organized protests.
There was organized protests on the university campuses leading up to the American and Israeli attacks.
But I don't think we know enough about the Iranian opposition, which is divided, to know whether it can coalesce around one particular figure, the Shah's son, Reza Pahlavi, the Shah who was brought down in the 1979 revolution.
Reza Pahlavi is someone who people have been calling out his name in the streets, which has been rather extraordinary.
But there are tremendous questions whether he can really unify a quite divided opposition.
So then let's go back to the Iranian regime, the revolutionary regime that exists now.
As you just mentioned, the Israeli government is claiming to have knocked dozens of people out in its early strikes.
Who steps into that space and why is it that this regime has been so resilient?
Yeah, so right now there is a three-man council that is running the country.
The president, Masoud Pezeskian, the leader of the judiciary, and they have named a temporary Ayatollah, a guy named Ali Reza Arafi.
They are going to rule the country until the legal process plays itself out and there can be an actual selection of a new supreme leader.
Why has this regime been so resilient?
It's had 47 years to establish itself institutionally.
It has extraordinarily robust means of political control.
As we've seen, Iranians have been in open revolt and they've been willing to use lots of force and violence to maintain control over the country.
This most recent spasm is perhaps the most extreme, but through its internal security services, Iranians have not been able to overthrow a regime they clearly do not like.
Let's talk about sort of some of the key U.S. interests here.
What have been some of the more malign activities that Iran has directed towards the United States in recent years?
Well, it has been essentially a 47-year campaign on the part of revolutionary Iran against the United States.
We can go back to the Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon in 1983, the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut in the 1980s, all throughout, up to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, in which the Iranians helped Iraqi militias harm American soldiers in large, large, in large, large numbers.
The Iranians have been selling chaos throughout the region and seeking to destabilize America's partners, not just Israel through its support for Hamas and Hezbollah, but also Saudis, Iraqis, Emiratis, Jordanians have all suffered at the hands of the Iranians who have tried to upend a regional order that is favorable to the United States as well as its partners.
You mentioned Hamas and Hezbollah.
There's also the Houthis, several groups that are effectively proxies for Iran and that, as you mentioned, kind of work in different ways in the region.
What happens to those groups right now and what kind of response do you think we might see from them in this moment?
Yeah, this is what's known as the axis of resistance.
And the Iranians over many years have nurtured the development of proxy groups, the most significant of which was Hezbollah, from Lebanon, as well as Hamas, various militias in Iraq, and more recently the Houthis in Yemen.
Those groups have been battered by both the United States as well as Israel.
Can they muster the ability to respond to the United States and Israel?
So far, they haven't.
Hezbollah has released two statements: one more belligerent than the other, though the Northern Front in Israel remains quiet.
Iraqi militias have not fired on Americans or Israelis just yet.
But we are really in the early going of this conflict.
So, what are you watching for next as these strikes and the retaliatory strikes continue?
I'm looking for two things, really.
One, what we were talking about just before: what will the Iranian people do, and exactly what the proxies are going to do.
The Iranians have spent a lot of time and effort trying to build up this kind of forward strategy of defense for them by building up these proxies to undermine American partners in the region as well as the United States.
If they remain on the sidelines, the Iranians, the entire strategy has been destroyed.
All right.
Well, we are going to start taking questions from our callers for Stephen Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Our phone line for Democrats is 202-748-8000.
For Republicans, 202-748-8001.
And for Independents, 202748-8002.
Before we get to those callers, I want to play a bit of tape from the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who gave a statement at a meeting of the UN Security Council condemning the U.S.-Israeli joint military strikes on Iran.
Let's listen.
Mr. President, the U.S. and Israel attacks occurred following the third round of indirect talks between the U.S. and Iran, mediated by Oman.
Preparations have been made for technical talks in Vienna next week, followed by a new round of political talks.
I deeply regret that this opportunity of diplomacy has been squandered.
Mr. President, third, the region and the world need a way out now.
I call for de-escalation and an immediate cessation of hostilities.
The alternative is a potential wider conflict with grave consequences for civilians and regional stability.
I strongly urge all parties to return immediately to the negotiating table, notably on the Iran nuclear program.
I note that the U.S. President has reportedly talked with leaders of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.
Iran's foreign minister has reportedly spoken to his counterparts in GCC countries and Iraq.
And everything must be done to prevent a further escalation.
To this end, I call on all member states to strictly uphold their obligations under international law, including the UN Charter, to respect and protect civilians in accordance with international humanitarian law and to ensure nuclear safety.
Let us act responsibly and together to pull the region and our world back from the brink.
Thank you.
And we're back with Stephen Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations, ready to take your questions about the ongoing conflict in Iran.
We'll start with Mike in Philadelphia on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Mike.
Hi, good morning.
I just want to state that the region he's going over there, he doesn't check with Congress, which is a rogue president acting on himself.
And then he says about with NATO, that there's an ocean to protect us, that they need us to protect them because there's an ocean between us and them.
So what's the urgency of Iran that there's an ocean between us and Iran as that immediate threat to our country?
It's just all distraction from this criminal empire, this criminal regime, all involved with this Epstein.
It's a bit of cover-up.
And it's got to, you know, people got an answer to this.
Well, thanks, Mike.
I'm going to set aside the question of the Epstein file since it's not my area of expertise.
I have personal views on it, but not professional views.
But I will say this, that there are real questions going back to the president's statement that he released, the video in which he said that Iran's missile program was a threat to the United States.
That I think was news to the expert community.
It is true that the Iranians have been working diligently on their ballistic missile program.
And if left unchecked, the U.S. intelligence community estimates that Iran will have one of the largest inventories of ballistic missiles in the world within 10 years.
They clearly are working on their ballistic missile technology.
It seems clear that they would want to have ballistic missiles that could reach the United States.
But there's really no publicly available evidence to suggest that they are a direct threat to the homeland of the United States at this time.
We have a question that we received via text from Guy in Oklahoma who says, Hi, Steve.
Will it take Israeli or U.S. boots on the ground to complete the topple of the Islamic Republic, which is the Islamic government in Iran?
Or can the millions of Iranian people complete the regime change?
And how would we arm the people of Iran to fight the guard?
Yeah, this is a terrific question.
Will there be Israeli and American boots on the ground?
There seems no indication that either country is preparing an invasion force.
Of course, the Israelis have clearly slipped their intelligence agents and others into the country.
Their intelligence has been rather extraordinary in targeting regime officials, knowing where they are and when they're going to be there.
I think that the strategy here is to so weaken the means of the Iranian leadership to control the population that it can come, that people can come out into the streets and collapse this regime.
I would be very, very surprised to see the United States assemble an invasion force into Iran.
The United States, I think, has learned its lessons from the invasion of Iraq.
Regime change, there are, I should put it this way, there are limits to American power.
And this is a very, very risky gamble that the president has undertaken in terms of calling for the people of Iran to rise up and bring down the regime.
He is leaving it to their hands, but he is also giving them a tremendous helping hand here.
Ira is in Palm Coast, Florida on our line for Democrats.
U.S.-Israel Partnership in Iran00:15:11
Good morning, Ira.
Yes, my opinion about what happened with this country, the United States invading Iran, was totally wrong.
And they're missing the whole big picture.
This thing has been going on for close to 100 years, this conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis, but the Palestine and Israel.
We need to draw a line there.
There's two people in that country, Palestinians and Jews.
And there needs to be a Palestine and there needs to be Israel.
That's all it is to it.
This conflict will continue forever.
What the United States has been doing over all of these years is just wasting capital, money, and killing, bombing, and killing people.
Now, they let Netanyahu kill 100,000 people in Palestine.
And they supposedly the United States want them to control these people.
Two people of different ethnicities, you cannot put them together.
Once that they hate each other, so they draw the thing up wrong, like when they draw up Israel, instead of drawing the line for two countries and sending two people up, because both sides need to both need their self-determination.
So, Ira, I do want to bring it back to Iran, but since you brought up Netanyahu, I want to play a clip of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's statement on the attack on Iran.
This is coming via an interpreter.
Israel and the United States launched a joint operation, Operation Roaring Lion.
The goal of the operation, to put an end to the threat from the Ayatollah regime in Iran.
At this moment, the IDF is striking targets of the repressive regime, facilities of the revolutionary guards and the besiege, and together with the United States, sites of ballistic missiles that threaten both Israel and U.S. forces.
This operation will continue for as long as necessary.
For 47 years, the evil regime in Iran has called death to Israel, death to America.
It has crushed the citizens of its own country.
It has cast fear upon the peoples of the region, and it has spread a sprawling network of terror throughout the entire world.
We are doing this in full cooperation with our friends in the United States under the brave leadership of President Trump.
Together with the United States, we will strike the terror regime hard.
We will create conditions that will allow the brave Iranian people to throw off the yoke of this murderous regime.
During Operation Dogs of War, I was asked many times if toppling the regime was the goal of the operation in addition to removing the nuclear and missile threat.
And I answered that this was not the goal, but it could certainly be the result.
And indeed, that is exactly what happened when millions of Iranians took to the streets.
And now, now they are given the opportunity to take their fate into their own hands.
Israel has just come out of sort of the intensity of the conflict in Gaza, and now immediately into this.
What is the role here?
And this is a partnership in particular.
How unusual is this?
Well, the Israelis point to Iran's support for Hamas and other proxies in the region who are dedicated to Israel's destruction.
As, in their words, Iran is the head of the snake, and that it is their firm belief that if you bring down the regime in Iran, in addition to reducing the missile threat and nuclear threat, Israel's security would be assured.
And that is why the Israelis are waging this campaign against the Iranian regime.
From their perspective, the Iranians started this going back to October 7th.
The United States in full partnership with Israel.
This is something that the United States and Israel have cooperated and coordinated over many years.
But we've never seen the level of coordination and cooperation U.S. forces launching from Israeli military bases, the same places where Israeli airplanes are launching in their strikes on Iran.
This is something very, very different, and it would suggest a level of planning that has been going on for many months, even as there have been negotiations between Iran and the United States.
Julius is in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on our line for independence.
Good morning, Julius.
Yes, I would object to the notion that Israel has just stopped a conflict in Palestine.
That farce of a peace thing that Trump has talked about is just a fabrication.
There are still bombs dropping, women and children being murdered with our tax dollars.
As far as us learning lessons from the Iraq war, hogbosh.
Endless war is profitable.
The more ineffective the war, the more profitable.
It goes on longer.
These are just profit centers for the Epstein class.
War equals profits.
These think tanks that come on here are basically Epstein-class mouthpieces.
They lie, especially when it comes to war.
They tell one side.
They tell partial truth.
Do you think Mr. Cook has lied about something in particular, Julius?
Excuse me.
I am not finished, please.
All right.
I have a very limited.
All right.
Let's go on to Tom in Hyde Park, New York, on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Tom.
Boy, that's a hard act to follow.
Good morning.
I had a question regarding the larger geopolitical ramifications of the attack.
I think for the past few years, the Trump administration is trying to restore the deterrence that the U.S. projects in the world.
In other words, threats that are made or military action can follow.
We saw our deterrent capacity decline under the Biden administration.
So I'm wondering what the guest thinks Russia and China are, or what kind of assessments they're making in regards to the current situation in Iran.
Thank you.
Well, thanks for the question.
And let me just go back to the previous caller because there's something that I just cannot let go there.
To smear my colleagues and I who work in think tanks as the Epstein class is deeply and profoundly offensive.
These are all very good people, trained academics, people who have devoted their lives to service in the U.S. government and advancing knowledge.
The idea that we are somehow part of some cabal of a certain class that is seeking to protect Jeffrey Epstein and those around him is absurd in the extreme.
Now, on to this caller's question.
One of the reasons why I believe that President Trump has decided to undertake this military action is because if you go back to January 13, he said that help would be on the way and he warned the Iranian leadership that if they killed large numbers of Iranians, that there would be a price to pay.
I think that his advisors within the White House, including Vice President JD Vance, had said that now that you have laid down a red line, you have to follow through.
Otherwise, you'll end up like President Obama, who laid down a red line about the use of chemical weapons in Syria, that the Syrian regime should not.
They did, and the president backed away, and that that would erode America's deterrence capacity.
And I think that was an argument that was made to President Trump.
JD Vance, the vice president, who is known not to be an advocate of foreign adventures or regime change, made this case.
It is in part one of the reasons why the president decided to order up these military strikes.
What effect does it have on Russia and China?
Well, the Russians are quite weak.
They've been unable to achieve their objectives in Ukraine.
They are hardly the peer competitor that we make them out to be, but for the fact that they have a large arsenal of nuclear weapons.
The Chinese who have refloated the Iranian economy and have developed a closer relationship with the Iranians over the years have to be watching what is going on in the Middle East right now and recognizing that their strategic position there has just suffered a blow.
That is different from what their ultimate objective is, which is to dominate East Asia.
And they may in fact be thinking, well, the United States could get pinned down in the Middle East once again, providing the Chinese for more room for maneuver in East Asia.
But for now, the United States is setting back China's relationship with the Iranians.
We have another question via text from Adam, a Republican in Maryland.
Anyone surprised by these events, even while negotiations were ongoing, really hasn't been paying attention.
While it may also distract from other issues, this is about someone obsessed with legacy and being seen as strong rather than stupid.
Expect more of this.
Look, I'm not going to get into the psychology of the president.
There's lots of speculation about what he thinks and what he doesn't think.
But this is what I will say.
I think over the course of the last 10 years or more, the president has been saying that he goes by his gut.
Any effort to establish some sort of intellectual framework or worldview for the president is, I think, a fool's errand.
It is his gut that tells him what to do.
He trusts his gut the most.
And that's why we do tend to see zigs and zags in American foreign policy.
We're in part at this place with Iran because the president's gut told him on January 13th to warn the Iranians not to kill large numbers of protesters.
Mike is in Boynton Beach, Florida on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Mike.
Good morning.
Good morning, Stephen.
Good morning.
I have a simple question for you.
Maybe not a simple question, but a short one.
What is the risk of disruption to global energy supplies based on what's happening right now?
I think it's a really terrific question.
And the Iranians have announced the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which is the strategic waterway that connects the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean.
That for many, many years has been a red line for the United States, that any closure of the Strait of Hormuz would result in the massive use of American force.
It turns out that many ships that were headed towards the Strait stopped at the beginning of hostilities between the United States and Iran.
There is one tanker we know of that has been attacked.
But right now, there's very little traffic.
But if the Iranians really did close the strait or attempt to close the strait, it would be met with a massive amount of American force.
I will say this, however, on the fears of the war, on the psychology of the markets, we're likely to see a spike in gas prices.
I don't think that there's enough slack in the global oil market right now to tamp down on the psychology coming as a result of this conflict in the Middle East and what it might do to the markets starting on Monday morning.
But at the same time, a lot of people expected that kind of reaction when the U.S. got involved in Venezuela, and we didn't quite see the markets react in the way many people expected.
Yeah, and that is certainly a possibility here.
I think it's because of the kind of swift nature of the way in which the Venezuela operation was undertaken, that there was a government in place.
It was not a days-long, perhaps weeks-long, military operation that threatened a strategic waterway through which large amounts of the global oil supply passed.
20% of global oil supplies passed through the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea there.
There could be very significant effects on the global oil market.
Michael is in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on our line for independence.
Good morning, Michael.
Good morning.
I wanted to make the comment that I believe that the timing of this attack suggests that this is just a distraction from the Epstein testimony from Bill Clinton on Friday.
I guess Trump's best friend, Bill Clinton, the serial rapist.
And I think that it also is a distraction from Saudi princes' involvement as well.
I'd like the guests' thoughts on that.
Well, I think there's been a lot of people who have speculated about this question, this wag the dog or wag the tail, whatever it is, that the president is seeking to distract the country from political problems.
I don't have any information about that or any evidence that that is in fact the case.
The United States and the Trump administration have been focused on Iran almost from the beginning when the president came into office.
At first, the effort was to negotiate a deal.
From the perspective of the White House, the Iranians weren't willing to negotiate in good faith, and that's why you had Operation Midnight Hammer in June 2025.
And then once again, I think the president laid out his case for Iran and why now.
There are significant questions as to whether Iran poses a direct threat to the United States.
Whether the president is distracting from the Epstein testimony of a previous president or his own involvement with Jeffrey Epstein, which we know was robust for a bunch of years, I don't know and I don't care to comment on.
Michael is in Virginia on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Michael.
Hi, good morning.
Iranian Assets Relocation00:12:42
I'd like to ask the guests, I heard prior to the attack that the Iranian government had relocated a lot of their money and high-value resources and valuable things out of the country.
So does the guests know anything about this, like money moved out of Iran and assets moved out of Iran prior to the attack by the Ayatollah's regime?
Well, it stands to reason ahead of this conflict, which everybody understood was a possibility that the regime leadership would engage in moving resources and money around.
The Iranians have become adept at illicit finance, given how many sanctions have been applied on the country and individuals within the country.
And there are clearly groups around the world who are willing to help them to do that.
They would be, it strikes me, it would be foolish of them not to have done so.
But right now, the real focus has been on how they have moved their military assets around and how they have tried to hide some of the work they have done in reconstituting their nuclear program by burying it even deeper underground and moving missile launchers and ballistic missiles into mountains where it's much harder for the United States and Israeli Air Forces to get at them.
Another question we received via text from Adam in a Republican in Maryland.
Really, we should be asking why both why and how key figures in our government were in Mar-a-Lago or on vacation or otherwise out of the office at the time these attacks began.
What does it say about our own process?
Yeah, there really isn't a foreign policy process and national security process in the United States any longer.
There used to be an elaborate process in which all the different relevant government agencies would come together and discuss a potential policy.
It would then go up the chain of command until it went to the president for a decision.
The president runs the United States in a very different way, in which the bureaucracy is catching up to his policies.
And as I said in response to a previous caller, he relies mostly on his gut as well as a small coterie of advisors that include his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff, who is an envoy to many, many different things, his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, the Secretary of State, Mark Arubio, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
But primarily, he relies on himself and his own thinking on these things.
Any number of commentators have noticed the fact that we have undertaken a major military operation in the Middle East from the president's resort in Mar-a-Lago.
Now, I know that the U.S. government is set up in a way that the president is in constant communication and can direct U.S. Armed Forces from wherever he is.
But this is a very serious undertaking, and to do it from a club in Florida is, I think, from a perspective of optics, is not the best look.
Joe is in North Carolina on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Joe.
Yes, this doesn't surprise me at all.
We've got, ma'am, a guy named Benjamin Milikowski.
You know him as Benjamin Netanyahu.
At the present, he's dropping bombs in Syria to save the Druze.
He's setting up a new diplomatic mission in Somaliland.
We have been told before that there were weapons of mass destruction.
They didn't exist.
We were told that Saddam Hussein, who heartily prayed as a Muslim, was involved with militant religious fanatics that bombed in 9-11.
Joe, can you bring it to the go ahead?
Yeah, I want to bring it to the fact that during the negotiations, we owed the Iranian people some degree of honesty in what we were doing and not just from the Euphrates to the Nile as the old Benjamin Millikowski project.
Thank you.
There's a lot in there.
I do want to correct the caller that when Benjamin Netanyahu was in college here in the United States, he lived for a time in Philadelphia.
His father had an academic appointment in the Philadelphia area and he went to MIT.
He went by the name Ben Nate.
I think that the caller is engaged in an old trope about the Israelis wanting to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates.
And I don't think that that's, I don't think that that is the case.
When it comes to Israel's recognition of Somaliland, this is from the perspective of the Israelis.
They have enemies in Yemen who have been attacking Israel.
Those are the Houthis with support of the Iranian regime.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has trained and supplied the Israelis.
Somaliland is a good place to watch and keep the Houthis in check.
And Somaliland is a place that has been functionally independent since 1991.
The efforts to protect the Druze in Syria are twofold.
One, Druze were being massacred by government forces and Bedouin tribes in Syria.
And Israel has a very large Druze population, which is loyal to the state.
Their Druze have fallen in the conflict in Gaza.
It is a domestic political issue for Israel.
And when it comes to Iran, of course, the Iranians have threatened to destroy Israel for many, many years now.
There is a question to be asked whether this was of strategic interest or that it was important for the United States to do this now.
But from the Israeli perspective, and I'm not Israeli, but I understand what they're thinking is.
But from the Israeli perspective, Iran has been an abiding and existential threat to the state for many, many years.
Mike is in Iowa on our line for independence.
Good morning, Mike.
Good morning.
How are you?
Good, thanks.
What's your question for Stephen Cook?
Okay.
First of all, let me say we're in the time of the greatest president since Roosevelt, since Reagan.
I mean, you know, the days of sleeping Biden at 4 o'clock.
And let me draw a red line in the sand, Obama.
You know, I mean, this is over.
I mean, we've got a man in the White House that is probably the greatest president we've had since FDR.
Okay, so, I mean, let's just stop that.
And all these Democrats that are crying and all these people that are crying, you know, Mike, what's your question?
My question is, doesn't it feel good, Mr. Cook, to live in the time of the greatest president that we've had since Roosevelt and Reagan?
I mean, that's just my question.
Well, thanks for the call and the question.
Look, I think that the president and his team believe that what they have done since they came to office is to restore American leadership around the world.
My job is to analyze what they've done and provide context for it.
I'll let historians reserve judgment whether he's the greatest president since Ronald Reagan or Franklin Roosevelt.
But I will say this, that what the United States has done in Iran is extraordinarily risky.
The attempt to change regimes from so far away and from the air opens up a whole range of possibilities in Iran, from a fiercer dictatorship all the way across the spectrum to a democratic breakthrough.
And I think that Americans need to be prepared for the possibilities across the range of outcomes here.
The real concern here is potential chaos spilling out from Iran and the suffering of the Iranian people, who I believe that we have genuinely sought to help.
But as I said before, there are limits to American power.
And changing regimes from 7,000, 8,000 miles away and primarily from the air is a roll of the dice.
Paul is in Winter Garden, Florida on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Paul.
Good morning.
Good morning, Stephen.
Hey, I just want to ask you, have you ever seen so much division in our country in such a short time?
Do you remember back in September 11, 2001, when terrorism bombed New York City, how we had so much patriotism?
And now we killed the number one funding leader of all these terrorist groups.
And all these people want to sit back and criticize and tear our country apart.
It's just unbelievable.
Now, I know you mentioned that, you know, of course, Iran was working on getting missiles to come to the United States to bomb us.
Could you imagine if Trump would have done just what Obama or Biden did, just unfreeze their funds or give them a crate full of cash, and they would have developed a bomb and they would have bombed, let's say, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C.
Oh my gosh, Trump would be the worst president ever.
Here we are, we're stopping terrorism, and people are complaining.
So Paul, I think we have your idea.
We're about out of time.
I want to let Mr. Cook respond.
Yeah, thanks for the call.
And two responses.
One, I think that the world is likely to be a better place without Ayatollah Khamenei, but not right away.
No one is going to lament his passing.
And I think the caller is quite right.
When there was an agreement between the United States and Iran and it led to sanctions relief, certainly some people hoped that the Iranians would direct those resources to the development of their country.
Certainly the Iranian opposition had hoped and Iranians more generally had hoped that those resources would be directed towards the development of the country.
But it went towards the development of Iran's nuclear program, its ballistic missile program, and of course its proxies like Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and various Iraqi militias.
This was a regime that was bent on sowing violence and fear and terror around the region and did have the capacity to reach across the globe to harm people.
I'll point to terrorist attacks in Argentina in the 1980s, efforts to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, those kinds of things.
So yes, Iran is a very significant terrorism threat and Ayatollah Khamenei directed that and no one is shedding a tear for him today.
At least no one here in the United States should be.
Well, thank you so much for your time this morning.
Stephen Cook is the Middle East and Africa Studies Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
I appreciate you.
Thank you.
Now, we are going to continue our conversation about the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran.
Those conflicts are ongoing.
Later on this morning, in about half an hour, we're going to have a conversation with retired Marine Corps Colonel Mark Kansian from the Center for Strategic and International Studies on those continuing military strikes in Iran.
But first, we're going to take more of your reaction to this major ongoing story.
Continuing Military Strikes in Iran00:02:49
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We'll be right back on this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
David Sirota, who is based in Denver, Colorado, has some very strong views about money and politics.
His book is called Master Plan: The Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America.
There are 11 chapters which reflect the 11 episodes of his podcast, Master Plan.
In order to tell his story, he points his finger at the 1971 Powell Secret Memo.
That's former U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Lewis Powell, who served on the Supreme Court from 1972 to 1987.
He died in 1998 at age 90.
Author Sirota, who is 50, writes that the Powell memo laid out a comprehensive step-by-step strategy for corporate America to regain control, protect its interests, and reshape the political and legal system of the United States to favor business.
A new interview with author David Sirota about his book, Master Plan: The Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America.
Book Notes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb, is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
Tuesday, March 3rd, kicks off C-SPAN's campaign 2026 primary coverage.
Live across the C-SPAN networks.
First up, North Carolina and Arkansas.
But all eyes are on Texas.
The Lone Star State could decide the balance of power in Washington, shaping control of the U.S. Senate and influencing redistricting battles that could redraw America's political map for years to come.
We'll also bring you high-stakes House and Governor's races across all three states.
Our live coverage begins at 7 p.m. Eastern.
Watch as voters in Arkansas, North Carolina, and Texas head to the polls.
Primary night on the C-SPAN networks.
Every moment, every result, every speech.
C-SPAN, bringing you democracy unfiltered.
Best ideas and best practices can be found anywhere.
We have to listen so we can govern better.
Democracy depends on heavy doses of civility.
Shelter and Follow Money00:15:27
You can fight and still be friendly.
Bridging the divide in American politics.
You know, you may not agree with Le Dokran on everything, but you can find areas where you do agree.
He's a pretty likable guy as well.
Chris Kins and I are actually friends.
He votes wrong all the time, but we're actually friends.
A horrible secret that Scott and I have is that we actually respect each other.
We all don't hate each other.
You two actually kind of like each other.
These are the kinds of secrets we'd like to expose.
It's nice to be with a member who knows what they're talking about.
Les did agree to the civility, all right?
He owes my son $10 from a bad person.
Fork it over.
That's fighting words right now.
I'm glad I'm not in charge of it.
I'm thrilled to be on the show with him.
There are not shows like this, right?
Incentivizing that relationship.
ceasefire, Friday nights on C-SPAN.
Tonight on C-SPAN's Q&A, former New York Democratic U.S. Congressman Steve Israel talks about his novel, The Einstein Conspiracy, inspired by a real Nazi plot to eliminate physicist Albert Einstein in the 1930s.
A vocal critic of Adolf Hitler, Einstein fled to the United States with his wife in 1933 and became a U.S. citizen in 1940.
He had visited the U.S. where he taught, then was set to return to Germany and realized, I can't go back.
Spent time in Belgium.
A Nazi hit squad tried to assassinate him in Belgium, in Belgium.
His wife pled with him not to take his daily walks because there was a $5,000 bounty on his head.
He said, I didn't know my head was worth that much, and continued his walks.
Goes to England where he's threatened.
Comes to America where he believes he's finally safe, an ocean away from the Nazis, until he learns that the shadow of the Nazis is darkening America itself.
Steve Israel with his book, The Einstein Conspiracy.
Tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's Q ⁇ A. You can listen to Q ⁇ A and all of our podcasts on our free C-SPAN Now app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Washington Journal continues.
Welcome back.
We're continuing our conversation about the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran with your calls and comments.
Our phone line, again, for Democrats is 202-748-8000.
For Republicans, 202-748-8001.
For Independents, 202-748-8002.
If you're active or former military and have thoughts you'd like to share, you can call in at 202-748-8003.
That's also the number where you can text us.
Let's start with Joe in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Joe.
Hi, guys.
I do want to encourage the Republicans who are kind of caught in their information bubbles to actually start looking up things on their own.
Like, go to actually dig into the web on actual topics.
I'll give you an example.
Israel has a national health care system, you know, socialism.
They pay for abortions and gender-affirming care.
Now, to the conflict that's going on, I don't think we have to look any further than the board of pirates.
Trump calls it the board of peace.
It's the board of pirates.
They've got large plans for that part of the world.
And it doesn't work unless you have somebody in each country that'll go, yes, boss, no, boss, to Trump.
So this is part of a bigger, larger reset of all nations and the entire world.
I mean, in Venezuela, he left the bad guys in charge.
So, and then they say, well, follow the money, follow the money.
The Republicans in Congress won't even let the Democrats look at the money related to the banking that was around Epstein, like the Mellon Bank of New York, Bank of America.
The Republicans won't let the Democrats get those banking records.
I wonder why.
Israel does a lot of banking through the Bank of New York Mellon.
So start looking stuff up, and then you'll soon realize you should stop voting Republican yesterday.
You guys have a great day.
Bye.
Danny is in South Carolina on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Danny.
Come on.
Why don't you go after Russia?
That's an evidictier quit bombing these small islands and go after Russia if he feels bad.
Thank you.
All right.
Tony is in Amherst, Ohio, and is former military.
Good morning, Tony.
Hi, how are you doing?
I am 100% behind President Trump on this issue.
I want to remind everybody that if France would have invaded Germany prior to their buildup of the military complex, World War II would have never occurred.
This is the same situation.
This is a very proactive president, and I am 100% behind him.
One other thing I want to comment about: I'm tired of the race-baiting, wacko-west calling the president, a child molester, and a white supremacist.
Thank you.
John is in South Pasadena, California, on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, John.
Yes, good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
I'm for the president, 110% what he did when he went over there to bomb Iran.
I'm telling you now that the people are very happy there that they're not under suppression and they want to have a good clean life there.
And they don't want a dictator harming these people.
They killed a lot of people there.
And I also want to say that when Obama was in office and President Biden was in office, let me tell you, they didn't do nothing there.
They just helped these people try to get that bomb together.
And the big, the two pellets of cash that were sent there when Obama, just before he left office, that wasn't for the Iranians.
That was Obama's money.
They were hiding it for him in an offshore account.
But I'm going to tell you right now, I want that country to be a safe country.
And I think the other countries will fall, the other countries will fall right in line with Iran there, and that'll be over.
And Trump is the greatest president we ever had.
He's the only one that did something.
47 years for all that crap down there.
Anyways, thank you for taking my call.
All right.
Jeff is in Hayward, Wisconsin, on our line for independence.
Good morning, Jeff.
Yes, good morning.
Thanks for taking the call.
Yeah.
I'm going to take another swing at the head of the nail for Joel from Utah, I believe, a few callers back.
And it is a matter of following the money, follow the oil.
There's no reason why in our area and many others, the price of gas went up a dime.
It went up a dime the following day.
The following day, we had the strike.
The oil companies knew this was coming.
This was not a hidden agenda in the big world.
Our people that have to live with the consequences.
Now, you follow the money and Joe talking about the money earlier.
That is so the direction that Trump goes to protect his own.
He has his puppeteer of Jared going over with his bag handler, Rubio.
They go over it.
They protect their own.
The billion that Trump made off of the Bitcoin, this is another extortion of the money that they're able to maneuver around.
We talk about democracy.
Then all of a sudden, we want fair and open elections in other countries.
And Trump will do whatever he can to manipulate the election in his favor for power.
I'm sorry, folks.
I mean, Trump does have decent ideas to go at it, but he usually screws up everything for power and for money.
So.
All right.
Chris is in Austin, Texas, on our line for current and former military.
Good morning, Chris.
Hey, good morning.
I just want to say I joined the military in 1979 because of the Iran situation when they took our hostages.
I was pretty upset about that.
And by the way, I rejoined the military after 9-11.
But getting back to the situation, I think it's 47 years overdue to take on that regime.
But I want you all to know I'm no Trump supporter.
It's just, I do support the action.
I just don't support Trump's motives.
Ultimately, I'm suspicious because of the way he's been operating from day one.
It's been pretty self-evident that he's taking care of his own pocketbook and family.
And that's all I have to say.
I hope everything works out for everybody militarily over there and for the Iranian people.
Jack is in Iowa on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Jack.
Good morning.
I was disappointed in your prior guest, Steve Cook's twice downplaying the atomic bomb threat.
It's been reported that Iran had 600 pounds of near weapons grade nuclear material.
And at 10 pounds per bomb, that's 60 nuclear bombs.
Using 10 bombs on Israel and 10 bombs on Europe, that leaves 40 bombs that could be used on the United States.
That's going to cause a lot more damage than Washington, D.C., New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
Okay.
Next up is Alexander, who is in Maryland on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Alexander.
Yeah, good morning.
Thank you.
Just want to say that I'm so sick and tired of all these Democrats calling and saying Trump is racist.
That's what it cut it up.
Trump is this, Trump is that.
You know, Obama said this guy, this Ayatollah Kovani, whatever his name is, set in 1.7 billion cash and Trump setting this.
And that serves him right.
I celebrate with the Iranians, and God bless the USA.
God bless the people of Israel.
God bless Etayahu and God bless all.
Thank you.
Speaking of Israel in particular, there is a station called I-24 News, which is an Israel-based international news channel with headquarters in Tel Aviv.
And we're going to listen for a bit to how they are reporting on the strikes this morning.
A little bit about that because there's a bit of confusion, a bit of confusion about what is safer, the Miklat or the Mamad.
You know, essentially for our foreign viewers, the safe shelter within people's apartments or going underground into Miklatim.
Is there a difference at this point?
I'm sure there is.
And that's a great question that we actually had a discussion on the way.
Unfortunately, the best people to ask that is engineers, not us.
It's a very good question.
We were discussing it on the way to the same.
Right.
Well, obviously, you're dealing with the aftermath of so many of these incidents.
And I think we're just hoping that you're able to stay emotionally strong, you and all the other medical personnel who are doing this.
Is there kind of any last message that you want to send to those who are viewing this?
Any updates that you can give us about the scene on the ground right now?
I know you're finally at the hospital.
I'm now in the headquarters of UNAL Hatzalah.
And there is thousands of volunteers all over the countries that we leave our families and the shelters when there is a siren and there is hit that we need to get there.
It's not easy for us to leave our family hurts.
So help us by helping yourself.
And when there is a siren, listen to what the people say and go to the safe area.
All right.
I'd like to thank you so much for joining us.
Doctor.
Again, you can see these visuals in front of you.
That is Beit Shemesh, a town, a city near Jerusalem, where at least nine people have been pronounced dead following the impact of a ballistic missile from Iran.
The majority of those who were killed in this missile impact had been taking cover in a public shelter.
That's according to the Jerusalem District Police Chief.
The deputy commissioner is also speaking at the scene right now.
He believes that this was a direct impact on the shelter.
And most of those killed were actually in the shelter.
Again, you know, something that I do want to say, we learned from the past war in June in 2025.
We also saw hundreds of ballistic missiles fired from Iran is that you are largely going to be safe if you are inside a shelter, whether it is a Mamad, an apartment shelter, or a Mikhtatin underground shelter, as long as there is no direct missile impact.
We saw situations in which there were buildings.
I think that's the only thing I-24 News, an Israeli-based international news channel with headquarters in Tel Aviv.
They're talking about some of those retaliatory strikes that the Iranian government has done.
This one, a missile that landed in Israel near Jerusalem.
And as they were reporting on I-24 News, that up to nine people may be dead in that particular attack.
Iran has been retaliating against the strikes from the United States and Israel throughout the region.
Let's get back to your calls with your thoughts.
Scott is in Effingham, Illinois, on our line for current and former military.
Good morning, Scott.
Good morning, America and fellow patriots.
When I served in the Vietnam War, I was in the Air Force, and we trained Iranian pilots.
Now, their country would buy everything from Tootsie Rolls to fighter jets from us.
In 1979, when they took our hostages, I personally met Terry Anderson in upstate New York when he got returned, and it was a pleasure to see him.
So, anyways, when the Muslims took over, okay, 9-11 happened, and most of us adults remember where we were.
The rest of the world wants our money, but the Muslims, it's in the Koran that we are infidels.
Well, we have a president.
Scott, I just want to make sure that we're being clear here about what you're talking about.
So, you were talking about Iranians and the Iranian revolution, and then separately the terrorist who committed the 9-11 attacks, who, while Muslim, that is a separate thing from the Muslim faith overall.
Okay, to get to the point with Mr. Trump, he is one of the strongest presidents we've ever had.
I'm not saying he's the best, but he's strong.
And I fought with Israelis.
Anything Obama Said00:03:34
Well, let me one thing.
With the Iranian pilots, they never looked you in the eye.
I never trusted them.
But the Israelis, I fought with them, they are one tough country.
They're the size of New Jersey, and they're surrounded by the Muslims.
Now, for them to stand, with us to stand up with them, our ally, is a pleasure to know to fight with the Israelis.
And for us to go in no other country, you don't see England or France or anybody joining us.
They may for intelligence, but so far the troops ain't doing it.
So let's just see what happens.
And like I say, everybody's talking to you.
The people need to decide for themselves, whether it be democratic or if they appoint someone.
But the thing is to have peace in Iran, I think, is the ultimate goal.
Okay, so thank you for listening to me and God bless this country.
And it goes back to the bumper sticker.
America, love it or leave it.
If you don't like it here, leave.
Nobody's stopping you.
Let's have peace in our country, too.
Okay?
Keith is in Sarasota, Florida, on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Keith.
Hey, how are you doing?
That's great.
I love following up on that.
My wife is like five foot five inches, maybe 120 pounds.
She could take Trump down in a heartbeat.
She's a very tough woman, and he's a very weak man.
I was just calling to share the email I sent to my congressman yesterday morning, a little after 7 a.m.
It said, how dare Trump take us to war with Iran without a declaration from Congress?
It's an impeachable offense.
Are you and your colleagues going to do anything about it?
What if Obama launched such a large-scale war on his own?
The hypocrisy is galling.
Obama secured a nuclear deal with Iran, but Trump tore it up because Trump opposes anything Obama ever did.
Surely because Obama's black.
And as we all know, Trump's a huge racist.
So I guess.
Is there a member of Congress a Republican or Democrat?
I have no representation here.
This is like a MAGA universe where I live.
So yeah, I have no representation.
Definitely Republican, and I'm Democrat.
All right.
Next up is Brian in Rochester, Michigan on our line for independence.
Good morning, Brian.
Good morning.
I just wanted to ask, I think that it was a report that I saw on your program earlier this morning that referenced an article that 30,000 Iranians had been killed in two days.
And just doing a little bit of math, that's 600 people an hour.
Yet we have only the only video that I've seen is some video of some burning fires and a lot of people out on the street.
Where is the proof for the American people that we're backing a war that has actually taken the lives of 30,000 people in two days?
They're loading the bodies on trucks.
And I mean, I think that we just need to step back and use the process of debate in order to get all the information before we decide to take part in a war where Americans could lose their lives.
Goodbye Time00:03:12
Thank you.
Goodbye.
All right.
That is all the time we have for this segment.
We are not going to stop talking about this.
We've got several more, two more experts coming up who will be sharing more information on this.
Next up, we have Colonel Mark Kansian, who is a retired Marine Colonel and is with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
We're going to continue this conversation and keep taking your questions.
We'll be right back.
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He had visited the U.S. where he taught, then was set to return to Germany and realized, I can't go back.
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Steve Israel with his book, The Einstein Conspiracy.
Tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's Q ⁇ A. You can listen to Q ⁇ A and all of our podcasts on our free C-SPAN Now app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Long-Standing Conflict Escalates00:15:10
Washington Journal continues.
Welcome back.
We're continuing our conversation about the ongoing strikes by the United States and Israel on Iran, as well as Iran's retaliatory strikes back.
To help us understand this better, I'm joined now by retired Colonel Mark Kansan, who was a Marine Corps colonel, but now works as a Defense and Security Senior Advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Thank you so much for joining us this morning, Colonel.
Thanks for having me on the program.
So first of all, can you give us your assessment, especially with someone with such a long track record in the military, of what you've seen of this military action thus far?
Well, it's been, I think, pretty much what was expected.
That is, first, that there was a military action.
It was clear that the United States had conducted this large military buildup, that the negotiations were going poorly, that the two sides did not have much overlap, and that we would be headed towards this moment.
I thought it might take another couple of days, given some optimistic reports about the negotiations, but the strikes came in yesterday.
In terms of how they've been conducted, I think the unexpected piece was Israel's participation at such a large scale and with such success.
The United States has been attacking mostly the military targets.
The Israelis have been attacking most of the regime targets.
They killed Khamenei and senior officials.
I think that was unexpected.
Otherwise, you know, how long it's going to go, you know, that's a little up in the air because it depends on what the end game is.
President Trump has put out there that there'll be regime change.
It's possible he might settle for something less.
You served in Iraq twice, where regime change was also the goal.
What lessons do you think from Iraq as well as from Afghanistan the United States may have learned that they would bring into this moment?
I think the big one for the administration particularly is no boots on the ground, that we are not going to send our forces in there, get caught in some stabilization situation where the new government is unstable.
So I don't think you're going to see that.
I think you may see continuing airstrikes, continuing military activities, but not boots on the ground.
Can you give us an overview of the U.S. overall presence in the Middle East and how it's been activated for this attack?
Well, the United States has had a presence in the Middle East continuously, actually, since the end of the Second World War.
Since the 1980s, that has been increased when the Soviet Union threatened the Persian Gulf.
The United States has bases around the area in Bahrain, particularly.
There's a naval support activity, which was struck by the Iranians.
We have a large facility in Qatar and other facilities around the region.
There are some that are not quite covert, but quiet.
For example, we use facilities in Jordan and Israel.
And pre-conflict, maybe 40,000 Americans in all of these facilities.
Now we've seen this large buildup where the United States has brought dozens of aircraft and two carriers plus escorts.
So there's a much greater level of U.S. presence.
And that, you know, several of those bases that you just mentioned have been attacked by Iran.
What is your assessment of the retaliation that we've seen from the Iranian government thus far?
Well, the retaliation is pretty much what we expected.
That is, it has consisted mostly about mostly with missiles and drones.
That's what the Iranians have done in the past.
For example, in June, they struck U.S. base in Qatar.
Earlier, they had struck U.S. base in Iraq.
They might have tried to shut the Straits of Hormuz.
They threatened Hormuz.
They threatened to do that, but the United States has hit its Navy pretty hard.
That doesn't seem to be part of what they're intending.
Wildcard is sleeper cells around the world.
Iran has been willing in the past to conduct terrorist operations and assassinations.
It's not impossible that they would do something like that.
One thing that they have not done, or not been able to do, is to use their proxies.
That is, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas, because they've been badly beaten down.
They've made statements of support, but they have not taken action.
I don't think we're going to see that.
That's a result of what the United States and Israel have been able to do to them, reduce their threat over the last couple of years.
I'd like to play a bit of President Trump's truth social address yesterday when he was talking about some of the risks of this military operation.
Let's listen.
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.
Colonel Kansan, the president there warned that there may be a loss of life of U.S. service members.
Can you talk about that risk and how that might change how the American people perceive this operation?
Well, it was, I think, a good thing to say upfront because military operations on this scale almost inevitably lead to some loss of U.S. life.
Now, that has not happened yet, but the United States is vulnerable both on the ground, in our bases, and also with our forces as they overfly Iran.
Now, I think so far we've used long-range missiles, but at some point we'll start using aircraft over Iran.
The Iranian air defenses have been beaten down, but still they might get lucky.
And it's, I think, a good thing that the President stated this upfront.
I think the American people will accept some casualties if the outcome is successful.
If the outcome is unsuccessful, then of course the casualties will be hard to bear.
So we'll see how that comes out.
Now, on the one hand, the casualties don't look like they're going to be very high because there will not be boots on the ground.
On the other hand, there has grown up an expectation that these kinds of operations are casualty-free.
We saw that with Venezuela where there were no U.S. fatalities.
There were a couple of wounded.
But it's probably going to happen, and it was a good thing to talk about upfront.
All right.
If our audience has questions for Colonel Mark Kansian of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Democrats can call us at 202-748-8000.
Republicans at 202-748-8001.
Independents at 202-748-8002.
And if you're current or former military, you can call us at 202-748-8003.
We're going to start with Chet in Panama City, Florida, who's current or former military.
Good morning, Chet.
Good morning.
How are you today?
Good, thank you.
What's your question for the Colonel?
Well, I have a question and a comment.
First of all, I ran the alignment desk at the Pentagon between 1974 and 1978, and I'm very familiar.
I made probably 20 trips to Iran and sold in lots of weapons and airplanes.
And I think that the action the president has taken is tremendous, terrific.
It's about time we took some action over there.
And I'm appalled by all the previous presidents that failed to do anything of what was going on in Iran.
Well, Chet, you have quite the experience there.
I'm curious as to, before we get the Colonel's response, your own assessment of what you're seeing of this action in terms of do you think it will accomplish some of the goals?
Absolutely.
The action we have taken should have been taken years ago.
And that's ideal and has nearly 5,000 hours of fan federal airplanes.
It's time.
It was time.
And we should continue the pressure that we're exerting on the Iranians until they give out freely.
Colonel, this is something that several folks have mentioned throughout the morning, that this was a long, this has been a long-standing conflict between the United States and Iran.
Why do you think this is the moment that the president chose to do something?
As you say, this has been a long-standing conflict, and the effort to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons has been bipartisan, again, for decades.
I think the moment came when it was clear that Iran had been greatly weakened during the June conflict, the 12-day war, and that there was an opportunity to push the regime hard and force a regime change.
It seems that the Israelis also had some intelligence whereby they could take out Khamenei, the supreme leader, plus many senior officials.
So I think that's what pushed the president, plus what he regarded as the failure of negotiations.
And I think, you know, looking back, I think there was unfortunately not much chance that negotiations were going to bridge this gap between the United States and Iran.
We have a question from Michael on X, who asks, what does a guest think about the Saudi declaration after the Iranian missile attack on the Gulf states?
Well, that was very interesting because it wasn't just the Saudis, but many of the Gulf nations, Bahrain, Qatar, I think Abu Dhabi, Jordan, all made statements to the effect that Iran's actions were unacceptable and that they would defend themselves.
The irony here is that they are now in an unspoken alliance with Israel.
And it wasn't all that long ago when they were all mortal enemies.
But with the Abraham agreements in the first Trump administration and the rise of Iran as a threat to the Arab countries, they've decided that Iran is a greater threat.
It's very close.
It's very aggressive.
And that Israel might be a worthwhile, if not ally, at least partner.
So that was a huge change.
And I think a major miscalculation by Iran, which thought that by attacking the Arab countries or U.S. bases on the Arab countries, it might be able to split them away from the United States.
All right, let's go to Dave in Wisconsin, New York on our line for independence.
Good morning, Dave.
Hey, good morning.
I just want to, I would like to talk about this in like a bigger way, in a bigger issue, because I don't think this attack on Iran is just like a singular event.
I think it's a broader issue.
So if you pull the lens out a little bit, you talk about like the United States as a unipolar power.
We've been that way for, you know, since the 90s.
But now that's we're being challenged by Russia, by China.
Iran was part of that challenge, you know, like a multipolar world.
And I think people in the United States prefer to have a unipolar world where the United States is the dominant power.
And so like this situation with Iran, it did start out with sanctions.
We sanctioned Iran.
That caused a problem with the currency and that collapse.
You had massive inflation.
And that led to the protests.
But in that protest, it was like they found 50,000, 100,000 starlink terminals.
So somebody brought those in with the intention to get the protest to turn violent.
Iran cracked down.
And now we have the justification for the attack on Iran.
Hardliners React00:15:10
So now what I'm saying is, what do you think the hardliners in Russia and China, how do you think they feel about this attack?
If you're a hardliner in these countries, you're saying to yourself, you're sitting back, you're being passive, and you're allowing the United States to project its dominance by attacking Iran.
Will we come into a point where they're going to just say our backs against the wall and we end up having like a massive world war because of this stupidity and ignorance that we're pursuing in Iran?
A total disaster.
Anyway, thank you.
Well, it is clear that Russia and China are embarrassed about what's happening here and in Venezuela because both were clients and the United States has been able to attack them and forcibly change their governments.
And Russia and China have not been able to effectively intervene or help there.
clients.
So that has been embarrassing for them.
In terms of whether they will take that as a signal that it's time to become more aggressive, so far I don't see any indication of that.
The Russians have their hands full in Ukraine, so they really can't do anything.
In addition, of course, the Chinese have built immense military power and are using it very aggressively.
On the other hand, there are people who argue between Venezuela and Iran that the United States is showing its military capabilities, and that may give potential adversaries pause before they embark on military operations that the United States might be more powerful than, in fact, they had expected.
Since our caller specifically was referencing Russia, I want to read a bit of a story from Reuters about the response from Russia.
Putin slams the killing of Iran's Khomeini, but offers little beyond condolences so far.
The story going on to say that Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday condemned the killing of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as a cynical murder, but he offered little in public to Moscow's ally beyond condolences.
Khamenei is the third Russian ally to be toppled in the past 15 months following the falls of Moscow-backed leaders in Syria and Venezuela.
His death leaves the Kremlin facing a strategic setback in a region where it has long sought greater influence.
Colonel, I wonder if this was maybe part of the strategy for this.
I don't think it's direct part of the strategy.
That is, I don't think they're trying to get at, I mean, I think a beneficial secondary effect is embarrassing and weakening Russia, particularly its position in the Middle East.
But I think it's primarily driven by Iran, its nuclear program, its ballistic missile program, and its proxies in the region.
Speaking of the nuclear and ballistic missile program, what is an exit ramp here?
Because Iran has been quite firm in saying that their program is pretty much off limits.
The United States has been saying they must eliminate the program.
What is the way out of this conflict at this point?
Well, Iran has been quite definitive about its position, as you say.
And that's why I said that their negotiations did not have much promise because the two sides were just too far apart.
A way ahead would be for Iran to forsake a military nuclear program and accept inspectors to ensure that whatever it did in the nuclear realm was tightly focused on research and civilian applications, was not being used for military applications.
Many countries have accepted that.
Iran could also.
All right.
Let's hear from Eleanor in Greensboro, North Carolina on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Eleanor.
Good morning.
With Russia trying to gain ground in Europe and Israel trying to take over the Middle East, it seems war will be happening at some point sooner or later.
Do you think that our president, who dodged the draft famously, will be instituting one?
And do we need to be worried about our brothers and fathers being drafted?
You have two questions there.
The first, I'll start with conscription and say absolutely not.
And the reason I say that so definitively is that although there is a registration for conscription and the United States could institute it, it's opposed by the military, which wants to fill its ranks with volunteers, not draftees.
It's opposed by politicians because they don't want to impose sacrifice on the American people.
And it's opposed by the American people, who don't want to interrupt their daily lives.
And keep in mind that we fought two wars, Iraq and Afghanistan, without a draft.
So I think you can be comfortable that there's not going to be a draft under any currently foreseeable futures.
In terms of whether there would be a conflict, the Russians are, as I say, bogged down in Ukraine.
They aren't going to be able to do anything for quite a while.
Now, the Eastern European countries and the Baltic countries are worried about post-war and how long it might take or how quickly it might take Russia to rearm and threaten them again.
I think that's very real, with a timeline of maybe five to ten years.
China is the country where most people are worried about and point to as a potential source of conflict.
They've been very assertive against Taiwan, of course, and Japan and in the South China Sea.
And one could imagine something there getting out of control.
So if there were going to be a conflict, I think that would be the most likely for a major conflict.
Tim is in Westby, Wisconsin on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Tim.
Yes, good morning.
I would just like to say that I think Russia's looking their tops.
I mean, we're focusing all our attention on a third-rate military who does have scutted missiles and who did, I'm glad they got bombed and taken out.
But wouldn't we have been better served by sending all our patriot missiles to Ukraine?
Defensive weapons, not offensive weapons, and some of our other military hardware to fight where there's ongoing battles for freedom as we speak.
And as far as the Iranian conflict goes, we didn't conscript soldiers for Iraq or Afghanistan, but how did that turn out?
I'm just saying that they got a million soldiers in their National Guard type of army and 200,000 in the Iranian Guard.
And they're going into the hills and mountains as we speak with all their military hardware.
Saddam Hussein controlled Iraq with 25% of the population.
So if 20 million people still go with Ayatollah, who was going to die anyway, when he's gone, they got a many-layered system to govern.
If 20 million people, there's 90 million people, if 20 million people of them still back, the Iranian Guard and the Milish, they have all the bullets.
And the other 70 million people come out in the streets.
Do you think without any armaments or bullets, are they going to be able to bring down the government?
You tell me exactly.
Tim, these are two questions, it sounds like.
The first one about whether this is a better investment of our military resources than Ukraine.
And then the second about whether or not the window or I suppose the sub-population in Iran that supports the old regime is enough to maintain control.
Is that accurate?
I lost him, but go ahead, Colonel.
Yeah.
And that last one, actually, I think has two parts.
One part is about the size of the Iranian armed forces, which are significant.
In fact, there are two armed forces.
Iran, like some countries, has regular military forces, and then they have the special forces, the Revolutionary Guards.
And that's why the United States has no intention of putting boots on the ground.
We don't have any ground forces in the region.
There were no Marines on board ship and no movement towards putting ground forces there.
In terms of their ability to suppress a new set of demonstrations, that is a very real concern that the Iranian government has shown itself to be utterly ruthless in suppressing dissent.
Of course, in January, they killed somewhere between 5,000 and 20,000 of their own citizens in order to suppress those demonstrations.
And that has happened about every four years.
There has been dissent, and it's been crushed ruthlessly.
So it's a fair question about whether the Iranian population could successfully do what President Trump has encouraged them to do, that is to rise up and change their government.
In terms of where best to use U.S. forces and particularly munitions, which have been, some of which have been in short supply, is Iran better than Ukraine?
Well, the administration has clearly said Iran, you know, for Ukraine, you know, they've stopped providing U.S. weapons, but have allowed the Europeans to buy U.S. weapons, unlike in the Biden administration.
Now, up to me, you know, I would continue to supply Ukraine with weapons, but the administration has made a different choice here.
There is tension within the administration about where to send weapons.
There's a group led by the Under Secretary for Policy that wants to focus everything on China and regard both Iran and Ukraine as distractions.
We'll see how long this air campaign goes on.
If it only goes on for a couple of days, then it will be like some of the other activities in the region.
For example, the attacks on the Houthis, you know, that is, we'll expand some level of munitions, but those would be replaceable.
On the other hand, if this went on for weeks, then there are some questions about particular kinds of munitions, the long-range munitions, short-range munitions we have lots of.
So we'll have to see how the conflict plays out.
All right.
Next up is Robert in Cincinnati on our line for current and former military.
Good morning, Robert.
Good morning, Colonel.
Alpha Company 24, 4th Marines, 61 of 66.
Colonel Iran have 610,000, 610,000 current military with 350,000 reserve.
As I looked up, there's 195 to 193 countries in the world.
Of those countries, nine of them have nuclear weapons.
Israel is one of those nine.
Why couldn't during the negotiation, is Israel, why didn't they try to disarm Israel?
I think Iran is trying to protect themselves from Israel so much other than trying to send some kind of nuclear and bomb the United States.
I mean, you got to have missiles and some kind of way to deliver a nuclear weapon.
Is that correct?
Well, to start with that last question, the answer is yes, and that's why one reason why the Iranian missile program has made Israel, the United States, and many other countries so nervous, because you could put a nuclear weapon on one of these missiles and deliver it at great range.
Now, you could also put it on an aircraft.
Those are more vulnerable.
In terms of the Israeli nuclear weapons, of course, they've never acknowledged having them, but everybody knows that they do.
But what made the Israelis very concerned about Iran is the Iranians' leadership's continuous statements that they would destroy Israel, that Israel did not have a right to exist, and that it was their Islamic duty to destroy them.
And if there's one thing that the Jews learned in the 20th century, it is that if someone says they're going to kill you, believe them.
So they have taken that to heart, and that's why they have been so adamant about stopping an Iranian nuclear program.
Larry is in Southport, North Carolina, on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Larry.
Good morning.
Border Threats and Defense00:13:24
I like to talk about the sleeper cells you're speaking of.
With the border open the way it was, the Palestinians, the Iranians, Syrian people from Yemen came across our borders.
What threat do you think they'll be to the United States?
As well, I like to compliment you on your professionalism, a food soldier.
I was in Vietnam Rangers and for special forces.
And one last word: Ho Chi Minh always said he couldn't beat us, but he could beat the American people.
American people have a tendency or the left to get a buddy nose they want to run home.
And the effects of 500-something billion carriage buying loads of Iran and that last bill they had Democrats with Iran.
What effect do you think that's going to have on the United States?
So, Larry, you raised several points there.
Let's let the colonel respond.
Yeah, let me talk to this question about sleeper cells.
It's very hard to say whether they exist and how many they exist.
Certainly, there were opportunities to infiltrate them into the United States.
And there's a lot of debate about the threat that they represent.
The administration has pointed to the Biden administration's immigration policy and said that this threat was very great.
Other people have raised questions about whether those cells are here just because we haven't really found any.
But it's a real threat, and the administration has said that they've increased surveillance and monitoring.
Well, let me stop there.
All right.
Let's go to Craig in Columbia, South Carolina, on our line for independence.
Good morning, Craig.
Hey, good morning.
Colonel, I appreciate it.
My dear uncle retired on the Pentagon.
He was really great.
But my question, I respectfully ask you: do you believe everything this president says?
Venezuela was not about drugs.
Venezuela was about oil.
Is Putin still pulling the strings on Donald Trump?
And if he's not, why not send Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine?
Get this over with.
I went to school in Switzerland.
You can debate with people all day, but we used to say, end the debate and let's go skiing.
But I guess I thank you, sir.
My question respectfully, how can you explain leaving all this national debt to your grandkids?
Well, there are a couple of questions in there.
I mean, the last one is, I think, a very fair question.
That is that as a nation, we have decided to spend money today and to let our children and grandchildren worry about the consequences.
And, you know, I think that that is indefensible, but as a nation, we have made that decision.
And we could have a broader conversation about where the United States spends money.
About, I think, 17% is spent on the military, but the other 83% goes, about another 17% goes to domestic discretionary.
That's the rest of the budget.
Most of it goes to entitlement programs, things like Social Security and Medicare and programs that many of us are recipients of.
And cutting them would be difficult.
But if you want to make progress on the federal deficit, you have to go there.
All right, we'll put that aside and then just take up the question about how much weight to give to the president's words.
And of course, the president is fond of exaggerations.
For this operation, he made a eight-minute video that was put out on True Social, and it's now been spread around, outlining the operation and his goals.
And we heard a little section of that earlier.
And he described his exhortation to the Iranian people to rise up.
I think that's sincere.
I mean, I think that is his plan and his desired way to get to an end straight.
Now, you can argue about whether it's feasible.
We talked about the Iranian security forces.
But I think that's what he intends to do.
And part of it, too, is that he was reading from the teleprompter as he was giving this speech.
So that means that it reflects not his thoughts on the moment, but at least the position of the government.
Now, of course, that can change, and we've seen in the past that it does, but that gives it a little more weight.
Let's listen to another clip from the President's Truth Social Comments about the strikes on Iran, including what he had to say about regime change.
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.
Colonel, how realistic is that for the Iranian people to use this opportunity to rise up and overthrow the regime?
Well, I would say two things.
I mean, the first is, I think the president is right.
I mean, this is the moment that if the people of Iran want regime change, this is the time to do it.
The regime has been greatly weakened.
And if it's ever going to be overthrown, this is the time.
Now, that doesn't mean that it will be successful, but if you're going to do it, this is the time.
And I would say the same thing about the United States and its bombing campaign.
That is, if we truly want to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, this was the moment.
Now you can argue that we could live with that.
We could manage their acquisition of nuclear weapons, as we have with many other countries, including some pretty aggressive countries like North Korea.
But will it be successful?
And unfortunately, I think we're going to find out that is that the Iranian people may well try to seize the opportunity.
The government has been extremely ruthless in putting down demonstrations.
On the other hand, they've been badly weakened.
Their leadership has been in large part wiped out.
So they're having these internal struggles.
So it's possible.
And I think we're going to see that play out over the next couple of days.
All right.
Next up is Lou in Neptune, New Jersey on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Lou.
Colonel, thank you for your service.
So there's two ways that I see this here, and I want to see where you fall here.
First is that we should, as a nation, we should all be together when times like this.
I understand that.
And the reason is to stop Iranians' nuclear capabilities, to create regime change.
People are suffering, 6,000 killed.
I understand that part.
And we've got to root for the team.
And then there's the other part, which others believe that it's a shame what we've come to.
You know, I travel everywhere.
And what I see is we're the laughing stock of the world in some places.
They're laughing at us.
We lost the leadership in NATO, in the United Nations.
They don't fear us.
They mock us.
Really, we're no longer believers in climate change.
We don't in solar power win in anything.
In the first term, some people would say that Trump bent over backwards for Putin.
And now he's bending over for Netanyahu.
Are we fighting Netanyahu's battles?
Is that what this is?
Just to keep him from going to jail and so that he can build a golf course in the Golden Heights and a resort in Gaza.
What's your take?
Well, there's no question that politically this has helped Netanyahu, who has been mired in scandals for many years.
On the other hand, this opposition to Iran in both Israel and the United States has been longstanding and is bipartisan.
I think that if there were a different leader in Israel, you'd probably be in the same situation, particularly after October 7th, which really shook the Israelis.
So I don't think that this is driven specifically by Netanyahu.
I think it goes deep into the Israeli worldview.
And I think it's the same in the United States.
That is that for the last 20 years, administrations have said, Iran cannot get a nuclear weapon.
So Donald Trump has taken that to military operations.
But the goal has been very bipartisan.
And I think that's why the opposition has been relatively muted.
Now, of course, there is a lot of opposition.
Many Democrats want an authorization for the use of military force passed by Congress.
I personally think that's pretty reasonable.
But the goal of a non-nuclear Iran, I'd say, that's a lot of bipartisan support.
Colonel, before we let you go, I want to read you some breaking news.
An announcement that just came from U.S. Central Command on their ex-page, and I'll just read it to you.
As of 9.30 a.m. Eastern, March 1st, three U.S. service members have been killed in action, and five are seriously wounded as part of Operation Epic Fury.
Several others sustained minor shrapnel injuries and concussions and are in the process of being returned to duty.
Major combat operations continue and our response effort is ongoing.
The situation is fluid, so out of respect for the families, we will withhold additional information, including the identities of our fallen warriors, until 24 hours after next of kin have been notified.
Obviously, really tragic news that just came out from U.S. Central Command.
Your response, Colonel.
Well, as we talked about earlier in the program, you know, this was inevitable.
Major combat operations like this produce casualties.
We don't know how these occurred.
If I had to guess, I would say that they were from the impact of Iranian missiles.
One of them, several of them hit the facilities in Bahrain, for example.
So, you know, this was inevitable and will, I'm sure, have more casualties.
On the other hand, the level has been quite low, and we hope that it stays low, but low is not zero.
Colonel, thank you so much.
That's retired Marine Corps Colonel Mark Kansian from the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
I really appreciate your time and your sharing your expertise this morning.
Thanks for having me on the program.
Coming up after the break, we're going to continue our conversation about the U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Iran with Michael O'Hanlon, Director of Research in the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution.
We'll be right back.
Master Plan: Hidden Plot Discussion00:02:09
On this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
David Sirota, who is based in Denver, Colorado, has some very strong views about money and politics.
His book is called Master Plan, The Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America.
There are 11 chapters which reflect the 11 episodes of his podcast, Master Plan.
In order to tell his story, he points his finger at the 1971 Powell Secret Memo.
That's former U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Lewis Powell, who served on the Supreme Court from 1972 to 1987.
He died in 1998 at age 90.
Author Sirota, who is 50, writes that the Powell memo laid out a comprehensive step-by-step strategy for corporate America to regain control, protect its interests, and reshape the political and legal system of the United States to favor business.
A new interview with author David Sirota about his book, Master Plan, the Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America.
BookNotes Plus with our host Brian Lamb is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
Tuesday, March 3rd kicks off C-SPAN's campaign 2026 primary coverage.
Live across the C-SPAN networks.
First up, North Carolina and Arkansas.
But all eyes are on Texas.
The Lone Star State could decide the balance of power in Washington, shaping control of the U.S. Senate and influencing redistricting battles that could redraw America's political map for years to come.
We'll also bring you high-stakes House and Governor's races across all three states.
Our live coverage begins at 7 p.m. Eastern.
Watch as voters in Arkansas, North Carolina, and Texas head to the polls.
Primary night on the C-SPAN networks.
Every moment, every result, every speech.
C-SPAN, bringing you democracy unfiltered.
Washington Journal continues.
Congressional Pushback00:10:56
Welcome back.
We're continuing to take your calls with comments about the ongoing strikes by the United States and Israel on Iran, as well as Iran's retaliation.
Our phone line for Democrats 202-748-8000.
For Republicans, 202-748-8001.
And for Independents, 202-748-8002.
And again, if you're active or former military, you can call us at 202-748-8003.
That's also the number where you can text us.
We mentioned this at the end of the last segment, but I'll recap that we've just received news from U.S. Central Command that several service members have been killed in this ongoing operation.
I'll read that again: that as of 9:30 a.m. Eastern, March 1st, three U.S. service members have been killed in action and five are seriously wounded as part of Operation Epic Fury.
Several others sustained minor shrapnel injuries and concussions and are in the process of being returned to duty.
Major combat operations continue and our response effort is ongoing.
Before this news came out and over the last 24 hours, we've received several responses to these strikes by members of Congress.
I'll read you some of the responses from X. Representative Adam Smith said of the strikes in Iran: President Trump has launched a war of choice against Iran.
And then from former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene said, We said no more foreign wars, no more regime change.
We said it on rally stage after rally stage, speech after speech.
Trump, Vance, basically the entire administration campaigned on it and promised to put America first and make America great again.
My generation has been let down.
And then Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said, Because of President Donald Trump's resolve in standing with the people of Iran, the most evil man in the world is no more.
And Mark Warner said, I have seen no indication that there was any immediate threat to Americans.
So why did we put troops in harm's way and potentially ignite another forever war?
Obviously, those troops in harm's way, some of whom have now paid the ultimate sacrifice.
We are now going to go to your calls with comments.
Barbara is in Hamden, Connecticut, on our line for independence.
Good morning, Barbara.
Barbara, go ahead.
Well, I feel that I have great-grandchildren, and I think the world is a safer place for them.
You can't wait for Iran with their lies and deception to wait for them to have a nuclear weapon before you say, oh my goodness, why didn't we do something?
I think considering how many Americans have been killed by Iran with their proxies for terrorists, I think we needed to do this while we had the chance before it got to the point where we weren't, you know, weren't able to.
I think making the world a better place for our generations to come is important to the American people.
You can't put your head in the sand and say, oh, well, if we ignore them, it's never going to happen.
You know, you have to realize that they wanted death for America for more than 40 years.
And this had to be done.
And they took the opportunity when it was right to do it.
So I am very much for the fact that Trump at least has the gumption to do what other presidents sat back and gave money to, which was probably put for weapons to kill Americans.
Yes, we have American casualties, but in any war there are casualties.
And I'm not saying that that's wonderful.
But he also saved many lives with Venezuela.
We have a lot of less drugs in our America.
We have less crime in America.
And I feel that he has done right by the American people.
You cannot take four years of Biden and turn it around in one year and make everything right again.
You have to go by what he's done in one year, which I think has been greatly enhanced the American and Americans in this country.
Jim is in Caliente, California on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Jim.
Good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
I'm cautiously optimistic, but I don't like going into wars at all.
And a war in which there really isn't any end game here that you can envision that may or may not come true because you have a huge country.
We're not going to put boots on the ground, thankfully.
And ultimately, who knows what's going to come out of it, but at least it will get rid of the nuclear facilities.
It will get rid of their missile program.
There doesn't seem to be any stop of the bombing and of the actions we're going to be taking, should they say going on for possibly weeks.
So that's a good thing.
As long as we're going to do it, let's do it right.
Let's not do halfway measures.
Raises interesting questions.
If we had done the same thing with North Korea 30, 35 years ago, we'd be looking at the same situation we do now in the Far East.
So on the whole, I wasn't in favor of it.
I don't like war, and I don't want us to get into wars.
But now that we're in it, I think we have to back this action.
And it's ultimately almost certainly going to be positive.
As I say, just getting rid of the facilities that they have built over the years will be a huge setback.
So thank you very much.
Michael is in Granville, Colorado, on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Michael.
Yes, I'd like to basically describe the situation.
The War Powers Resolution 1973, which was done since then, the presidents have had virtually the power to enact.
They are the Commander-in-Chief.
As a Democrat, one of my bankers describes me as A wolf in sheep's clothing.
But if you look on documents basically from the Congress, you go from Vietnam War, post-war operations, the Persian War in 1991, the Clinton administration, the war, basically Cosmo and whatnot.
Congress has the position to formally declare a war.
It's just like President Roosevelt waited till we were attacked.
Well, we were attacked in September 11th, 2001.
And Bush, you know, hailed that, you know, it's like you go back to Hassan Hussein.
The Department of Agriculture was the one that financed that regime.
And then once we figured out what his plan was, then you go to 2003, you know, the Iraqi war.
You know, these presidents all put military power in force and enacted without Congress.
And basically, supposedly, the war powers resolution, they had to inform Congress within 48 hours if they're going to declare war.
And Congress has the right to declare formally war.
But the president, as commander-in-chief, has the ability to use military forces to utilize for the protection of the United States.
And as a Democrat, unfortunately, I don't like how Trump does a lot of things.
However, he's the first one who stepped up to basically use the powers and whatnot.
Iran basically, people that live there, the problem's going to be how to let the Iranian people, without putting boots on the land, to basically reconstruct the since the toll that has been done, his daughter and the grandchildren.
So that line is pretty much dead.
Michael, you mentioned earlier the war powers resolution, and I wanted to read a little bit of information because there has been quite a bit of pushback from members of Congress on the fact that the president moved ahead with this operation without formal notification or approval from Congress.
Here's a story in the Associated Press.
War powers debate intensifies after Trump orders attack on Iran without approval by Congress.
That story going on to say that key members of Congress are demanding a swift vote on a war powers resolution that would restrain President Donald Trump's military attack on Iran unless the administration wins their approval for what they warn is a potentially illegal campaign that risks pulling the United States into a deeper Middle East conflict.
Both the House and the Senate, where the President's Republican Party has a slim majority, had already drafted such resolutions long before the strikes on Saturday.
Now they are ready to plunge into a rare war powers debate next week that will serve as a referendum on Trump's decision to go it alone on military action without formal authorization from Congress.
Michael, what are you hoping to hear from Congress on this next week, or this week, I should say?
I would hope Congress basically would not go through.
He still has control of Congress.
It's the Senate that he does not really have control over.
And I think, you know, in the November elections, he might lose his popularity and he might lose Congress.
The House.
Yeah, the House, the GOP.
And, you know, the Senate's going to still be, you know, the Democrats, you know, I taught history.
Trump's History Lesson00:15:17
I studied Russian history and international communism when I went to college.
And basically, people don't read history.
Basically, Trump should read a book that was written by Gorgon, who was a Russian writer in the 1800s, whatnot, before Russia went down.
And it was called Dead Souls.
And it basically showed how they manipulated within their own country, taking the slaves or the paperwork of the serfs in Russia and West Banks and basically borrowed money on it.
Everybody, the goal of everybody is power and money.
That's what a lot of it is.
And wars have been a wars have happened all the time, going all the way back.
The only problem now is the nuclear advantages of these countries.
Putin basically would not.
I think we've got the idea.
Michael, I want to hear from James in Desert Hot Springs, California, on our line for independence.
Good morning, James.
Good morning.
Thanks for taking my call.
Your guests this morning have been great also.
You know, the biggest problem, as I see it, is both of the parties, the major parties, have been radicalized, and they get elected by swinging back and forth at the middle, the people in the middle.
They go back and forth.
Do you think it's ever possible that we could get a third party again?
And that's basically my question.
Thank you.
Okay.
Next up is Richard in Albany, Kentucky, on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Richard.
Good morning, and nice to be talking with you.
The first thing is, if Iran had the military power that we have, or more than we have, they would have wiped us out back in 1980.
We wouldn't even be here talking about any of this stuff.
And then our laws, our laws say you're innocent.
That means not guilty until proven otherwise.
And the bad opinions about Trump, mostly from Democrats, I don't like saying it.
They're like.
Okay.
And so what are your thoughts on Iran, Richard?
My thoughts are Iran.
I think he's done the right thing, exactly as I said in the very beginning.
If Iran had the military ability to take out the United States, they would have already done that.
I guess we'd all be speaking Iranian or something.
They have no qualms about wiping out anybody that stands in their ways and doesn't believe as they believe.
And they would have done it.
If they got nuclear, they would use it.
They've shown that.
They don't mind using anything that they've got.
All right.
Let's go to Ken in San Diego, California, on our line for current and former military.
Good morning, Ken.
Good morning.
Thank you.
Great show.
I appreciate taking my call.
Having served the United States Navy as a chief petty officer from 1985 to 2005, I'm kind of familiar with the Arabian Persian Gulf, been deployed there five times.
Each time, we were there for either weapons of mass destruction or we wanted to keep the streets of hormones open for all to flow through.
Damn, we keep hearing about regime change.
Well, we see what happened in Iraq.
I was there.
You do not win a war into a conflict from the air.
You have to put boots on the ground.
What is the next step with this?
What are the regime changes?
And we hear history repeating itself.
I don't know anybody else's hearing this, but we have regime change for going in Iraq, regime change for going to Afghanistan.
There has to be an end to this.
We also don't know how much this is going to cost.
How's that going to get paid for?
So, as a former military member that hadn't deployed and served this country on and for over 20 years, this is a big, big mistake.
Iran has nothing that we have not already destroyed.
And we need to stop and have the War Powers Act enacted and have Congress involved.
Thank you.
And have a great day.
Judith is in Indiana on our line for independence.
Good morning, Judith.
Hello.
I'm calling about a couple of comments that some of the callers have called in about.
And I've heard this before from callers.
By the way, thank you for C-SPAN.
Sorry.
It has to do with money that was paid by the Obama administration to Iran.
And the cause of that has never been corrected, to my knowledge, by any of the hosts.
The money was actually in payment of a failed arms deal.
It was a deal with Iran before the Iranian revolution.
It was kind of in a holding account.
The money belonged to Iran, and the Obama administration was forced to pay.
It was about 100 and I don't know, a billion and a half or so.
So I'd like to correct that, Kennard, now and please absolve the Obama administration from any belief that he somehow paid Iran, which would fund arms for them.
Please let that, let's put that to rest.
And if it comes up again, please correct the caller.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, Judith.
I pulled up a story from 2016 from the Brookings Institution about this particular payment, the headline being the United States Iran and $1.7 billion.
And this story said, why did the United States pay Iran?
Basically, in the 1960s and 70s, Iran was the largest partner of the U.S. foreign military sales program.
As an Obama administration official explained earlier this year, that was earlier in 2016, as part of the FMS program, a trust fund was established with Iranian funds to pay U.S. contractors as work progressed on various contracts.
In February 1979, days before the culmination of Iran's revolution, the United States and Iran agreed to a memorandum of understanding that halted these payments and voided many of the remaining purchases.
The MOU also called for Iran's unexpended FMS funds to be placed in an interest-bearing account.
Later that year, after Iran's seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and the detention of American diplomats, the Carter administration froze all Iranian assets in the United States.
The standoff was resolved nearly 15 months later with an agreement that freed the hostages and established the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal to resolve the labyrinth of financial and commercial disputes that had emerged.
I'll scroll down a little bit.
The two sides engaged in some 40 rounds of negotiations over several decades.
Iran ramped up efforts to adjudicate the claim in 2015, and then the FMS trust fund amounted to $600 million until the George H.W. Bush administration returned $200 million to Iran in a partial settlement in 1990.
The settlement announced in January of 2016 involved two parts: the return of the $400 million in principal and the payment of $1.3 billion in interest.
And this is that payment that folks are referencing, and there's more details about it on the Brookings Institution website.
And we will be having a guest from the Brookings Institution joining us shortly.
Back to your calls.
Kathy is in Englewood, Florida, on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Kathy.
Good morning.
What I wanted to mention was: I want people to go and find Mark Levin.
He explains the War Powers Act.
He explains the war in Iran.
If you find his podcast, listen to him because he's a very intelligent man.
He knows what he's talking about.
And all this stuff you hear is either Democrat propaganda.
I mean, they just keep it going, keep it going.
It's just ridiculous.
The Iranian people that live in that country are praising the United States for coming in and helping them.
They were getting murdered in their streets for just trying to voice their opinions.
They didn't have now that Ayatollah's gone.
I mean, I'm blessed, happy to hear that.
So please, anybody that wants to know what the truth is going on with anything that's going on, log into Mark Levin.
And he is a very intelligent man, and he don't pull punches.
So, Kathy, there's an article in Fox News about, I believe, what you're referencing.
This is a story from back in January that Mark Levin said it is appalling to watch lawmakers invoke the quote unconstitutional War Powers Act against Trump.
I'll scroll down a bit here.
Mark Levin declared the War Powers Act of 1973 unconstitutional and criticized lawmakers who cited it as a reason to support a similar resolution passed in the House of Representatives as an intended check on President Trump's power to take military action.
So, Kathy, am I understanding that you also think the War Powers Resolution is not a good resolution?
Yes, that's what they used to start the war in Vietnam.
That's why I want people to listen to Mark Levin.
That is exactly what they used to start the Vietnam War, is that War Powers Act.
So, yes, we have to reign that in.
That is an unconstitutional law that happened in what did you say in 72?
1973.
So, you want Congress to be taking more control when it comes to declaring war or engaging in military action?
Right.
Yeah, exactly right.
That's why that it's unconstitutional.
The president is the only one that has that right.
I mean, look at the not to be nasty or anything, but the Democrat Party, they people have voted in some real lunatics that hate our country.
And if you watch the speech that Trump gave, you could see it.
They were horrible.
So then they go and watch some frogs dancing on the stage instead of listening to the State of the Union.
It's ridiculous.
I can't believe how far down the tubes our Democrat Party has gone.
The only one that has any sense is what the heck's his name.
I can't think of his name.
He's the only one that votes with the Republicans, though.
Fetterman?
He's the only one that stood up for Fetterman.
Yes, he's the only one with common sense.
I wish people would listen to him.
That Akeem Jeffries and all the mother ones just hate our country.
If these Democrats keep voting for them, they're going to be sorry.
So, Kathy, I think we have the idea.
I want to, before we get to our next guest, give you all a little bit of insight into how this story is being covered in Iran.
Press TV is a state-run Iranian news and documentary network that broadcasts in English.
It's affiliated with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Let's listen to how they've been reporting on the strikes.
But when you mentioned that, of course, it's going to be different had this assassination attempt not succeeded.
And so if this red line was crossed, this is a crime that was committed, as the Iranians are saying.
And many people in the region believe that this is a direct crime.
The Chinese and the Russians are saying this is a violation of all international standards as well and diplomatic efforts since they also began the war during the times of negotiations.
But does this mean that the retaliation of the Islamic Republic of Iran will be greater than had there not been an assassination?
You know, it's a part of assassination, it's a part of the war.
I think in the daily expecting, you know, scientists.
This is a mixed war between the intelligence war, the criminal war, and the classical war.
We are talking all the time about the war and the classical war, you know, aircraft and masses, and there is an intelligence war or criminal war.
Besides it, there is electronic war, there is psychological war, fair, as you know.
This time is mixed of this, of all of this.
Let me tell you something from the beginning.
This war is different.
That's a bit of Press TV, the state-run Iranian news and documentary network.
It broadcasts in English, and that gives you a sense of how this is being discussed in Iran.
Let's get back to your calls.
Jeanette is in St. Petersburg, Florida, on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Jeanette.
Good morning, and thank you for taking my call.
The reason for my call is I've been doing a little research.
I'm a senior, and so the last 60 years, six wars have been started by the Republican Party presidents.
These things that are happening now are not wars.
They have not been through the process and declared as such.
Yet, since Trump has been in office, he's had a military action against Yemen, Venezuela, now Iran, Cuba, threatened Greenland, threatened Canada, threatened Mexico.
We have 130 countries that used to be our allies that do not trust us now.
And I don't think any of this is helping the world or Americans.
If he wants to save lives, you don't do it by bombing a country and killing innocent people.
And that's my opinion.
Thank you.
Next up is Michael in Grosse Point, Michigan, on our line for active and former military.
Good morning, Michael.
Yeah, good morning.
How are you?
I don't think I can add too much to what the previous caller just said.
This is an excuse to deflect, number one, make money for the rich.
Number two, also send other people's kids to war.
And lastly, who are we to say who can come into someone's house and tell them how they ought to run it?
They aren't any threats to us.
And I was in the 70s in Vietnam era.
And if I had to do it all again for the reasons that I just stated, I wouldn't do it.
James On Raleigh Independence00:02:17
That was my comment.
Thank you.
Michael, did you volunteer or were you drafted?
Volunteered.
Okay.
Thank you.
James is in Raleigh, North Carolina, on our line for independence.
Good morning, James.
Sure.
I want to say thank God for independence.
That means we come down on either side of the spectrum from time to time, as I do.
Regarding the action that the United States took against Iran, I have two opinions.
Well, of course, whenever the United States commits, I'll support.
But I have concerns that people who the MAGA report, Republicans or whatever, whatever Trump does, they jump on the bandwagon immediately.
It's done.
It is not done.
And it is not over.
If I could give you, I've been told that I give poor analogies by people from time to time, but let me give you one.
In Raleigh, North Carolina, for example, you listen to the news on the sports.
Duke got made it to the ranking of number one in basketball last week.
Immediately, you hear the reporters say, Duke may cut that, they'll probably be cutting down the nets in April.
Well, my God, there's a long time to go, and there's a lot of battle to fight before they cut down a net.
So it's not over in Iran, and we don't know what the outcome is going to be.
I mean, as far as how the people are going to respond.
But I'm a business, I'm an MBA.
But I want to interject a little bit of religio-philosophical information here.
And this is my last point.
I could say a lot more, but I want to say this one.
When the Israelites were traveling out of Egypt, the first battle they had was with the Amalekites.
And as long as they were fighting the Malekites, God had told Moses to go up on the mountain and raise both arms, take his staff in one hand and raise both arms.
Moses' Tiring Arms00:03:43
And as long as he had both arms raised, Joshua's army would gain the advantage over the Amalekites.
But after a while, Moses' arms got tired.
And when he would drop them, then the Amalekites gained the advantage over.
James, we are running out of time for this segment.
Can you make your final point?
I'm going to close it.
So Aaron and her went and held up Moses' arms.
And Joshua was able to prevail.
So my point here is that sometimes the outcome is not based on who has the strongest army, but on the posture of the leader.
Thank you.
All right.
Thank you to everybody who called in this segment.
We are going to continue on this topic with one more guest.
After the break, we're going to continue our conversation with Michael O'Hanlon, Director of Research in the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution.
We will be right back.
Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold original series.
Today, with our guest three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Rick Atkinson, author of in-depth Revolutionary War and World War II trilogies, and whose other books include The Long Gray Line, Crusade, and In the Company of Soldiers.
He joins our host, renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein.
Wasn't one book enough?
Because when you say you're going to write a trilogy, if you're tired of the subject after the first book, you got to write the second and the third.
So did you ever think maybe you should have just say, I'm going to do one at a time?
I had two small epiphanies.
One was that the great events in American history are bottomless.
And the other epiphany was that you could tell the story as a triptych, three panels.
The liberation of Europe starts in North Africa, and then it evolves 100 miles across the Mediterranean to Sicily and Italy.
And then at Normandy, you have the final panel.
Watch America's Book Club with Rick Atkinson today at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN.
Tonight on C-SPAN's Q&A, former New York Democratic U.S. Congressman Steve Israel talks about his novel The Einstein Conspiracy, inspired by a real Nazi plot to eliminate physicist Albert Einstein in the 1930s.
A vocal critic of Adolf Hitler, Einstein fled to the United States with his wife in 1933 and became a U.S. citizen in 1940.
He had visited the U.S. where he taught, then was set to return to Germany and realized, I can't go back.
Spent time in Belgium.
A Nazi hit squad tried to assassinate him in Belgium.
In Belgium.
His wife pled with him not to take his daily walks because there was a $5,000 bounty on his head.
He said, I didn't know my head was worth that much and continued his walks.
Goes to England where he's threatened.
Comes to America where he believes he's finally safe, an ocean away from the Nazis, until he learns that the shadow of the Nazis is darkening America itself.
Steve Israel with his book, The Einstein Conspiracy.
Tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's Q ⁇ A. You can listen to Q ⁇ A and all of our podcasts on our free C-SPAN Now app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Washington Journal continues.
Regional Conflict Possible00:15:57
Welcome back.
We're continuing our discussion about the ongoing operation being conducted by the United States and Israel in Iran, as well as Iran's retaliatory strikes throughout the region.
For more on this, I'm joined by Michael O'Hanlon from the Brookings Institution, where he serves as the Research and Foreign Policy Program Director.
Welcome back to Washington Journal.
Nice to be with you.
Good morning.
We did just see news from CENTCOM that three U.S. service members have been killed in action and five are seriously wounded.
There's been news out of Israel that in some of the retaliatory strikes from Iran, that people have been killed.
And obviously, we've received reports of many dozens, if not hundreds, of deaths and injuries in Iran.
Can you talk a little bit about the scale of this operation thus far?
Well, Kimberly, of course, our hearts go out to the families and we salute the service.
I'm sure that there are a lot of disagreements and discussions, controversies about what's been happening.
But I think Americans are united in being grateful to our men and women in uniform who take risks on behalf of the country.
And of course, we're all very sad to hear this news.
All innocent life is equally precious.
And I certainly feel as well for the innocent Iranians, many of whom, as President Trump has pointed out, are people we want to support and help and have often in recent weeks been killed by their own regime and now in some cases inadvertently by American and Israeli weapons as well.
So it's a sad day, even though there are possibilities for a more hopeful future at the same time.
President Trump wants the Iranian people to rise up and use this moment to take control of the government.
How realistic do you think that is and who would be doing that?
Well, first, let me say that it's much of what's gone on the last 24 plus hours has been impressive.
And I think there is a serious case for striking Iran's nuclear weapons production facilities and missile research and production deployment capabilities.
Having said that, President Trump's more ambitious goal of inducing a revolution is extraordinarily difficult.
And the odds are low that it will work.
We know this from history.
We just know that when a regime like the theocracy that's implanted itself so harmfully and so unfortunately within Iran, and I agree with President Trump's assessment about the nature of the regime, when it's had 47 years to do that and to master a form of domestic repression and cruelty, and it's built up a big structure that creates many layers of insurance and backup within any part of the government that's crucial to keeping power.
The ability of air power alone to somehow induce a revolution is unrealistic.
And, you know, we've been in this place before.
We've had this debate about the Iraq war.
And a lot of the prelude to the Iraq war was about how it was going to be pretty easy because the Iraqi people would so welcome our intervention to overthrow Saddam.
And it's true that many Iraqis welcomed the intervention.
They just didn't agree about what should come next.
And therefore, we unleashed a hornet's nest.
In this case, we're not moving in with an invasion force.
I doubt very much that we'll topple the regime.
We probably won't find out what would happen inside of an internal Iranian civil war, which would itself be a worrisome prospect.
But I don't think we're likely to even see that.
Because again, air power can kill an echelon or two of top leaders, given the quality of the amazing quality of the intelligence the United States and Israel came up with.
But its ability to fully decimate a ruling party is very limited.
The last point I'll make, look at Israel.
The same Israel that's now part of our operation here, obviously has struck at Hamas for the last two and a half years, but it needed to do that for a couple of years and combine air operations with ground operations in order to get rid of most of Hamas, and yet residual elements of Hamas still remain.
So that just gives you a sense of the daunting challenge involved in getting rid of this kind of a ruling regime.
Are there particular figures or organizations, groups in Iran or in the diaspora, or I guess the exiled community that could take a leadership role in whatever might come next?
Well, I think the short answer is probably not.
There are always people you can point to, including the son of the former Shah, who has some support, especially with the broader Iranian diaspora outside of his country, but hasn't been in the country for decades.
And, you know, there are other plausible ways in which an opposition could come together.
The problem is it doesn't have the opportunity to do that, you know, as a prelude to war.
It would be one thing if it had had 10 years to secretly plan and decide on a hierarchy, a structure, a plan of attack, a ruling approach.
But it would have to figure all that out as it went now while fighting because it doesn't exist currently.
And again, I mentioned the exiled Shah as the first person who comes to mind.
That's usually not a good sign when it's an exile who's been out of the country for decades, who's your only real obvious first choice for leading an insurrection when he doesn't even have a presence on the ground or any kind of armed following.
And again, you would need an armed following because the regime is not going to collapse or just go away.
The regime is more likely, or what's left of it, which is going to be 95% of it, is going to be more likely to double down, seek retaliation, and then suppress dissent internally even more vigorously than before.
Iran has retaliated with strikes, obviously, on Israel, but also at U.S.-linked sites throughout the region, including in multiple Arab states, Oman being one that usually doesn't get involved in these types of things.
What do you think is going to be the longer-term impact of this?
Are we looking at expanding into a region-wide conflict?
Probably not, but the possibility exists.
And anytime you go to war, you have to account for the possibility of things deviating from plan.
That's obviously what happened in Iraq, where we decided we were so Secretary Rumsfeld, who I liked and admired in many ways, but he sort of fell so in love with the battle plan that we had that we just sort of assumed because it was clever that it would work the way we intended.
And we didn't allow for the possibility of a major insurgency developing and then major sectarian war on top of that.
In this case, a regional conflict is possible.
I'm not saying that its odds are high.
I'm not saying the possibility of such a escalation or expansion was reason enough not to strike Iran.
You know, this may turn out favorably, but it also may turn out very unfavorably.
My best guess would be that there'll be some continued violence, of course, and then some effort by an Iranian regime that sort of circles the wagons and chooses a new leadership and suppresses dissent at home and lashes out abroad.
At some point, they'll want to try to create some kind of a modus vivendi with the rest of the world, I think.
It may just be to buy time to prepare their new nuclear weapons program or something else, but they'll probably not want to have this conflict go on indefinitely because they see that they are getting hit pretty hard and there's no prospect for economic recovery while they're in this kind of a moment.
And certainly a regional war would not allow for any kind of economic recovery.
So my guess is after a certain period of retaliation, that things will calm, but I can't be sure.
As you mentioned, Iran was already in pretty dire economic straits due to long-term sanctions by the United States and other Western countries.
Given this escalation, what does that mean for Iran's economy and the Iranian people's ability to kind of function day to day?
Well, a lot of it's going to be the choice of the residual regime.
Again, I'm going to operate with apologies to President Trump on the presumption that he is not going to be successful in inducing a revolution.
I hope I'm wrong.
I hope President Trump is right, but I doubt it.
And again, it's just, it's not because of his, you know, anything he's done specifically in this case.
It's more just the general proposition that it's very hard to cause regime change from air power or even air power plus limited ground operations.
So I think the regime will remain essentially the theocracy that's ruled the Islamic Republic of Iran now for 47 years.
And they will have to make a choice.
Do they want to essentially let this thing stop sooner and then begin their economic recovery and harbor whatever long-term plans they may have for resuming the conflict at a later point?
Do we somehow get very lucky and see a new generation that's somehow less hardline?
I doubt it, but you can always hope.
Or do they want to engage now in a cycle of retaliatory violence that actually extends out over a number of years?
And we've seen that before with Iran, certainly.
We've seen extremely hostile and violent behavior by Iran over the years.
I think the most salient examples would be 1983 in Beirut when the Hezbollah, created by Iran, bombed the U.S. Marine Corps barracks and killed 241 Marines.
Khobar Towers in the mid-1990s in Saudi Arabia, where Saudi Hezbollah, probably supported by Iran, killed 17 or 18 Americans in that bombing.
And then maybe most of all, the prolonged U.S. presence in Iraq, where American servicemen, probably several hundred, were killed by Iranian-provided weapons that were given to Shia militia.
So that was a half-decade-long period of retaliatory or maybe preemptive violence, because to some extent, Iran wondered if we would pivot from Iraq and then come attack them.
So that was part of their rationale, but it was also for them a moment of opportunity to kill Americans and try to weaken the Iraqi government.
And they were very more than happy to do that, tragically for us.
So they're capable of sustaining violence over a very long period.
And obviously, we've seen what they did with Hamas and Hezbollah, and whether they were ringleaders for the October 7, 2023 attack or not, they created the capability in Hamas for the Hamas leadership to make that faithful and tragic decision to attack Israel.
So, this is a bunch of bad guys.
President Trump's not wrong in any way, shape, or form when he criticizes their continued commitment to violence and to revolution and to regional destabilization.
So, they're going to have to make a call.
And I hope very much it's a more pragmatic, reformist-oriented, at least step-by-step reformist kind of agenda.
But I'm skeptical and I'm worried.
What response, if any, do you expect to see from these proxy groups, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas?
Well, most of the groups that you just mentioned, not all, but most, are quite a bit weaker than they were before and have already suffered their own leadership losses, largely because of Israeli action in the last two and a half years.
Of course, Hamas and Hezbollah being the obvious examples.
The Houthi are in a little different position and, you know, maybe a little more resilient in some ways, a little further away, but they also have their own immediate problems, local problems, and we'll see if they really want to escalate on behalf of the Ayatollah.
And so I think all bets are off about what those groups will do.
But because their capabilities are, for the most part, reduced, it's not my top worry.
I'm a little bit more worried about Iranian operatives themselves trying to conduct retaliatory assassinations or terrorism in the broader region and maybe beyond.
All right, let's get to your calls for Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution.
We'll start with Dennis in Lorain, Ohio, on our line for active and former members of the military.
Good morning, Dennis.
Hi, thank you for taking my call.
Michael, yes, these other sects might be weaker, but what is America going to do when other nations say, look, we can see the pattern.
And Russia, China says, well, sooner or later, we're going to be next.
And they all combine and say, look, we're going to put a stop to this.
President Obama had a plan for control of this nuclear arms.
President Trump ignored it.
We're looking at a situation where we just can't keep slapping everybody and expect just because we can, other nations will not say, well, what are we supposed to do?
Wait to get slapped.
Now, why is Israel in this?
Israel has been wanting to do this for a long time, as well.
I think it's time for America to take the power that they have and truly use it for peace.
No nation is going to attack the United States nuclearly.
No nation.
And we have systems to monitor them to see their every move.
This is about money.
The average bomb costs a million dollars.
This is about power.
And this is about hate.
And it's time to stop.
I was part of NATO, 2nd Squadron, 2nd CAF, right on the border in Europe.
And we were there to take the first hit and hold out to help came.
And what's happening now is not good.
It's not good.
Because sooner or later, Russia, China, maybe Turkey, other nations are going to say, look, this country just wants to rule the world with threats.
And the threats don't work.
So, Dennis, you raised a lot of points.
I want to give Michael a chance to respond to some of them.
Well, thanks, Dennis, for your comments and your service.
I think I have a lot of philosophical agreement with you, but I also see the argument for what President Trump just did here.
And I'm not that worried that it's going to make Russia or China think we're going to attack them next.
I'm more worried that President Trump is on the verge of becoming overconfident about his ability to use the military in very precise, limited, and effective ways.
He's had, you know, whether you agree with all the operations or not, and I don't agree with all of them, but he's had a pretty good first year in office in terms of staying out of big wars while achieving limited effects with limited doses of military power.
The problem is that can be a little bit seductive and it can make you a little overconfident.
And especially, as I just discussed, with this new aspiration in Iran to try to induce regime change with air power, I don't see it working.
Again, I don't think Russia and China look at us and say, oh, we're going to be next, because what they see President Trump doing is choosing very specific, limited, and frankly, smaller capability, smaller powers as his targets and hoping to achieve rapid victory with limited risk.
That's been the Trump doctrine so far, if you will, on the use of military force in his second term.
Now, I think he's running the risk of that playing out in a less fortunate way.
Again, if he decides that our goal in Iran really has to be regime change, he's asking for a heap of potential trouble.
But I think the strikes on the nuclear facilities really, as you say, President Obama had a plan to try to keep that program within wraps for 10 years.
But President Obama's own idea, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action of 2015, would have needed a new framework from this point onward because most of its provisions only extended for a decade.
Trump's Doctrine On Military Force00:03:10
So it was an agreement that I supported at the margin, but it wasn't really ideal because it wasn't long-term.
And every president, going back to George W. Bush, has basically said we can't let Iran get a nuclear weapon.
So in that sense, Trump is acting in a bipartisan tradition.
He's the one that pulled the trigger.
But the logic of this mission is something that's been shared for a long time.
So I'm sorry I'm giving a nuanced answer.
I really do appreciate, though, your philosophical point that we really have to be careful as a United States not to use military force too much.
And I think we're on the verge of overdoing it if we pursue this regime change goal in Iran.
We have a question we received from Melody Pratt, Melody and Pratt Kansas via text, who says, who do you think are the most influential voices in the Trump administration on this foreign policy?
Well, far and away, President Trump himself.
I mean, that's sort of an obvious point, but not every president, you know, acts with quite the same self-assuredness.
And we also know that the way in which President Trump has formed his inner circle is different than many previous presidents, some of whom wanted what Doris Kearns Goodwin called a team of rivals, harkening back to Abraham Lincoln's cabinet, but also President Obama's first term, for example, George W. Bush's first term when he had a lot of powerful personalities, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, Colin Powell, et cetera.
And President Trump has not followed that model.
He wants loyalists.
And therefore, I don't know what the conversations feel like behind closed doors.
I haven't been part of any consultations with this Trump team.
There were a couple of people in the first term who I spoke with frequently, but not in this group.
And my sense is that people are very careful about saying something that they fear President Trump may not like or agree with because he's not exactly a person who relishes debate for its own sake.
He does sometimes get over grudges and get angry with someone and then forgive them later, especially certain foreign leaders, it seems.
But I think that the voices within are probably people providing him technical ideas, options, data, like General Kane, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and not so much independent policy voices who are having these real vigorous debates inside the situation room.
Again, I don't really know.
Maybe President Trump's listening and he can correct us and call him.
But my sense is that those conversations are not as vigorous and therefore that there aren't really people who have particularly strong influence over this president.
He talks to a lot of people, and I think he sounds out his ideas, tests his ideas, and then he adjusts.
So he does those things pretty well.
But I don't know that he really seeks fundamentally different points of view or that he has an inner team that really, you know, changes his opinion on things that frequently.
Rosalyn is in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Rosalyn.
Hi, good afternoon.
China's Stakes in Taiwan00:02:25
Now that we've gone into Iran and the possibility of stopping their oil tankers from reaching China and Russia, what do you think China's reaction might be, perhaps to go into Taiwan?
Is this possible?
Well, it's a good question.
I don't think China's going to invade Taiwan just because of a temporary and partial interruption to its oil supply, because the stakes for China in invading Taiwan are far greater than whatever might happen in the next six months to the price of oil.
So, you know, for China, invading Taiwan is a last resort because they know it could risk war with the United States.
And even if we don't somehow intervene militarily, I think the Chinese economic relationship with the West would fundamentally change in a way far more dramatic than what we've seen with President Trump's tariffs.
And so China is going to only make that decision if it feels it has no other choice based on the specifics over Taiwan itself.
It's not waiting for some opportunity because, by the way, there is no easy way for China to take Taiwan.
A blockade or a quarantine is a protracted effort that targets the Taiwan economy and requires the Taiwan political system to change its view on issue X, Y, or Z.
But an invasion is the only direct way to achieve the effect of reunification.
And that is extremely risky.
You know, in the modern era, big ships crossing a hundred mile wide strait are vulnerable to attack.
And even though Taiwan's much smaller than China, it would probably get help from the United States.
Even if we didn't intervene militarily, I'm sure we would provide intelligence.
And I think that China knows this is not going to be an easy operation at any foreseeable moment and certainly not now.
Kevin is in New York and is on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Kevin.
Good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
I'm worrying more about now retaliation.
I don't want to see anybody in our country get hurt over these actions, these military actions that the president has taken.
We have three big cities in our United States, New York, Chicago, and L.A.
And these people, they live on revenge.
And I just hope our security is ramped up in these three big cities.
Worrisome Retaliation Risks00:09:50
Thank you for letting me call.
And you'll have a nice day.
Well, thank you.
And I hope our security is good throughout the country because, of course, the Iranians, if they do have operatives who are capable of penetrating our perimeter and getting inside, they could look for a place where we're not expecting it as much.
So your point's well taken.
The good news is that since 9-11, we have dramatically increased and augmented our ability to keep suspected terrorists out of the country.
The bad news is it's always, you know, a competition, one person at a time, one name at a time, and the Iranians are resourceful.
So I do share your concern.
And I want to thank our DHS employees, some of whom are working now, of course, without pay, for the fact that they have kept the country generally safe from external threats since 9-11.
And I hope they can continue to do so going forward.
Right, because the partial government shutdown mainly affecting the Department of Homeland Security, which includes TSA agents, FEMA, and several other sub-agencies, has been without funding for, what, going on, three weeks now, maybe four?
Sounds right.
Yep.
Let's hear from Larry in Venice, California on our line for independence.
Good morning, Larry.
Hello.
Thank you for taking my call.
Trump and the Republican Party has breached all kinds of articles of the Constitution.
And the only way to solve this problem is to vote.
Starting with the midterm elections and then to the presidential election, independents and Democrats must come together and solve this problem as a country.
Well, thanks for the comment.
If I could, I would suggest that there actually be a vote well before the midterms.
I think Congress should reconvene to vote on what's just happened.
An unfortunate trend in American politics since World War II has been presidents make decisions on the use of force quite often by themselves.
The exceptions to this trend have really been the Bushes, because the first President Bush and George W. Bush both did ask Congress for authorizations for the big wars they launched with Iraq and then Afghanistan, the broader war on terror.
But generally speaking, otherwise, we haven't had authorizations on the use of force in most cases since.
And that's a real unfortunate and unconstitutional reality about American national security decision-making in the last 80 years.
What I'd like to see, I'll just give my own suggestion for a resolution that might be voted on right now.
I would like to see Congress essentially retroactively provide the authorization for what President Trump has just done.
Because even if I myself might not have agreed with the decision to strike these nuclear facilities at this moment, I'm very much on the fence.
I think that President Trump having the authority to do it is not unreasonable.
Since going back to George W. Bush, every president has said we can't let Iran develop a nuclear weapon.
So I don't mind him having the authority, although at this point it's sort of academic since he's already exercised that power.
But I would like that same resolution to prohibit any introduction of American ground combat forces onto Iranian territory and therefore forestall or preclude the possibility of an escalation and expansion of this war.
Because if and when I'm proven correct, and again, I hope not to be, but if I'm correct that air power will not induce an Iranian revolution and the regime will double down and stay in power, then President Trump's going to have to decide, does he stand by that outcome?
Does he accept that outcome or does he escalate?
And I think Congress should give him limited authority to have carried out these nuclear-related strikes against Iranian nuclear capability with American conventional bombs, but then to rule out an escalation beyond that.
That would be my preferred resolution.
I hope we have a good debate on that.
I hope we have a vote.
On X, Agaca asks the question, please ask the guest how well giving up their nuclear weapons worked out for Ukraine.
This related to the fact that the Trump administration is demanding that Iran give up any option for a nuclear weapon.
Well, I take the broad point, but I don't think that Ukraine is comparable to Iran.
Iran has spent the last 47 years killing people.
And you could say that history gave them some justification because they were angry and they thought the West had abused them and orchestrated a coup against a previous leader in 1953 and blah, blah, blah.
You can make rationalizations or excuses, but this Iranian regime has been bloodthirsty from the get-go.
President Trump is right about that.
Ukraine, by contrast, of course, is an innocent victim.
Now, I know the point the caller is making is, you know, in a dangerous world, why would we expect Iran to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions, which it's never fully, you know, taken so far as to create a bomb.
And yeah, it's true that if you're looking at it from a very Iranian realist perspective, a nuclear capability might be thought to give you some insurance.
But the best way to have insurance is not to be the source of violence throughout the entire Middle East, the way Iran has been since 1979.
Another question from X from Aztec.
Stories have that the Iranian citizens are excited about the attack regime change.
Why should the U.S. not back this momentum?
Well, what does it mean to back the momentum?
I mean, if what you're saying is they're revolting anyway, we can sheer leap from the sidelines, sure, because they have the moral cause on their side.
They are in the right.
The regime's terrible.
We'd love to see them succeed.
But if what you mean is let's encourage them on, egg them on, make them think that we have a plan that will work to help them succeed, then we could just be setting them up to get killed.
Because I don't think we do have a plan to make them succeed.
And I think it's much more likely there'll be further repression, further violence, and the regime will remain in power.
So it's just something you have to be careful about as an American when the rest of the world looks to us for inspiration and expects help when we promise help.
But I don't think in this case, we've thought through what that would require.
And in fact, President Trump's even more unrealistic about that than the George W. Bush administration was.
The George W. Bush administration did have enough power to overthrow Saddam.
They just didn't have a good plan to help build a stable Iraq thereafter.
In this case, we don't even have a plausible path to overthrow the Iranian regime.
And I think we should acknowledge that.
Rick is in Broadsheadville, Pennsylvania on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Rick.
Yes, thank you.
Very interesting morning.
Listen, I hope I can get everything I need to say in within 45 seconds.
First of all, Donald Trump is the furthest income statesman this country has ever seen as far as the president goes.
And if you want to see what differences between politician and statesman, look it up.
My concern is, I mean, this has been going on since the early 50s.
We've been the ones that started the fire in Aman, along with the British and British petroleum, you know, the propping up of the Shah and everything going on.
I mean, this has been going on.
But my concern is, I have a lot of concerns, but where is the coverage?
I'm noticing that the coverage that you usually get, we had more coverage on the first days of the Ukrainian attack than I've seen.
I mean, it's, we have three servicemen that are dead.
Where?
How did it happen?
Where was it?
Where did it take place?
And, you know, God forbid this gets to a ground war, which I hope it doesn't.
But if we had to send troops in, how about we send in ICDHS over there?
Because you got enough gung-ho.
Yeah, maybe that's where they need to go.
And that's all I want to say.
So, Rick, before we have Michael respond, I do want to say that in CENTCOM's message, they did say that they were going, so they said out of respect for the families, we will withhold additional information, including the identities of our fallen warriors, until 24 hours after the next of kin have been notified.
So the CENTCOM has not released yet information related to how these service members have died.
But Michael, did you want to respond to some of the other points as well?
That's okay.
I can leave it there.
I just wanted to ask you, Kimberly, do we know where the service members were who died?
No, not yet.
Not that I have seen.
All right.
Let's go to James in Deckerville, Michigan on our line for current and former service members.
Good morning, James.
Good morning.
How are you doing?
Good, thank you.
What's your question?
Well, question.
It's mainly a statement.
Why are we here?
I mean, Trump has been on a revenge tour on everything.
You know, they attempted, supposedly, they attempted an assassination on him.
We never heard of that.
And all this redactment with the Epstein files, the only names that should have been redacted in the Epstein files should have been the victims and their pictures, not Donald Trump, not his buddies, and all the Democrats' pictures are exposed.
Why Trump Sets the Tone00:04:30
What Donald Trump does, everybody else listens.
If people don't remember, when he ran the first time, he didn't even pick a party.
They asked him which party he was going to be a part of.
The Republicans did not like Donald Trump.
And then when he started yelling, vote straight Republican, vote Republican, they got a job.
It's what they did when he won the election.
And now, if they don't vote against him, they lose their job.
Everybody's afraid the Republicans don't do their part.
They should stand up and do their job.
Pam Bondi didn't do her job.
She redacted everything.
So, James, I want to bring us back to Iran and get your thoughts on that.
That brings us to Iran.
Go ahead.
They're not doing their jobs.
Donald Trump hiding everything, creating a war where he can say, hey, we don't need to have elections.
This is Donald Trump.
This is what people of the United States who voted for Donald Trump.
My personal belief is, and I'm an Air Force veteran, and I believe in right and wrong.
When Trump was voted in, right and wrong went right out the window.
There's no ethics in America.
It's just excuses and vendetta tours.
All right, James, I want to let Michael respond.
Go ahead, Michael.
Well, thank you.
I'm going to stay away from the broader assessment of Donald Trump and his role in American politics.
But I, again, will come back to my point that I do think Congress should act as the independent branch of government that the Constitution set it out to be with Article 1, the first article of the Constitution, specifying the powers of Congress, including to set defense budgets, raise and support armies and navies, and also to declare war.
Now, in the modern era, declaring war seems like a little bit of an old-fashioned thing, but Congress should certainly vote on authorizing any major new military operation abroad.
Now, any kind of bombing campaign that extends into multiple days or weeks, I would put in the category of something where Congress should have an advance say.
And I think on the Iran issue in particular, whether Republican or Democrat, in assessing the possibilities, one should distinguish, do we want to give the president the authority to attack nuclear facilities and maybe some leadership targets over a few days?
Do we want to give him the authority to conduct an operation over months if necessary, which would then be beyond the limits set in the War Powers Act of 1973, which sets the 60 to 90 day period as a crucial one where Congress must explicitly approve anything that happens thereafter?
Or do we want to even consider President Trump having the authority to help the Iranian people overthrow this regime?
If it were me, I would consider voting for a smaller, more restrictive version of empowering the president to go after Iran's nuclear program, partly to help his bargaining leverage.
I'm imagining now a world before the attack, but this could still be true now.
But I would not want to include support for anything that could become a ground war in Iran to attempt regime change there through our own American military forces on the ground.
I think that's the kind of a debate we need.
And Republicans should want it as well, because it's actually good for our country when we think through these military operations a little bit before we get into them.
We have another question from someone on X who goes by none.
Why hyper-focus on nukes when cybersecurity and direct energy weapons are the new landscape?
I still think that, excuse me, that nuclear weapons are particularly important.
And I agree that if you combine the potential of artificial intelligence with the capabilities of modern microbiology, you could imagine the creation of advanced pathogens that rival nuclear weapons in their potentially lethal effects.
But cyber attacks of sort of the old-fashioned variety as we've become used to them and laser weapons, they are not yet in the category where they can do the kind of damage a nuclear weapon could do.
So I think focusing on nukes is correct, as certainly along with advanced microbiology, advanced pathogens, one of the two most dangerous forms of weapons of mass destruction that we could imagine.
And therefore, I do support the basic priority that presidents going back to George W. Bush have placed on restraining the Iranian nuclear program.
Vetting And Trust00:03:38
So that's where I come down.
Alice is in Missilina, Ohio, on our line for independence.
Good morning, Alice.
Good morning, and thank you for taking my call.
I just wanted to ask Mr. O'Hanlon, you know, for context, I watched the Jack Smith hearing and Darrell Issa from California, Republican, said, well, you know, it's not unconstitutional for politicians to lie, nor is it unconstitutional for the public to believe in those lies.
And then you watch like the cabinet meetings, and it's all just, I mean, it's gross, sycophancy.
So how are we as the public, because most of us can't even get news that isn't biased by a political agenda, how can we at all believe anything that the Trump administration does?
Whether to attack Iran or not, I mean, it just, it's beyond the pale to me that the man can't even be trusted to not post a racist, I hate to even bring this up, thing without vetting a post or a meme first.
How are we to trust him with the largest military on the planet?
Right.
Well, thank you.
I mean, I shared many of your concerns about whether this was the kind of personality that we should really have in the White House, and I did not vote for him.
But the country did.
And so that's where we are.
I tend to think, maybe it's a way of dealing with my own anxieties and frustrations.
I tend to think of the way President Trump conducts himself with sort of two categories of behavior.
One category is indeed this sort of mean-spirited, traumatic, and often misleading way in which certain people, certain institutions are targeted.
For example, the attacks on American higher education, as reinforced yesterday or Friday by Secretary Hegseth, they don't make any sense to me.
The sort of so-called woke, skewed world they're depicting is not the reality that I know from my experience.
And those of us who teach at those places or work in those kinds of places, you know, it's frankly an affront because we are very committed Americans.
We debate with each other on policy a lot.
Our students debate with each other a lot.
And when President Trump slams these kinds of institutions or denies the reality of an election outcome, for example, I have a big issue with how he conducts himself.
But when I watch him decide on issues of the use of force, Greenland accepted, because that was really scary, the way he was handling that, and luckily backed off for now.
But I see a more deliberate Donald Trump, especially in the second term.
I don't agree with every decision he makes, but I get the sense there's been more of a vetting.
I'm not sure it's through internal debate, going back to an earlier caller.
I'm not really sure who in this administration stands up to him in the Oval Office or the Situation Room when they disagree.
But I do get the sense that Trump himself is spending more time thinking through the pros and cons, the timing, et cetera.
And so I'm still nervous like you, but I see a more serious and more presidential form of decision-making when it comes to the military than I do when it comes to domestic politics and attacks on political opponents.
Michael Shares Expertise00:03:13
Well, thank you so much.
Michael O'Hanlon is with the Brookings Institution, where he is the Research and Foreign Policy Program Director.
Michael, thank you so much for joining us this morning and for sharing your expertise as we follow this developing story.
Thank you, Kimberly.
Best to everyone.
Happy March, and may we have peace or more peaceful world soon.
We are going to be taking more of your phone calls and comments after the break with your reaction to the U.S. and Israel military action against Iran.
You can start calling in now.
Our phone line for Democrats is 202-748-8000.
For Republicans, 202-748-8001.
And for Independents, 202-748-8002.
And again, active and former military.
You can call us at 202-748-8003.
That's also the number where you can text us, and we will be right back.
On this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
David Sirota, who is based in Denver, Colorado, has some very strong views about money and politics.
His book is called Master Plan: The Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America.
There are 11 chapters which reflect the 11 episodes of his podcast, Master Plan.
In order to tell his story, he points his finger at the 1971 Powell Secret Memo.
That's former U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Lewis Powell, who served on the Supreme Court from 1972 to 1987.
He died in 1998 at age 90.
Author Sirota, who is 50, writes that the Powell memo laid out a comprehensive step-by-step strategy for corporate America to regain control, protect its interests, and reshape the political and legal system of the United States to favor business.
A new interview with author David Sirota about his book, Master Plan: The Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America.
Book Notes Plus, with our host Brian Lamb, is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
Tuesday, March 3rd, kicks off C-SPAN's campaign 2026 primary coverage.
Live across the C-SPAN networks.
First up, North Carolina and Arkansas.
But all eyes are on Texas.
The Lone Star State could decide the balance of power in Washington, shaping control of the U.S. Senate and influencing redistricting battles that could redraw America's political map for years to come.
We'll also bring you high-stakes House and Governor's races across all three states.
Our live coverage begins at 7 p.m. Eastern.
Watch as voters in Arkansas, North Carolina, and Texas head to the polls.
Primary night on the C-SPAN networks.
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Washington Journal continues.
Retroactive Approval Debate00:09:58
Welcome back.
We're continuing to take your comments on the U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iran, as well as Iran's retaliatory strikes throughout the region.
We're going to start with Fred in Albany, New York on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Fred.
Thank you.
Thank you for the opportunity.
You know, I didn't get a chance to ask Mr. O'Hanlon the question was, but one of the things he said that the Congress should give President Trump retroactive approval for what he's already done in Iran.
You know, and part of the problem is people all constantly justifying President Trump's behavior.
You know, giving him retroactive approval is just saying that what he did was okay when you really don't know what the reason was behind what he did.
You know, I'm looking at the fact that he takes money from the Saudi Arabians, takes money from Qatar, takes money from the UAE.
You know, $2 billion to his son-in-law, $2 billion in Bitcoins to his family, $400 million plane, all these different things, you know, and Iran is shooting at Dubai and other regions because they feel like they are the ones who hired the gun, which is the United States, to hit.
So I'm wondering, instead of retroactively giving him approval, it should be more of an investigation on why he really did what he did.
Was it really in our best interest, or is it in his best interest and his family's best interest?
Thank you.
Next up is Susan in Portland, Oregon on our line for independence.
Good morning, Susan.
Hi.
I have one comment about the only way we're going to be able to get out of this partisan mess where one person can take charge and just run with it.
To get the checks and balances back, we really need to get a third party going beyond Republicans and Democrats.
My question is, with all of the sectarian violence and tribal violence that has been going on in the area since the beginning of recorded time, what is the confidence that anything that is being done will make a difference?
Now then, Susan, you suggested that having a viable third party might make a big difference in all of this.
Which particular party would you suggest, or is there a type of party that you think would fill that gap?
Well, right now I'm listed as unaffiliated.
I think that everybody should.
It would make the politicians have to work harder and maybe be honest for people to vote for them.
I guess right now the only one strong enough to make any headway would be independent.
All right.
Next up is Carl in Rockingham, North Carolina on our line for Republicans.
Good morning, Carl.
Good morning.
Go ahead with your comment about the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran.
Well, I think the president has done the right thing personally.
And Congress and Senate, they need to leave him alone and let him do his job that he was elected for.
And I think we do all the, if they won't keep interfering, why do we have a president to start with?
We elect him to do a job.
Leave him alone, let him do it.
If not, get rid of the president and let Congress and Senate run the country.
Now, Carl, Congress is supposed to be the one to actually declare war, although there have been various laws granting the president authority to engage in military operations.
Do you think the balance is where it should be right now?
Or do you, especially with this war powers resolution debate likely coming up this week, do you think that more of the power to control U.S. military operations should be going back to Congress?
I think Trump done the right thing for a simple reason.
If he went to Congress or Senate, they'd have been a leak, and he would have not accomplished what he accomplished.
The best thing he'd done was kept his mouth shut and done what he'd done.
Okay.
Yvonne is in Addison, Illinois on our line for Democrats.
Good morning, Yvonne.
Hi, I'm calling in because I am truly kind of concerned about what's going on.
The history of America and everything that we have done, even within the last two decades, has really shown that we have destabilized the region.
And I do not want America to continue on this path of destabilization of the global south and the Middle East.
And I think what Trump is doing right now continues that legacy of destabilization in these areas.
And then America tends to just kind of pick up and leave and leave these areas having to fend for themselves.
And we get this generational cycle of terrorism and war in these regions.
And so I just would like to see a world where America kind of takes ourselves out of these areas and promotes stabilization in these regions so we can move towards a more peaceful world.
Okay.
Raul is in Miami, Florida on our line for independence.
Good morning, Raul.
Good morning.
I just wanted to say that I think it was a big mistake for President Trump to do this.
Number one, he did this on his own violation of the Constitution of the United States and also of the War Powers Act.
And also, it's very dangerous what he has done because we don't know what he's going to lead, especially since very sadly, he and the rest of the Republican Party promised that they wouldn't get involved in foreign affairs, in foreign interventions of the type we have been accustomed to for the last 30 or 40 years.
I think It's a sad day for the United States, and I think our prayers are needed.
Thank you very much.
George is in Manchester, New Hampshire, on our line for current and former members of the military.
Good morning, George.
Yes, good morning.
I'm a former Vietnam combat vet, having served there in 1968 and 69.
I think that President Trump acted in behalf of the nation, in behalf of the history of what happened to us when Ronald Reagan was in office, the Beirut Lebanon bombing, the 250 Marines that suffered, all killed as a result of Hamas and the other terrorist groups that these people have funded for years.
They have funded terrorism all over the world.
They've killed Americans here and there at their leisure almost, in between events like last October, two years now, with the Israelis and the butchering of civilians at that concert and missiles, the uranium they're enriching for what?
They have oil.
They have a vast amount of oil that they could supply the world with.
They would benefit financially from that.
But instead, they are on a mission to kill the great Satan, as they say.
Death to America, death to Israel.
I think that Reagan, back in the day, I supported him 100%.
He did nothing.
In fact, he withdrew troops from the region, fearing that we would get ourselves into a debacle.
But now this is festered beyond what it was back in the 80s.
Does anyone remember the hostages?
They took American hostages out of our embassy there and held them for over a year and tormented them and put their lives at risk.
Jimmy Carter had a mission to go in to try subversively with special forces to a night mission where the dust and the desert and the helicopters all got put aside and we lost men there and the mission failed.
George, what do you think are some of the lessons that you can pull forward or that you think the government should have learned from what you and your colleagues went through and what we're seeing now?
Well, I think that in comparison, I think you can't compare the two.
I think would I say that we went in under a false flag under the Gulf of Tonkin resolution?
I'd say, yeah, that maybe we didn't have a blessing from Congress back when Vietnam started up.
And Lyndon Johnson embellished it.
I mean, he just ran with it.
And 500,000 soldiers there in 1968.
And it ended his presidency.
It was a debacle.
Looking back, I lost 23, including a best friend of mine.
23 Soldiers Lost00:00:50
23 soldiers that I served with didn't make it home.
So I have skin in the game.
I don't endorse war.
I don't think that we should be putting out all these fires all over the world.
When Maduro and his regime goes crazy with the drugs and tries to subverse us, and these fanatical people over in Iran who have no comparison to how life was there in the 70s with the Shah, they actually were prospering.
George, I do want to get to a couple more folks just before we have to take a little break.
Let's hear from Lewis in Salisbury, North Carolina, on our line for Democrats.