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Amanpour

Interview with Former Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen (Ret.); Interview with Stanford University Director of Iranian Studies and "The Shah" Author Abbas Milani; Interview with "King of Kings" Author Scott Anderson; Interview with Harvard Law Professor and Bloomberg Opinion Columnist Noah Feldman. Aired 1-2p ET

Aired March 05, 2026 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[13:00:00]

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Amanpour." Here's what's coming up.

War spreads beyond the Middle East as the U.S. torpedoes an Iranian warship in international waters and drones damage an airport in Azerbaijan. The

former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, joins me.

Then, a look inside this extraordinary and dangerous time in Iran. We hear from people inside the country about what they are seeing and feeling.

Plus, I ask historians Abbas Milani and Scott Anderson whether Iran is on the verge of another revolution.

Also, ahead, Democratic lawmakers try again to limit Trump's ability to wage war. Hari Sreenivasan speaks to Harvard Law professor Noah Feldman

about the latest efforts on Capitol Hill.

Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.

The war on Iran is spilling out beyond the Middle East, pulling in ever more countries. Like Azerbaijan, where a drone struck an airport, injuring

two people, damaging the terminal. Iran's military denies launching it. But it does come just a day after NATO shot down a missile headed for Turkish

airspace. The U.K., France, Spain and Italy have begun working to shore up European defenses in Cyprus after a British airbase on the island was

attacked earlier in the week.

This video, released by the IDF, shows Israeli jets en route to Iran where it continues to pound targets, hitting more Iranian missile sites and

Hezbollah positions inside Lebanon. The U.S., too, is expanding its war zone, torpedoing an Iranian warship in international waters off the coast

of Sri Lanka, killing at least 87 Iranian sailors on board. The U.S. defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, calls it a quiet death, while Iran's

foreign minister calls it an atrocity.

And Iranian state media say that more than 1,200 people have now been killed in Iran. Correspondent Fred Pleitgen and his team have now crossed

the border into Iran. They are the first -- it is the first time a U.S. network has been allowed into the country since the start of the war. And,

of course, as all reporters, they are operating there only with the permission of the Iranian government. And here's their first report.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We just crossed the border and are now inside of Iran. The Iranian government has granted

us a visa to come here and to report from the Islamic Republic of Iran. We're now trying to make our way to the capital, Tehran, as fast as

possible but, of course, the distances in this huge country are immense and we know it's going to take many, many hours for us to get there.

We also don't know what the situation on the road to Tehran is going to look like. How many checkpoints there's going to be. And, of course, we

know at the same time there are massive combat operations also going on.

The United States and Israel are continuing their huge aerial campaign against targets inside of Iran. At the same time, the Iranians continue to

retaliate not just with their ballistic missiles but with their drones, mostly hitting Israel but then also American military installations,

especially in the Gulf region, but in general, in the Middle East.

In total, the Iranians are saying that they can continue this campaign for a very long time. They say that their missile arsenal is still immense and

they haven't even used some of their most modern missiles. But we also, of course, know that the place that we aim to go to, Tehran, has been under

almost sustained attacks with massive airstrikes going on there and also huge damage being caused and, of course, many people also having been

harmed.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: So, as Fred was reporting, the scope of this war is only growing. Using a torpedo to sink an Iranian combat vessel marks the first

time a U.S. Navy submarine has done that since World War II.

Now, Admiral Mike Mullen served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and previously as the

U.S. Navy's chief of naval operations, and he's joining me now from Maryland for his first interview since this war began. So, welcome, and

thank you for joining us.

ADMIRAL MIKE MULLEN (RET.), FORMER CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINTS CHIEFS OF STAFF: Good to be with you, Christiane.

[13:05:00]

AMANPOUR: Are you satisfied that there is a clear and you understand the rationale for an attack, the administration's rationale?

MULLEN: Well, I think, actually, here in the U.S., there's been a tremendous amount of discussion about what the objectives were, and it's

moved from to destroy their missile capability, to make sure that they can't develop a nuclear weapon ever, and then, you know, some discussion of

regime change.

I think it's sort of settled on the first two. I think the regime change that I think most people talk about would be substantive, not just the fact

that the Supreme Leader has died. I would hope that we could move to a point where the objectives are somewhat limited, and then, essentially,

contain Iran in the future. I mean, it's been a massive amount of firepower that we've put into them. And clearly, they've responded.

So -- and I think, you know, in the long run, we'll debate whether the objectives were right up front or whether they're well understood. One of

the positions, I mean, I'm in is, look, we're in now, and I think we have to figure out how to make it come out as well as possible.

AMANPOUR: Well, I'm going to ask you about that. But first, I want to remind you that we spoke in June during the so-called 12-day war. And back

then, you told me you were concerned of the possibility that Trump would strike Iran, that Iran would lash out at Gulf states, and then that it

would spread to a much wider war that couldn't be contained. That is happening right now. I don't know whether it can or cannot be contained,

but it is much wider than anybody expected. Even Trump admitted this week he was surprised by Iran's retaliation.

Are you concerned that he was surprised, or do you think Iran telegraphed in the lead-up to this exactly what it would do?

MULLEN: Well, I have -- I mean, this has not surprised me at all that it has expanded, that it's gone from as far from Cyprus to Oman to Azerbaijan,

and that you see European capitals now looking to better defend themselves possibly as well.

I mean, Christiane, for me, it's war in the Middle East. It's always complex. It always seems to escalate and become much more difficult. And

one of the things that certainly I learned in Iraq and Afghanistan is we need to have a discussion on how this ends, some idea, not just what the

objective is, but, you know, what's the end state. You always don't get that right, but I think it serves us well to try to think about that and

move in that direction. Then your -- then you sort of have something that you're going for. I'm just not sure we have that yet with respect to Iran.

AMANPOUR: Well, you were saying earlier that you hoped that it would be a more limited scope that one could actually aim for and then measure and, I

guess, have that as an exit strategy. But in yet another independent interview with a U.S. press, Axios, Barack Ravid, President Trump said that

-- and this goes to your regime change comment, that he has to decide and be involved in who is the next leader.

He has said that the person whose name is being floated to succeed the assassinated Khamenei, his son Mojtaba, is, quote, "unacceptable." It would

just be more of the same. He said that he needs to be involved, like he was with Delcy, referring to Delcy Rodriguez, who was Nicolas Maduro's deputy

in Venezuela. What's your reaction to that?

MULLEN: I think that's very hard. I mean, I think the president can certainly assert that. I think in the end it becomes a question of how much

the Iranian leadership would acquiesce to that thought and possible action on the part of our own president. This is a very hardline regime.

Certainly, what I've read about Khamenei's son, he's more of a hardliner. Whether he's the leader that his dad was is another question. And I think

we should think very hard about how difficult it is to displace this regime. They've known something like this was coming for a long time.

I'm struck that one of the data points is that the IRGC, basically their military, runs about 40 percent of their economy. So, when we talk about

changing regimes and changing out for the better, we're displacing everything that an awful lot of people in the regime stand for. And I think

this war right now is a fight for Iran's survival, for the regime's survival.

[13:10:00]

So, I think having a position or asserting a position that you need to help decide who the next leader is, that's a real challenge.

AMANPOUR: I want to ask you also, because it goes to the future, there's always there's been these various discussions about whether there's enough

ammunition, et cetera. This chairman, current chairman of the Joint Chiefs, says there is. This is what Senator Mark Kelly himself, you know, a combat

vet, has said about this. Let's just listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARK KELLY, (D-AZ): My biggest concern right now, what's the math? What's the math on this? How many ballistic missiles do the Iranians still

have? How many interceptors do we have in the region? Is this math still in our favor? I don't think so.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Do you agree with that? Because President Trump says, quote, "there are virtually unlimited supply of these weapons for the United

States."

MULLEN: It's hard for me to know, Christiane. The whole issue of missile inventory has been very much front and center, literally since Ukraine

started, the war in Ukraine started in 2022, that we've depleted a great number, that we depleted a great number of these kinds of missiles when we

were involved in the Red Sea defending against the Houthis that were attacking shipping there.

But I just don't have a feel for, you know, what the actual inventory is. I'm sure the current chairman and the military leadership has got an exact

feel for that and would certainly act accordingly. These missile lines, you can't produce them very quickly. We have dramatically increased the

production rate over the last several years. But if what I read in the number of targets we've attacked and the number of missiles, quite frankly,

and drones that Iran has used, the depletion is pretty rapid.

How long it can last, and I think this is part of Iran's strategy, which is can they outlast us? There is, as you know, this famous line in the Middle

East, you know, you've got the clock, but we've got the time. And I think Iran just needs to survive this as opposed to, quote/unquote, "win it." And

obviously, the missile inventory is a big part of it.

AMANPOUR: So, as you want to look forward, there's another report now in The Washington Post says President Trump calls on the Kurds to aid U.S.

effort and offer support. There's a lot of mixed information about whether this is real, whether it's not. What do you think arming the Kurds, which

we've been told with small arms, they're separatists, they make up 9 to 10 million people in Iran? Do you think that's -- what do you think of that

strategy if it happens?

MULLEN: I think dealing with the Kurds is always a huge challenge. Obviously, they're in three distinct groups. Usually, two of them are after

another one. The PKK, which is one of them, is a declared terrorist organization. The organization, the Kurdish in northern Iraq, it's a very

stable group. It was even through the wars. And I think there's great friction, for instance, inside Turkey with the Kurds that are there.

And I saw -- I mean, you commented in your opening, I think, about missiles intercepted on its way to Turkey. I think Turkey is a huge part of this

challenge. Their leader there has wanted to sort of run the Islamic world for some time. They're a member of NATO. That complicates things.

So, I think involving the Kurds is much more complicated than what might be seen as a good idea because of some of their background. It's always really

complex when we're dealing with them. It was in Iraq when we were essentially providing a safe haven for them in northern Iraq, protecting

them in many, many ways. So, I just -- we need to move and understand that cautiously. And there'll be people in the administration to understand

this, you know, how deeply difficult this might be and what they might be able to do.

AMANPOUR: I want to ask you also about the submarine attack, the torpedo that was told to us by your successor, you know, Dan Caine. General Dan

Caine said it was the first time that a U.S. attacked submarine had used a torpedo to sink a combat ship since 1945. And this, apparently, this

Iranian ship had been sailing home from an East Indian port where it participated in international naval conference hosted by India.

And the Iranian foreign minister has posted, the U.S. has perpetrated an atrocity at sea 2,000 miles away from Iran's shores. Mark my words, the

U.S. will come to bitterly regret precedent it has set. What's your view of the U.S. using a torpedo to do that in international waters?

[13:15:00]

MULLEN: Look, the -- you know, when a war starts like this, Iran's the enemy. So, their military is fair game, whether it's near or far. So, I

don't have any problem with that.

We've talked about, or at least I'm sorry, the leadership has talked about sinking the Iranian Navy. The Iranian Navy was never much of a threat.

Obviously, they could have problems in the Straits of Hormuz, but they were never going to be in any fight that difficult to both eliminate and to

neutralize and eliminate. And this is just an indication of that. That's a massively capable weapon that they use -- that we use. And so, I'm not

surprised at all that they were able to execute it that way.

AMANPOUR: So, when we talk about the day after and, you know, you really want to figure out how, like everybody, what is the bar for declaring

victory? You have America and Israel in the first ever of this kind of joint operation. There might be somewhat differing objectives. A, is that

an issue, do you think? And B, how do you see this ending?

MULLEN: We do have different objectives. I think from the U.S. standpoint, we'd like to restore deterrence. We'd often like to eliminate and contain

their missile threat. We'd like to make sure that they don't have any capability to develop a nuclear weapon in the future. And part of what we

need to do is find out what happened to the 450 kilograms of 60 percent enriched uranium once this thing ends. For Israel, it's existential. I

think Israel will go as far as we let them in terms of this existential threat.

Historically, and I know you know this, Christiane, that Israel's had a strategy of essentially mowing the grass. So, they're willing to go through

whatever they need to go through in the current threat environment. And if it doesn't totally eliminate it, when it starts to be developed again, come

back again. I don't think that's ever been the U.S. position.

So, I think that we have to understand our objectives are different and that there is a survival aspect of this for Israel. And they see an

opportunity now to eliminate this threat for the foreseeable future. I think we have to reconcile what we would like to see with that specific

objective.

And then there's two other players. There's the Gulf states. They'd like to see this thing end as quickly as possible. They've invested billions in

making this a tourist haven, a place, an economic haven, et cetera. And now, that's all on oil. So, and even though they've been attacked, I think

in the end, the attacks really are about Iran coming at the U.S. So, they would like to see this end and stabilize as quickly as possible.

And the other player who's not playing much, but certainly watching, is China. What kind of weapon depletion, what kind of appetite do the American

people have for this? They get 85 percent of their energy, their oil and gas out of the straits. You know, a lot of that's -- you know, I think Iran

exports, somebody said, 1.5 million barrels of oil a day and 1.3 of that goes to China.

AMANPOUR: Yes.

MULLEN: So, they're in -- they're jeopardized to some degree as well.

AMANPOUR: OK.

MULLEN: So, how much of this applies to our relationship with China in the future, who is existential to us, is also a big question.

AMANPOUR: And interestingly, the president is going to visit on a state visit to Xi Jinping in China at the end of this month. Admiral Mike Mullen,

thank you very much for being with us.

And later in the program, how are Iranians feeling in this complex and dangerous moment? Correspondent Jomana Karadsheh reports.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:20:00]

AMANPOUR: Now, inside Iran, this extraordinary and dangerous time prompts conflicting emotions. The killing of Ayatollah Khamenei and the targeting

of internal security sites brings a great deal of gratification for victims of regime oppression. But the deaths of so many Iranians, including over

150 killed at a girls' school in an incident the U.S. says it's investigating, brings great sorrow.

Correspondent Jomana Karadsheh spoke to several Iranians who had previously been subjected to abuse and torture by the regime to hear their reactions

to what they are seeing now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They terrorized Iranian women for decades, the regime's enforcers of so-called morality. This week,

one of the most notorious morality police centers in Tehran was hit in a strike.

In text and audio messages from inside Iran, women shared with us their relief when they heard that place is no more.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): I'm crying because I'm so happy to know that it doesn't exist. And I'm crying because I remember the way I

was insulted and pushed around in that building.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): I will never forget that one of these officers took a handkerchief that had been lying on the ground and

rubbed it on my face and wiped my makeup off.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Our time there was deeply traumatizing. I always thought about how I would go there and take my

revenge if the government fell. I'm experiencing so many conflicting emotions at this time.

KARADSHEH (voice-over): These satellite images from before and after the strike show the damage sustained by the Gisha Street complex that also

housed other regime security apparatus. Fatemeh Mosadegh says state security held her there twice. Hearing the news brought back a nightmare

she's tried for years to leave behind in Iran.

FATEMEH MOSADEGH, IRANIAN ACTIVIST: I was in the little cell. I have a friend. She was in the next room. And we tried to be calm with the sound of

crying each other. You know, she shouted me, cry louder. I want to hear you. Sorry.

KARADSHEH (voice-over): Fatemeh, a woman's rights activist and mother, was locked up in that compound twice. The second time for 16 days of

interrogations accused of working with foreign states. She says she was threatened with physical and sexual abuse that many detainees face.

KARADSHEH: The moment when you heard that it was hit, how did you feel?

MOSADEGH: Too complicated. I'm not happy. I don't like war. But at the same time, I think, oh, there is no place like that for my people, for me

to be tortured.

KARADSHEH (voice-over): For the regime's victims, seeing the walls that once caged them now crumble brings a complicated release of emotions.

Thank you, Israel. A woman filming this video says her house was damaged in a strike here. But it's OK, she says, happy to sacrifice it for the young

people who were killed by the regime.

This is what was hit in that strike, a base used by government security forces. This video from 2022 during the woman life freedom uprising

captured the savagery that emanated from that base. About a dozen agents who operated out of that place surround an unarmed protester, ram him with

a motorbike, beat him with batons. And then this. That young man who miraculously survived is Pouria Alipour. That terrifying night forever

etched on his face.

In a message, he told us, I am happy to see the destruction of this criminal base. This regime must be destroyed so a new Iran can rise.

Porya, like other victims, says he's happy to see these strikes take out the centers of the regime's repression. But at the same time, it's painful

knowing innocent Iranians are also paying the price.

[13:25:00]

Soroush Khazai (ph) is one of those Iranians. The 29-year-old visual artist was killed in a strike that targeted a regime security building near his

family's home. One of more than a thousand civilians killed so far in this war, according to activists. It's a bitter cost that comes with this

measure of long awaited justice for the regime's countless victims.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And thank you to Jomana Karadsheh for that important report. So, it's been 47 years since the last revolution in Iran which toppled the Shah

and shifted the country from a secular pro-Western monarchy to a draconian, theocratic Islamic republic. The son of Iran's last Shah, Reza Pahlavi,

continues to be a prominent face of the Iranian opposition despite living most of his life in exile in the United States. As he told me in an

interview just two weeks before this war, he is hoping to be the one who leads an Iranian transition to democracy, despite little support from

President Trump.

I want to turn now to two historians who are perfectly placed to reflect on all of this. Scott Anderson is a longtime journalist who's reported from

the Middle East for decades and he's author of "King of Kings," telling the story of the revolution. And Abbas Milani is an Iranian-American historian

who was himself imprisoned and went on to write a landmark biography, "The Shah." They're joining me both now. And welcome to the program.

Abbas Milani, as an Iranian, I just want to ask you, you saw Jomana's report there. Tell me how you feel and what you think this war might do for

Iran.

ABBAS MILANI, DIRECTOR OF IRANIAN STUDIES, STANFORD UNIVERSITY AND AUTHOR, "THE SHAH": I feel a profound sense of sadness for the death of innocent

Iranians, but I hold the Iranian regime responsible for it because I think they have put the country on a war path for 47 years, a war with Israel, a

war with the United States that I think the people of Iran never signed up for.

Mr. Khomeini lied to the people of Iran, promised democracy, and delivered what you, I think, aptly called draconian despotism. And people have been

fighting this regime for almost 46 years. And thus, seeing these innocent lives, the destruction of property, breaks, I think, any Iranian's heart as

it breaks mine.

But I cannot forget that less than three months ago, this brutal regime killed at least, according to its own numbers, 3,100 innocent Iranians.

Reliable outside sources put the number in several tens of thousands. That level of brutality has gotten many people, like the ones in your program,

that literally brought tears to my eyes to say, I am willing to pay the price for this regime to be finished.

AMANPOUR: Let me turn to you, Scott, because you have a latest book out, "Shah of Shahs," and actually you interviewed certainly the empress, Farah

Pahlavi, who was the queen at the time of the toppling of the revolution. She left with her husband, the Shah, and then he died a year later. Now,

Reza Pahlavi is positioning himself as the leader in exile.

So, what did you learn about those last days, about the situation in Iran, and what might come next from your interviews for this book?

SCOTT ANDERSON, AUTHOR, "KING OF KINGS": So, you know, talking about the last days, it's rather poignant. The shah, what he told many people, as the

revolution was getting worse, more violent, he told a number of people, including the American ambassador at the time, that if saving my throne

comes at the cost of killing my nation's youth, I won't do it. And he went into exile, I think, rather than do that.

Just to pick up on something that Mr. Milani said, this regime in the first weekend of January, by most reliable estimates, at least 10,000, a minimum

of 10,000 people were killed by this regime. That's four times the number of people who were killed during the year-long course of the Iranian

revolution. So, we're in a fundamentally different place and dealing with a fundamentally different regime than we were dealing with under the shah.

AMANPOUR: I want to go back to Abbas Milani and the bait and switch, because I remember, I mean, I was there in Iran during that year of

revolution that led to the 1979 return of Khomeini. And I remember being quite shocked that upper middle-class people, governments in the West, from

the U.K. to the U.S. to France, really believed that this guy in a turban, you know, who sent religious cassettes back to Iran, was going to bring

what he said was democracy and freedom and all the other things.

[13:30:00]

Why do you think he had such an easy job of persuading the Iranian people and the governments abroad who had been allied with the shah?

MILANI: Well, first of all, let me say that it is for me a pleasure and privilege to be talking to an iconic woman journalist that knows Iran so

well. So, it is for me a privilege to be talking with you. But I think it was easy because Khomeini had lived in exile. His book where he had laid

out his draconian design for a medieval despotism was banned under the Shah. I think in retrospect it should have been made mandatory reading.

And there was a romance that many of Iranian intellectuals had with Khomeini with the idea that Islam is a liberating force. It wasn't just the

Americans that were fooled by Khomeini. We have to first begin with ourselves. The Iranian society, almost the entire gamut of the left, the

central forces, many woman forces, many feminists came out to defend someone whose past heritage was to say the right of vote for a woman is the

beginning of harlotry. A religious force that had fought every effort of Iranian woman for freedom.

If you had stayed in Iran, the international recognition you would have had had never been possible. If these guys had their upper hand under the

Pahlavi regime, every effort the shah made and his father made to improve the lives of women in Iran was fought by these regimes, by the advocates of

this regime, by Khomeini and their predecessors.

But this romance, this attachment to anyone who says anything against the West, Khomeini talked radically against the U.S., particularly after 1963.

There is a difference, we now know, between xenophobia and anti-colonial discourse. Khomeini cleverly lodged his xenophobia, lodged his anti-

Semitism in the rhetoric of anti-colonialism and anti-Zionism. And a lot of people were fooled by it, including the U.S., including Europe and

virtually everybody else.

AMANPOUR: And fast forward to today, Scott Anderson, and certainly when you were doing your research and writing your book, there's a huge gulf, as

Abbas was saying, between understanding of the West and Iran, of each other and what's actually going on. It's famously that the U.S. had no idea what

was going to happen in Iran. President Carter came on the eve of 1978 and called it an island of stability and eight days later the revolution

started. But -- or, you know, the uprising started.

What do you think, in this conversation about who's going to take over, what is regime change? Trump has just said he has to be involved in

choosing the next leader. Do you get a sense of what might be an outcome of this?

ANDERSON: Well, I'll answer it in two ways. This -- you know, there's been a lot of talk of this kind of rallying around Crown Prince Reza. I -- you

know, people marching in the streets of Tehran back in January with his portrait. I kind of see that as -- first, as kind of the ultimate way to

slag the regime.

You know, for 47 years, the Iranian people have been given this diet of the shah as pretty much the devil incarnate. And, you know, what more can you

do to slim your nose at the regime than to, you know, embrace his son?

So -- but I do not see Reza playing a role in the future. I think that the reason this is galvanizing around him is that he's the one identifiable

opposition leader in exile. That -- and internally, everybody's either been executed or imprisoned. So, I think there's been this rallying around Reza

for that reason.

I also think that -- just to pick up on something that Abbas was saying about, you know, this idea -- well, sorry, what Trump was saying about this

idea that he has to play a role. How do you play a role if you don't have troops on the ground? Regime change can't happen in Iran, I believe, by the

bombing -- by the Americans and Israelis bombing their sophisticated weaponry.

[13:35:00]

Let's remember that the people who were slaughtered in January, they were killed with machine guns and shotguns. No matter how much air attack you do

and how much you neutralize, the Iranian military, the weapons of murder that the regime has used are not going to be affected.

So, this idea that somehow the Iranian people are going to rise up and take on this government that just two months ago slaughtered tens of thousands

of people, I just don't see happening.

AMANPOUR: Abbas, to you, because you've done polling in terms of how many supporters the regime might, so how many are true believers and how many

want changes. You know, there's often a lot of patronizing commentary from the West. Oh, people in that part of the world are not capable, not ready,

not able to be democratic and free as we know it. But you know better than I do that Iran has had constitutional processes towards democracy and

parliamentary processes, let's say, from 1908. Tell me what you think about the likelihood of whatever happens now leading to a free, democratic and

unified future.

MILANI: Well, first of all, I don't know how Scott knows what the Iranian people feel when they shout for somebody. I think people have a sense of

profound dissatisfaction. They have a sense of nostalgia. And they compare Iran in 1977 with Iran today. And they think the Iran of yesteryear was far

better than anything this regime has to offer. So, I think we need to be careful in trying to decide what the people's slogans mean.

Let me give you two studies. One is the study that we did at Iranian Studies at Stanford. And this is now online. People can go look at it. This

is a very detailed study of demonstrations in Tehran from 2009 to 2024. Every third day, every third day in Tehran, there has been a credible,

registered, located demonstration against this regime.

So, people have shown they don't want the status quo. They have shown it peacefully. They have faced prison. The regime has gone on killing sprees

on almost every major demonstration. In terms of the popularity, the crown prince has, by the most credible poll I have seen, about at least 30

percent of the population. 30 percent of the population are critical of him and 30 percent are undecided.

So, my sense is, and I wrote a piece in The New York Times two days ago, I said what is important is what the people of Iran seem to clearly want. And

that's a secular democratic society and end to this regime. And a secular democratic society means to me that the future of Iran has to be determined

by the people of Iran. It cannot be determined in Israel. It cannot be determined in Washington. They can have a role to play. They can fight this

regime. But the people of Iran have to decide their future. They are ready. They are needing help, but not the help that says, I'm going to decide your

future if I'm going to help you.

AMANPOUR: Great conversation. Thank you so much for your context, Professor Abbas Milani and author Scott Anderson. Thank you so much indeed.

Coming up, how Congress is trying to seize back its constitutional authority to approve any war. Harvard law professor Noah Feldman says

lawmakers could still push back. That's after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:40:00]

AMANPOUR: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has described "another day of death and destruction raining down," that's a quote, on Iran. While also,

in Washington, Democratic Senators are trying to rein in the president. Today, the House took up the challenge, after those Senators yesterday

failed to invoke the War Powers Act.

But our next guest argues that lawmakers still can and should push back. Noah Feldman is a Harvard Law professor. Speaking just before the Senate

vote, he reminds Hari Sreenivasan how letting past presidents' war-making go unchecked led up to this moment now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARI SREENIVASAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Christiane, thanks. Noah Feldman, thanks so much for joining us. You wrote an op-ed recently in

the Bloomberg Opinion section, and it said, when you bomb a country and take out its leader, that's an act of war. I guess a fairly simple basic

definitional question, are we at war right now or not?

NOAH FELDMAN, PROFESSOR, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL AND OPINION COLUMNIST, BLOOMBERG: Under any international law definition, we're absolutely at

war. And under the Constitution, the word war, according to our Supreme Court, takes on board the meaning that comes from the international law of

war. So, I would say that under our Constitution, yes, we're absolutely at war right now.

We're shooting, they're shooting, we took out their supreme leader. Countries have sovereign rights to choose their own supreme leader, even if

we hate that supreme leader. So, yes, it's a war.

SREENIVASAN: Trump's military strike in Iran is, for a lot of people, part and parcel of a pattern that American presidents have been practicing for

quite a while. So, if you could refresh our audience, how did we get to this point where the president, a president of the United States, can

launch a military attack on another country without having to let Congress know or get permission?

FELDMAN: It happened in three stages. At the first beginning of our country, there was really no way that a president could make war without

waiting for Congress to declare it, because we didn't have a standing army. That means there weren't any, not very many at all, U.S. military troops,

to say nothing of, you know, there were five or six warships, definitely no planes.

So, if they started a war, if the executive started a war, Congress had to allocate the funds to pay the soldiers, to build the ships, and so forth

and so on. So, the system was set up under the Constitution to say Congress has to declare war, and only then can the president do it, and it worked.

After World War II, we'd built up the biggest military in the world, and then we had nuclear weapons, so the president could, you know, take out a

whole civilization with the press of a button, and we keep our military going. And once that happened, it became much harder to stop the president

from using military force. And things kind of reached a head in the Nixon administration when Richard Nixon bombed Cambodia and Laos secretly. It's

hard to believe it now, but he did it secretly, expanded the Vietnam War without authorization from Congress, and Congress said enough is enough.

And so, they passed a law called the War Powers Resolution, and it says that when the president attacks and engages in hostilities against a

foreign country, he's got two days to tell Congress that he's doing it, so no secrets, and then after 60 days, unless Congress authorizes the

hostilities, they're illegal. So, that's the legal framework that's in place. Nixon didn't like it, but Congress passed it over Nixon's veto, so

two-thirds of the House and the Senate passed it.

That's the law presently, but here's the big but. If the president violates that law, there's not that much that Congress can do about it. So, Bill

Clinton was bombing Kosovo. He went two weeks beyond the deadline, and he just did it. Congress didn't like it, but it happened anyway. Then Barack

Obama decided to bomb Libya, and he didn't even bother to get authorization from Congress at all, and he got an opinion from the State Department

contradicting the Department of Justice that said that if you're bombing a country from the air for a limited objective, there's not that much risk of

escalation and not much risk to U.S. troops, so you can just do it, and it doesn't even count as hostilities for purposes of the law.

Now, that's ridiculous, and you can see why, because Donald Trump just did exactly the same thing in bombing Iran, and we're at war. You know, people

of better sides fighting back. U.S. troops have already been put in harm's way, and some tragically have died.

SREENIVASAN: OK. So, if Congress is having these debates, we are having this conversation Tuesday afternoon, somewhere in this week. The House and

the Senate may try to bring this up. Is this entirely theatrical? Because what's the point? I mean, we literally are doing something to another

country now. The President has taken this action almost unilaterally, and his lawyers will say, I'm doing what several previous presidents have done,

so I don't really care if I get your approval right now or not.

[13:45:00]

FELDMAN: So, Hari, I agree with your description, but I wouldn't use the word theatrical, and here's why.

SREENIVASAN: OK.

FELDMAN: Congress passes a War Powers Resolution that says, Mr. President, you need our authorization for this, and you don't have it. Trump will veto

it, there's no question, and there's not going to be a two-thirds majority to overcome the veto. We no longer live in the world where, you know, both

parties thought that Congress' power was more important than the president on their team. So, in that sense, you're right that it's not going to stop

the fighting, it's not going to stop the war.

The reason it's more than theatrical, though, is that Congress is a branch of government, and the only thing it can do under these circumstances to

start with is insist on its own authority. And over time, if Congress really had the guts to do it, they could reduce funding, they could pass

another law that said, Mr. President, you can't use funds that we've allocated to you to fight this war. And although in this particular

instance, you're right, it's not going to change anything, that's how Congress gets its power back. Congress has to find a way to re-establish

some of its power over a Declaration of Hostilities and War.

SREENIVASAN: You know, exactly what constitutes an immediate threat to the homeland? Is there any evidence here of an immediate threat posed to the

American homeland, so to speak? Because we've had different kinds of objectives stated by the administration. One was to defend the American

people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime.

We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate attacks against American forces, and we had to sort of go

in preemptively. I mean, how do you reason out what the case is that the United States can make or President Trump can make to Congress to say this

action is justified?

FELDMAN: Well, Hari, you're really getting to the heart of the matter now, because you're right that no constitutional expert disputes that if a

country invaded us, the president could defend us unilaterally. There's no question about that. And if a country was about to attack us or attack our

troops or invade us, that's also going to count as an imminent threat. And then you get into the tricky question of how imminent does it have to be?

How imminent is imminent?

And when the administration just declares, well, we're under imminent threat, that declaration could be true, but they need to provide some facts

that support that interpretation. The idea that Israel was going to attack inevitably, and that then that would lead to retaliation against us so that

we should act inevitably, it's a possible argument under some circumstances.

But of course, Israel is also our ally. And this was a coordinated attack. And if the president had said to Prime Minister Netanyahu, listen, don't

attack this day, attack this other day or attack it this other time, or don't attack at all, it's certainly conceivable that Israel would have

agreed with that.

In fact, I think it's probable. And so, for the president to say, well, that was going to happen no matter what. So, we had to ask preemptively

creates a kind of -- you know, it's a kind of slippery slope that based under almost any circumstances, we could generate a justification for going

to war.

So, to be clear, this isn't the first time that this question has arisen. There was a huge national debate about whether we should go to war in Iraq

and whether --

(CNN NEWS CENTRAL)

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