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U.S. and Israel Launch Strikes against Targets in Iran Overnight as Iran Also Continues Launching Missile and Drone Attacks across Middle East; Iranian President Promises His Country Will No Longer Target Neighboring Gulf States, But Iranian Military Continued Such Strikes Immediately After Iranian President's Announcement; Israel Hitting Hezbollah Targets inside Lebanon; U.S. and Israeli Airstrikes Reportedly Hitting Civilian Areas in Tehran; Iranian Americans Share Their Feelings on Current Conflict in Iran. Aired 2-3p ET.

Aired March 07, 2026 - 14:00   ET

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

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[14:00:51]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN breaking news.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR, THE SITUATION ROOM: And we're following all the breaking news. I want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf blitzer in Washington. You are in the CNN Newsroom.

And let's continue with all the breaking news as this war with Iran enters now its second week. Today President Trump vowing to hit Iran very hard, his words, very hard after that country's president said he won't surrender. A senior Iranian cleric also saying today that a new supreme leader in Iran could be chosen within the next 24 hours. We shall see.

All this coming as the U.S. and Israel are ramping up their dramatic attacks. Dramatic footage shows huge explosions and fires at Tehran's busiest airport after Israel launched a wave of attacks overnight. Israel says it used more than 80 fighter jets to carry out these predawn strikes in Iran, and the IDF says it hit 16 Iranian military aircraft at that airport.

Iran's president delivered a remarkable address earlier this morning where he actually apologized to its Arab Gulf neighbors, saying Tehran would stop attacking those countries as long as strikes on Iran do not originate from those nations.

All of this happening as President Trump is now taking part in the dignified transfer of six U.S. service members killed in the conflict. That somber event is taking place at the U.S. air base at Dover, Delaware. We'll have full coverage in the hours ahead. Stand by for that.

My colleague and friend, CNN anchor Erin Burnett is joining us now live from Tel Aviv. Erin, it was just a few moments ago you and your camera crew heard the sirens. You had to leave your location and head into a shelter in a stairwell in that building where you are. I take it you have an all clear now, is that right?

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR, ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT: Yes, so then you get an all clear, and usually that's a combination, Wolf, of sort of an art and a science. Sometimes there is a formal it is an all clear. Sometimes after people have heard a bunch of interceptions or sometimes missiles do break through, then they will go back out.

That time, Wolf, it was unclear whether there was one or two. Our crew could see in the distance one appearing interception of a missile. But there also at the same time were -- was attacks coming from the north from Lebanon and Hezbollah.

And I want to bring in my colleague Jeremy Diamond, because Jeremy and I were talking about that. There was a time earlier this week when there was reporting that Hezbollah and Iran were going to do coordinated attacks, and there was a time when we were sitting here and we heard and saw that. Now what we just saw right now, missiles coming from Iran, and missiles or rockets coming from Hezbollah at the same time, it's unclear whether they're coordinated. But if they are, that would indicate that the kind of disarray in the government and no internet in Iran may not apply to the IRGC.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's a good point, and particularly because the reporting that we had in the lead up to this is that following the killing of Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's leader over a year ago, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps took really tight control of Hezbollah, the closest command and control that they've had of Hezbollah probably ever during the decades of Hassan Nasrallah's rule.

And so the indication is now that with Hezbollah entering the fray, they are now following orders, in large part, from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. And so, despite the fact that inside of Iran, we are seeing these questions of Pezeshkian, the president of Iran, his orders may not be being followed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, particularly as he's saying that some of these airports and these targets in the Gulf are not going to be hit, but then they are being hit by the IRGC. It suggests that the disarray that exists between the kind of political echelon and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran, it may not be the case in terms of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps itself, that it is kind of a cohesive unit that is working effectively to still carry out the attacks they want to do, including by using this proxy of Hezbollah, which we are seeing right now, actually. more alerts coming in in the north. The city of Haifa is currently under air raid sirens once again.

[14:05:07]

BURNETT: Right. And just it's an important question. And it's hard because we don't know what we don't know, but when you see kind of that acknowledgment from the foreign minister, Araghchi, and also Pezeshkian, right, that maybe our military units may not be fully in communication essentially, but that if they are in communication with each other, that the significance of what that might mean.

DIAMOND: So then the question is --

BURNETT: Who is calling the shots in Iran.

DIAMOND: How can these gulf countries trust the assurances that they're no longer going to be hit unless again, their, you know, their bases are used for attacks on Iran when it doesn't seem like these political leaders are having their orders listened to?

BURNETT: Right, right. It's a huge question. And obviously the fact that the UAE president, Mohammed bin Zayed, known as MBZ, spoke out and referred to Iran as the enemy is very significant, right. For him to speak out at all, he went and was visiting people in the hospital who have been injured and spoke extemporaneously. Jeremy Diamond, thank you very much.

And I want to go to Iraq, yet another front, if you can call it that, in this chaotic war. A drone attack sparked fires at warehouses of U.S. energy firms, big ones, Halliburton and KBR. The attack was in the port city of Basra, which is obviously crucial for oil exports and was targeting a compound housing employees. This is Reuters latest reporting, and you can see the flames there in Basra. It's happening just hours after the U.S. embassy in Baghdad warned Americans to leave Iraq. And they had explicitly warned that hotels could come under attack in the north of Iraq, in the Kurdish area, that those hotels could be attacked. And soon after that, in fact, it actually happened. And it was a drone that exploded near a hotel in Erbil which is the capital of the Iraqi Kurdistan region.

Our Clarissa Ward has been there through the week in this war, and it was a pro-Iranian Islamist militant group in Iraq that claimed responsibility for that, just showing the complexity of the pandora's box that may indeed already have been opened here. Clarissa, what are you learning about that warning, the explosion near the hotel? And of course, now you're seeing U.S. oil and energy firms under attack in Basra.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Erin, things definitely escalating here in Iraq. Just in the last few hours, the U.S. has conducted at least two airstrikes near Mosul, the city of Iraq, against these Iran backed Iraqi militias that have just been hammering any U.S. presence they can inside Iraq, the oil companies, the embassies. We have also seen in the last few hours a number of rockets being fired towards the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.

And all of this really raising concerns that this is rapidly getting out of control, Erin. You talked about the hotels. This was a new development. Last night the State Department, or I should say the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, putting out a statement warning people against staying in hotels in Iraq's Kurdistan region with a large number of foreigners staying in them. Well, the issue with that, Erin, is that all of the contractors who work at these various oil companies and gas fields and U.S. consulates and U.S. bases have largely been moved off of those places and into hotels throughout this region. Just literally a few hours after they had put out that warning that people should avoid these hotels, we saw four drones coming into the center of Erbil. Most of them were intercepted, but one of them appeared to explode next to, or hitting even a hotel in the center of town. I should say that it looked like a fairly small drone. The damage was not extensive, but all of this sending a very clear and very chilling message, which is that civilian targets are not off the table, and civilians are not off the table.

And the embassy of Baghdad urging Americans to leave Iraq as quickly as possible. As of yet, of course, the airspace is still closed here. They recommended using overland routes, potentially to Jordan or Turkey. But for the leadership here in Iraqi Kurdistan but also in Baghdad -- don't worry, those are just fireworks -- there are real concerns that all of the escalating tensions could put really profound pressure on the Iraqi state, which as our viewers may understand, after many years of war, is really based on a sort of fragile latticework of allegiances and alliances that are now being challenged in real time, Erin.

BURNETT: All right, Clarissa, thank you very much in Erbil. And you could hear those explosions behind Clarissa.

[14:10:02]

She said those were fireworks, but just shows how jumpy people are. But also perhaps just the oddness of the juxtaposition of sometimes more normalcy, of life continuing next to what's actually happening here in a war zone. You've got millions and millions of people sitting, waiting, wondering what's coming next.

Now, a key target of the U.S. and Israeli strikes has been Iran's missile launchers. That's really been a focus of this, right, to try to do the balance of taking out more missile launchers before they could take out missile defenses on the other side.

CNN's Tom Foreman is taking a closer look exactly at those launchers, where are they, and why taking them out is the crucial math of this war.

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TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You're looking at a life-size model of an Iranian missile launcher, and this is what U.S. and Israeli forces have really been targeting out there. By some accounts they may have taken out more than half of them already.

Why are they after these launchers? Because if you go after launchers, you can go after the missiles, which are so key to all Iranian offensive and defensive operations, especially very advanced missiles like the Khorramshahr-4 which we're showing here.

What I'm going to do is push this off into the desert out here so we can talk about its capabilities. It's about 40 feet long. It weighs about as much as a fully loaded fire truck. It is liquid fueled, which means it has a higher propulsion rate or stronger propulsion than you would get from a solid fueled rocket. And that's important because it can carry a heavier load. If they had a nuclear weapon, this missile would carry it, according to most military analysts.

And that yellow cone up there is believed to have the ability to adjust its direction on the way down toward its target. Most ballistic missiles don't have that, and that can be confounding to some of these missile defense systems. So that's why they're watching it carefully.

What about range? Would this reach the United States? Absolutely not. But by best estimates, it would easily go from Iran over to Israel over here, which is basically from Washington, D.C. to Kansas, if you want to look at it that way. And look what's in between. Saudi Arabia and Yemen and Oman and Bahrain and Jordan and Iraq, all these Middle Eastern countries we've talked about so much. That's why there's so much focus on the missile supply in Iran.

It is largely believed that a lot of them may be buried underground now where even bunker buster bombs have a hard time getting to them. So military analysts keep talking about the idea of sending people in on the ground, say maybe they can find them that way and disable them, because as long as they are there and have some capability of being fired, there's still a really potent force.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

BURNETT: Yes. All right, Tom Foreman, thank you so much for that report.

And our coverage of the war in Iran continues right after this. We'll have more on the regional response to the retaliation. We've got a new response and a crucial one coming out of a leader in the gulf, social effects from Qatar to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. We'll be right back.

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[14:17:45]

BURNETT: There have been blasts heard in Bahrain and Qatar and Saudi Arabia, as well as in the UAE, particularly the capital of Abu Dhabi today, despite a promise this morning from Iran's president that strikes on Arab Gulf nations would stop as long as no strikes against Iran originated from American bases in those countries. But the explosions continued well after those comments from the Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian.

CNN's international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson joins me from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. And of course, there's been explosions there. And Nic, what's the response to that? I mean, right, they're told that this won't happen to you and essentially an apology from Pezeshkian. And then it continues. So what are you hearing?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: And then it -- yes, and then and then it continues. And this afternoon, well, just in the past couple of hours, a ballistic missile impacted in open space. In fact, that is the first time the MOD has said a ballistic missile impacted, that it wasn't intercepted and that landed just -- well, it was believed to be targeted at the Prince Sultan air base just outside the capital here.

So officials that I was speaking to this afternoon wanted to reserve judgment and judge based on actions, the words that they heard from the president and the actions that they're seeing. They haven't made an official comment here yet, but the actions that they're seeing are clearly don't align with the words of the president.

The Bahrainis who, as you mentioned there, have been taking strikes again this afternoon, have released an official statement. An official there telling me that they've heard the words that President Pezeshkian. They welcome his apology. They say that Bahrain has always been in favor of dialog and diplomacy. But they say the actions need to match the words on what they're seeing. They say the strikes on Bahrain this afternoon following the president's remarks don't match, don't tally.

So people here are wondering, is it is it an effort by the Iranian leadership just to fool the Gulf, the countries in the Gulf? Is it divisions within the leadership?

[14:20:01]

Is it that the president doesn't really control the military who control the weapons? And of course, leaders here are looking to Iranian social media to see that. And it's a very confusing picture, given that they also didn't really trust or believe that President Pezeshkian had the weight to control the military in Iran. So I think this puts everyone here in the position of, oh, there might have been some kind of diplomacy in play. Reality is nothing but Iran continuing appears to be in play.

BURNETT: And as you say, the significance of the fact that a ballistic missile got through, the sort of thing that that can change the calculus on the ground. Nic Robertson, thank you so much, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for us tonight and this afternoon, of course, in Washington.

Coming up, a warning from President Trump. He is saying attacks will ramp up against Iran. And I'm, you know, just getting a note here that our crew on the ground, our crew Fred Pleitgen has just heard more strikes. We're going to talk to a retired army lieutenant general to take a look at exactly what is happening on the ground here. What do the tactics, what do the strikes actually show about what this war is about and where it is going? You're in the CNN Newsroom.

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BLITZER: Welcome back. We have breaking news coming in right now. CNN's team in Tehran is hearing new bomb blasts tonight, just as the Israeli Defense Forces announced a new wave of strikes hitting the Iranian military as much as they can. The Iranian foreign news agency reports that the U.S. and Israel are targeting an oil refinery in southern Tehran at the same time. And it's important to note that CNN reports from Iran with the permission of the Iranian government. Meanwhile, we have new details now of a new CNN investigation that

looks at just how close U.S. and Israeli air strikes have come to hitting civilian sites in Iran. CNN's Katie Polglase has the story.

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KATIE POLGLASE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A city under attack. It's also home to millions of people. The U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign of Tehran has been targeting intelligence complexes, police stations, and state broadcasters. But we verified videos and analyzed satellite imagery and found the impact is going beyond that due to the densely packed nature of the city and the large scale weapons involved.

Take a look at this satellite image. This crater is at least 40-foot wide. That means it was likely caused by a 2,000 pound bomb. The target, Iran's state broadcaster, the IRIB. The strike wiped out its communications mast. These bombs used by both the U.S. and Israel are capable of killing or wounding people more than 1000 feet away. And just 100 feet away is the Gandhi hospital, one of the biggest in Tehran. Glass shattered, walls collapsed, and patients, including babies being, rushed out.

As more videos like this one began to emerge, we started verifying them, pinpointing the hospital where each one was filmed. Then we cross-referenced with satellite imagery to see the damage caused by U.S. and Israeli strikes.

Like here, you can see the blown-out windows of the Gandhi hospital from space. Over in another central part of Tehran is the Motahari hospital, and just behind it is the Iranian police headquarters. In fact, you can see a police helicopter pad down here. This image is from just before it was struck, and this is after, entire buildings flattened. The Motahari hospital is still standing, but we verified this video showing substantial damage inside.

It's not the only hospital in the area affected. Over here is the Khatam hospital. Glass windows shattered and medical staff are seen running out. Further down the same street is the Iranian Red Crescent Society, smoke billowing from behind the building. Again, people are fleeing.

Across Iran as a whole, more incidents like these are emerging. We geolocated this video to the Persian Gulf hospital in the city of Behshahr. You can see newborn babies being carried out amid the rubble. It's unclear what the target was, but it's close to an airport and military airbase.

But it's not just hospitals. Other civilian sites are also bearing the brunt of these strikes. This school in southern Iran was directly hit, resulting in the deaths of over 160 students and staff, according to Iranian state media. Neither the U.S. nor Israel have acknowledged they caused the strike. It was just 200 feet from an Iranian military base. You can see multiple of their buildings hit as well as damage to the school.

Another strike hit this gym in Fars, southern Iran. There were reportedly 20 volleyball players inside at the time, Iranian media said. It was also right next to a police station.

As strikes continue, access to safe medical facilities will be crucial. But the civilian toll is mounting. The Human Rights Activist news agency now reporting over 1,000 dead.

Katie Polglase, CNN, London.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

BLITZER: And CNN has reached out to the U.S. military central command and the Israeli military for comment on these strikes and the steps they're taking to try to prevent civilian harm.

[14:30:02]

And joining us now, retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Mark Schwartz. He's a CNN military analyst, a former U.S. security coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority. General, thanks so much for joining us.

I want to start with some of the CNN reporting we just heard about in that report. How challenging is it to single out thanks so much for joining us. I want to start with some of the CNN reporting we just heard about in that report. How challenging is it to single out targets in a crowded area while minimizing civilian casualties?

LT. GEN. MARK SCHWARTZ (RET), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, it is very difficult, certainly. And, you know, now that some of the initial onset of the offensive operations that have taken place, we're a week plus into these operations, I think you're never going to completely mitigate the likelihood of either blast effect or shrapnel effect, particularly in densely urban and populated areas.

But I do believe, and just to take you inside some of the weaponry, you know, deciding what weapons to use and against certain targets, there's a lot of due diligence that goes into the United States process of choosing the munitions that they use. But clearly, as you've laid out and the analysis that you've provided, it happens.

And I think with the fact that we're able now, the U.S. and the joint force are able to use you know, smaller munitions, particularly going after some of these more urban densely populated areas against military headquarters, intelligence headquarters, and other significant structures there that are used by the regime, ideally, we'll see this you know, fall off. Not completely, but certainly there's going to be more due diligence going forward.

BLITZER: President Trump, General Schwartz, said today that the United States is preparing to ramp up its attacks on Iran. Where do you think this next wave of attacks could be focused?

SCHWARTZ: Well, I think we haven't seen the extent of going after some of the nuclear facilities, research facilities. So I do believe that we could see that. We could see the reintroduction of some of those large GBU-57s to go after some of the deeply you know, underground storage facilities, not only for their ballistic missiles, but also the drones that we're seeing being used against the Gulf states and against our forces as well.

And then I think also there will be a likelihood to really focus on the areas that the intelligence community believes can project into the Persian Gulf and to do everything possible to mitigate and reestablish, freedom of navigation to the greatest extent possible in the Persian Gulf and certainly the Straits of Hormuz.

BLITZER: General, sources are telling CNN that Russia, yes, Russia, is supplying Iran with intelligence on the location of U.S. troops and weapons. Does that have the potential to have a bigger impact as this war continues?

SCHWARTZ: It does. And you know, I heard that that initial reporting. One, I wasn't surprised. I mean, Russia is an enemy of the United States is how I see it. And the fact that they're sharing intelligence that is putting our forces at risk, the civilians, the thousands, tens of thousands of contracts that we have and also our partners and allies in the region is deeply concerning.

BLITZER: Retired Lieutenant General Mark Schwartz, thanks so much for joining us.

SCHWARTZ: Thank you.

BLITZER: And we'll have much more of our continuing coverage coming up, including those deadly strikes inside Lebanon as Israel demands for Hezbollah to disarm. Stay with us. Lots going on. You're in the CNN Newsroom.

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[14:38:31]

BURNETT: Nearly 300 people have been killed in Lebanon since Israel began strikes on Monday, and that is according to the Lebanese health ministry. We also understand at least perhaps 40 were killed today in an operation where Israel was trying to retrieve bones of an airman who had gone down in the 1980s.

Right now, you can look at the devastation left behind from the strikes. Overall, this is one Lebanese town after Israeli commandos raided the border area. And this is what happened, we understand, after they were searching for those remains, which, by the way they apparently did not find.

Israel's defense minister is warning tonight that Lebanon will, quote, quote, "pay the price" for failing to disarm Hezbollah, which is an Iranian-backed militant group, which tonight there were strikes across the border here from Hezbollah in Israel, as we also had ballistic missiles coming from Iran at the same time. Unclear if coordinated.

Our Matthew Chance is in Beirut where the strikes are relentless and tension is high.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE) MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: In a city on edge, tensions quickly boiled. At this anti-Israel rally in Beirut, anger over airstrikes on Lebanon and Iran was soon directed at us.

Well, we've just been told to get out because we're not welcome here. So were going to go.

Can we interview? We're going, we're going.

(SHOUTING)

[14:40:08]

RAINA, PROTESTOR: I'm trying to tell them no, we need to deliver our message.

CHANCE: Yes.

RAINA: So don't worry.

CHANCE: What message do you want to deliver here tonight?

RAINA: That Israel is all evil. We've been suffering from Israel since before 1948. We support all forms of resistance.

CHANCE: For a week now, Lebanon has been pounded. Israel says it's targeting Iranian backed Hezbollah after the militia launched missiles and drones to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader.

MAGUY CHEBIL, HOTEL OWNER: This is where it happened. It started from the roof.

CHANCE: But the owner of one wrecked Beirut hotel in an upscale Christian neighborhood told CNN just ordinary families were her guests. No Iranian citizens and definitely no Hezbollah, who she blames for the spiraling violence.

CHEBIL: And we are not that stupid to check them in. We are not that stupid. We live here. It's our home.

CHANCE: How angry are you --

CHEBIL: I am angry.

CHANCE: -- with Hezbollah right now?

CHEBIL: I am angry with Hezbollah and Israel and Iran. But Hezbollah more. You know why?

CHANCE: Why?

CHEBIL: Because they are Lebanese. They should be Lebanese. They are not. They are hurting us. They are hurting our homes, our children.

CHANCE: It's dragged ordinary Lebanese, many ordered by Israel to evacuate their homes, into the Iran war. Aid workers say they're now struggling to shelter hundreds of thousands on the move.

We've come to this school in the center of Beirut. You can see the children's murals on the wall. But it's no longer a school. It is a camp for people who have been displaced by the fighting in south Beirut and southern Lebanon. And in each of these classrooms, there are families who are escaping the fighting and they've come to come here for safety.

"The children woke up screaming," says Ali Shams, who fled the suburbs of south Beirut with his family. "We just ran, carrying them through the night," he told me. "Now we're all homeless."

It's easy to see why they left. We've come into what is the most dangerous part of the Lebanese capital, which is a very important stronghold of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia group. It's the place where Israel has been focusing -- and you can hear the gunshots outside there -- that Israel has been focusing its activity, its intensive campaign of airstrikes against the Hezbollah group.

The destruction is massive and plain to see. And Israel's military campaign against Hezbollah, as we found out, is still far from over.

OK, we've got to go because they said there's been a warning from the Israelis that there could be a strike coming in. So we've got to get out of here, Alex.

Matthew Chance, CNN, Beirut.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

BURNETT: An unbelievable second front, or if you can even call it that. Obviously, it's hard to even define where the fronts are in this war. Our thanks to Matthew Chance, who is just north of us in Lebanon.

And our coverage from Tel Aviv and around the Middle East continues in just minutes. Next we're going to take you to the largest community of Iranians outside Iran for their reaction on U.S. strikes and what has escalated into an all out war after the death of the country's supreme leader.

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[14:48:35]

BLITZER: Welcome back to our continuing breaking news coverage of the war with Iran. New video shows fire and smoke following an explosion in the capital Tehran earlier today. So far, the U.S. and Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,200 people inside Iran, including children. That according to Iranian state media.

Outside Iran, the largest community of Iranian expatriates in the United States are in Westwood. That's a neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, and that's where we find our Julia Vargas Jones. Julia, how is the community there responding to what's going on in Iran? Many of them likely still have family and friends back home. JULIA VARGAS JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Many of them do, Wolf. And you

can see those connections to Iran here. We see multiple photos signs with the face of Reza Pahlavi. A lot of people here calling for the son of the last shah of Iran to take power again, lead a temporary government here. But there also has been a sense after the initial joy and jubilation, people came up to me and said, please make sure this is how -- understand that this is how we are feeling about the death of the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei last week. Now, these opinions are becoming a little bit more nuanced, Wolf. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROOZBEH FARAHANIPOUR, BUSINESS OWNER: Almost the same time I'm fighting against this regime, I was an anti-war activist. So that's very complicated. Of course, from the killing of the Khamenei, I am excited. I cannot hide my feeling.

[14:50:5]

A world with no Khamenei is better for everyone. But at the same time, I don't like the war.

JONES: So you would rather see this be wrapped up and be done now?

FARAHANIPOUR: Yes. Right now, already we are moving forward. Khamenei is dead. That's a good thing. Declare the victory and leave.

JOSEPH GHADIR, IRANIAN IN EXILE: President Trump, although we're thankful to, it took him a little bit of long time, and the Iranians lost a lot of lives. And I think now he has to finish it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I never had so much mixed feeling in my life that I have right now, because on one level I want my country to be free and liberated. On another level, I am very sad when I see so many people of my countrymen are killed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: And no better exemplification, Wolf, than these posters that we see right here with photos of people that activists say were killed by the regime with the words "Stop War" written right on top of it, Wolf.

BLITZER: Julia Vargas Jones on the scene for us in Los Angeles. Thank you very much.

And joining us now to discuss what's going on, the Iran expert, Trita Parsi. He's the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He's also the author of the book, "Losing an Enemy -- Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy." Trita, thanks so much for joining us.

TRITA PARSI, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, QUINCY INSTITUTE: Thank you.

BLITZER: I should point out you're also a graduate, you have your PhD from my alma mater, the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Always proud to have a fellow grad here here on the show with me.

What's your reaction when you just heard some of the reaction from these Iranian Americans who are living in -- it's a huge Iranian American community in Los Angeles, including a very large Jewish Iranian community in Los Angeles?

PARSI: Indeed, indeed. And I think what you saw there is somewhat representative. There are obviously people who are very happy to see that the supreme leader of Iran no longer exists. But there's also increasingly a realization that this war is really destroying the country. This kind of a quick victory in which this immediately would lead to some sort of a transition government and the Islamic Republic would fall down is not really happening. We're not seeing any signs of that.

And now people are starting to realize more and more that this is going to become very bloody. And now the nightmare of either an Iraq situation or, even worse, a Syria situation with a very, very long civil war is starting to dawn on people, and I think that's part of the reason why people are taking a step back.

BLITZER: So you think there's going to be a lot more bloodshed coming up?

PARSI: I fear there's going to be much more bloodshed because the strategy of the Iranians and the strategy of Trump at this point. Trump went into this thinking this would be over with within four days. He told regional leaders, don't worry, this is just going to take four days. Now we're talking about weeks, months. He's even said at one point it will end when he decides to.

So the first plan that Trump had really has not materialized. He thought that the regime would implode after the assassination of the supreme leader. The Iranian strategy is to make this as costly as possible for the United States and for regional states, because they believe that there needs to be an end of this war in a manner in which everyone thinks it was too costly, that it was a mistake to start it, and as a result, it won't get restarted.

Otherwise, they fear that if they agree to a ceasefire too prematurely, from their perspective, the United States and Israel will only go back and attack them in another six months or so, mindful of the fact of what happened when they agreed to the cease fire with Israel and the United States in June of last year.

BLITZER: After the U.S., quote, "obliterated" Iran's nuclear capability.

Trump is warning today, and I just want to read specifically what he said. He said Iran will be hit very hard, adding, and I'm still quoting him, "areas in groups of people in the country are under serious consideration for complete destruction and certain death." He's not backing down, at least at all.

PARSI: He's not backing down, but frankly, mindful of what he is doing, it seems to me that he's already lost control over how this war is going, because it was supposed to be wrapped up much sooner. So now he's just throwing everything out there with no clear plan, no clear objective. And also a counterpart on the other side that currently does not want to agree to a ceasefire.

BLITZER: We're showing our viewers some new pictures coming in from Tel Aviv right now. Take a look, you can see right there more air raid sirens going off. Iran is not letting up at all in going after targets in Israel, as well as several of the Arab Persian Gulf countries, whether Kuwait or Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates or Qatar.

PARSI: Absolutely. The Israelis are striking the Iranians. The Iranians are striking back. When it comes to the GCC states, that's where the Iranians have targets, whether it is U.S. bases or whether it is hotels where the U.S. have moved a lot of U.S. soldiers. The U.S. Navy itself is keeping itself at a pretty healthy distance so that the Iranian missiles cannot reach them, which is now left these different bases in these countries as the only targets that the Iranians have a reach to.

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And again, the manner in which this is going to me suggests that we're going to see far more escalation before we see any real de-escalation.

BLITZER: A senior cleric in Iran now says that a new supreme leader could be chosen in the next day or so. You think that will happen?

PARSI: I think we know very little of what's going on inside of these different deliberations, but I think it's very important to understand, the supreme leader was not involved in the operational decisions. This was already a decision made halfway through the June war. So the decision making had already been moved, been decentralized in order to make sure that in case he was killed or in case the central command of Iran was disrupted, the war machine, the defense machine, from their standpoint, would be able to continue to operate.

BLITZER: Trita Parsi, thanks so much for coming in. Always good to get your expertise. We appreciate it very, very much.

And our special coverage of this war in Iran will continue in just minutes as air raid sirens once again are sounding right now over Tel Aviv. A live report straight ahead. Stay with us. You're in the CNN Newsroom.

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