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Iran's IRGC Announces New Missile Launches After Leader Named; Black Smoke Fills Tehran's Skies After Oil Storage Sites Hit; Oil Prices Soar as War Escalates; Iran Urges Its People to Support Country's New Leadership. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired March 08, 2026 - 23:00   ET

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

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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: The longest history. And guess what? The most pro-American. If the human rights and the democratic rights of Iran had been put at the top, or somewhere in any international agenda, there may have been a different outcome in Iran.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm Polo Sandoval live in New York, and I'll be joining you for the next three hours as we continue to follow breaking news out of the Middle East.

U.S. President Donald Trump says that he will decide with Israel when to end the war with Iran. And this as we're learning of new strikes and missile launches across the Middle East. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard says it launched missiles, as the country warns that the war is entering a new phase. And this just hours after senior clerics named the next supreme leader.

Mojtaba Khamenei has been selected to succeed his father, the late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in a strike at the start of the war. And that announcement is coming as the war with Iran ramps up. In just the last hours, the Israeli military has announced a new wave of strikes on central Iran and strikes on Hezbollah infrastructure in Beirut, and while the human toll, that's also rising.

U.S. Central Command confirming that a U.S. service member has now died after sustaining injuries during an attack in Saudi Arabia last week. That brings the number of American troops killed in relation to the war to seven.

Joining us now is Ivan Watson, live from Hong Kong, as he continues to follow developments out of the Middle East. Ivan, so rather than offer President Trump this unconditional

surrender, the Iranian regime announcing their new supreme leader. What do we know about him?

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. Well, his name is Mojtaba Khamenei. He is the second son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the first round of the Israeli-U.S. bombardment on February 28th. He was Iran's supreme leader. So now after more than a week of this rapidly expanding war, we have this announcement. Now, he was elected, Iranian state media says, by an Assembly of Experts. That's 88 Shiite Muslim clerics who were not able to meet in person.

They reportedly met virtually because their compounds in the Iranian holy city of Qom and in Tehran were being bombed. And the U.S.-Israeli assault and bombardment has been targeting senior leadership in the Iranian regime. So they had to meet virtually, and they ultimately came up with this decision to appoint Mojtaba Khamenei to the new -- to become now the Islamic Republic of Iran's only third supreme leader since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

We don't know a tremendous amount about him. He does not hold any official position in the government. Experts describe him as a hardliner with close ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and to the Basij militia, who are instrumental in violently putting down the street protests that periodically erupt in Iran as recently as early January, and it's interpreted that he's going to be continuing a kind of hard line rule in the country.

I think it's very interesting to note that the 1979 revolution swept away a dynastic monarchy, the Pahlavi monarchy, and now we have Iran lining up with other Middle Eastern countries with a dynastic system of succession here.

The Israeli military has already said that, you know, he could be a potential target. And President Trump has told Axios that Khamenei's son is unacceptable to him. What's interesting to note is that we've heard from senior officials, surviving officials in the Iranian government, as well as from the IRGC, all vowing support to Khamenei, which suggests they're trying to project that there is unity around their new leader less than two weeks after the former supreme leader, his father, was killed in a Israeli bombardment, Polo.

SANDOVAL: And Ivan, what do we know about the latest round of strikes? And then also this new confirmation from the U.S. government of now, of yet another U.S. service member confirmed dead as part of this conflict.

WATSON: Right. This service member killed on March 1st in Saudi Arabia.

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That brings it up to now seven soldiers from the U.S. killed thus far, and eighth, who succumbed to health related issues. Meanwhile, the war does very much continue to rage. Over the weekend we saw these very dramatic images of a fuel depot in Tehran on fire. And not only were there pillars of flame and smoke in the skies over the Iranian capital, but also CNN's own Fred Pleitgen on the ground in Tehran reporting oil literally raining from the sky.

There is an expansion of civilian infrastructure on both sides being targeted. Iranian officials telling Fred that this marks a new phase in the war, and they're going to retaliate after the oil infrastructure is hit in Iran. We've already heard about drones targeting oil fields in Saudi Arabia, for example.

There has been water desalination plants both in Bahrain and in Iran hit over the last several days. That has a huge impact on drinking water supplies in both of these countries and shows also an expansion of the conflict. We're getting reports in the predawn hours of projectiles being intercepted over Kuwait and Bahrain. Bahrain reporting dozens of people wounded by debris that was falling.

We have a fresh report of a Pakistani national who was killed, I'm just trying to double check, in one of the GCC countries, and the number of the casualties, the fatalities we've seen thus far appear to be from the giant population of migrant laborers from South Asia and Southeast Asia who work across this region. And then the fighting continues to rage between the Iranian backed Shiite militia, Hezbollah, and Israel.

This is in Lebanon, and there was an Israeli strike on a Ramada Hotel on the waterfront in Beirut that literally went through several windows midway up that building. The Israeli military claims that this killed some senior IRGC Iranian commanders. What is striking is that in the Lebanese media, some of the other residents of this hotel that you see battered here said they would continue to stay there even after the Israeli airstrike on that building, which suggests a couple of things.

The shortage of space for people to move to, with more than 100,000 people displaced in Lebanon, and also this almost fatalistic approach, saying, hey, perhaps the Israeli military won't hit the same building twice -- Polo.

SANDOVAL: Yes. Impacts all over the region there, as you lay out.

CNN's Ivan Watson with that live report. Thank you, Ivan.

We do want to turn now to retired Ambassador Gary Grappo to discuss more on the latest developments there in the Middle East. He's the former deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia, also the former U.S. ambassador to Oman.

Mr. Ambassador, thank you so much for taking the time to join us.

AMB. GARY GRAPPO, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO OMAN: Well, thank you. It's a pleasure to be with you.

DEAN: It's great to have you with us. What are your thoughts on Iran's new supreme leader? And also, what do you think this will mean for Iran when it comes to its strategy and some of these strikes that we've seen them launch against their own neighbors?

GRAPPO: Well, several points. First of all, the naming of the previous supreme leader's son isn't really a surprise. His name had begun to appear 10 years ago as a possibility. And the closer we got to this point and others fell out of the running, he was clearly one of the leading figures and most especially in 2024 when the previous president, Ebrahim Raisi, was killed in a helicopter accident, Mojtaba Khamenei became the prime candidate.

So it doesn't come as so much as a surprise. What is tough to figure out about this individual as your previous reporter alluded to is the fact he's a bit mysterious. He's a very powerful figure, despite not occupying a formal office in the government. He's powerful because he ran his father's office which is, you could consider to be akin to the chief of staff with his hands on intelligence, economic policy, security policy, and of course, all the political affairs as well as religious affairs. So very influential, very powerful, but a bit secretive. We don't know much about him.

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Rarely appeared in public, very rarely made public comments. So we don't know what he thinks, although we suspect he will follow in his father's vein. It's important to point out that he is assuming a position that his father previously occupied, having lost his father, his mother, his wife, and one of his children to the American and Israeli attacks.

So I think we can dismiss any thought that we're going to get off to a good start with this individual. He is most definitely a hardliner and facing what I think is truly an existential crisis unlike anything the country has faced in its 47-year history.

SANDOVAL: And, Mr. Ambassador, you may have heard some of the reporting that we shared a short while ago from "The Times of Israel," who spoke to President Trump over the weekend. The president telling that platform that it will be Washington that will have a final say over when this war with Iran ends, but certainly would do that in collaboration with their Israeli counterparts.

Do you see President Trump perhaps redefining what he considers a victory in this war, especially if there are no signs of the Iranian regime willing to offer this unconditional surrender that the president is asking for?

GRAPPO: Well, to be perfectly honest, it was unclear what the president truly wanted, what his objectives were when the war began. Of course, the president did not go to Congress as is constitutionally required where he would have been expected to spell out clearly what American objectives were going to be in Iran. So we really don't know and it's been a moving target since the war began.

The president made comments about turning the country over to the Iranian people, that it would be in their hands and that they would finally control their future. And it's sort of transferred to taking out various weapon systems and the command and control and then the leadership. We've even heard regime change. And now it's unconditional surrender. The fact is, in my view, that we have very few levers other than to continue bombing and determining the future of the Iranian government.

We're not going to send ground forces there. I think that's pretty clear. There has been some talk about it, but I would be shocked if that were the case simply because the American public would react pretty strongly against that. So we have limited ability to affect what kind of government the Iranians put together. And we're seeing that now with the naming of the previous supreme leader, son as the new supreme leader. And I don't know that there will be much communication taking place between the two sides as long as he is in that position.

SANDOVAL: I have just a few moments left with you here, Mr. Ambassador. I wonder if you could listen to Israel's ambassador to the U.N. as he spoke to CNN on Sunday about Israel's hope that the Iranian people will be the ones to take back their country. Listen to this, and then we'll discuss.

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DANNY DANNON, ISRAELI AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: When we spoke about the goals of the operation, we spoke about creating the conditions for a regime change. So basically we will unchain the people of Iran, but it will be up to them to rise up and control their future. I hope it will happen. I believe it will happen but that will involve the commitment of the Iranian people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: He sounds hopeful, Mr. Ambassador, but how can that even happen with one hardline leader being replaced by another?

GRAPPO: Well, it's a very, very tall task and we've seen that if we go back to January and the demonstrations that took place in which an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 of those demonstrators were killed or executed in prison. Iranians pay a very high price when they take to the streets. And we've seen that in -- we saw that in 2022. We saw that in 2018 and '19. And in 2009. This government is committed to its own survival and will stop -- and will not stop short in eliminating any apparent opposition.

And so if the Iranian people take to the street, as Israeli ambassador mentioned, it's going to be at a high cost. Now at the moment, the Iranian Security Forces are very, very stressed. And that's an understatement. And it will be difficult. It will probably take more time, more of the security infrastructure and apparatus and personnel to be taken out before they can consider moving.

[23:15:03]

But there's no leadership among this opposition. There's no organization. Moreover, ultimately, the security forces and particularly the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps will have the guns. And in the end it's folks who have the guns who are going to determine the outcome.

SANDOVAL: You know the region very well, Mr. Ambassador, thank you so much for taking your time.

Gary Grappo, appreciate it.

GRAPPO: You're most welcome.

SANDOVAL: Well, there's also this newly released video that's reportedly showing the strike on an Iranian school that killed at least 168 children back on February the 28th. President Trump claims that it's Iran that's responsible for this attack but analysis by CNN as well as other outlets now showing that the U.S. was targeting a nearby Revolutionary Guard base at the time of the impact, and that the missile in the video appears consistent with the U.S. Tomahawk munitions. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says that the U.S. is still investigating this incident.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAJOR GARRETT, CBS NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Have you made any conclusions about whether or not the United States advertently or not, was involved in any military strike at that school?

PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Well, we're still investigating, and that's where I'll leave it today. But what I will emphasize to you and to the world is that unlike our adversaries, the Iranians, we never target civilians.

GARRETT: There was a report late in the week from two officials that it was likely U.S. involvement. Is that report false?

HEGSETH: I've already said we're investigating.

GARRETT: If you could tell the American public it definitively was not us, you would tell us, wouldn't you?

HEGSETH: I would -- I would say that it's being investigated, which is the only answer I'm prepared to give.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: Again that's important. That's the secretary of defense not supporting what we heard previously from the president of the United States. And then there's also this thick black cloud of smoke and oil saturated rain that are now spreading over parts of Tehran. And all this after Israeli-American missiles struck several fuel and oil storage tanks across the capital. State media reporting that some blazes are still ongoing and may take days to take to extinguish.

CNN's Fred Pleitgen visited one of the hardest hit depots and also brings us this report. A reminder that CNN operates in Iran only with government permission.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's an absolutely apocalyptic scene here. We've just made it to the Shahran oil depot, which was attacked last night in a massive wave of airstrikes. We heard those going on for about an hour, maybe an hour and a half, with massive thuds and explosions that we could hear. And that thick black plume of smoke, we saw that last night, and now we're actually seeing it up close.

What we're also seeing is that some of those destroyed storage tanks are still on fire. There's still flames originating from them. You can also see here that the area around here is also completely destroyed. There's people here actually working on this electricity pole to try and get the electricity back. And then this tanker vehicle here also that is right in front of the gate has been completely destroyed as well.

The front gate of the facility also in complete ruins. The facility appears to be completely in ruins now after these massive airstrikes, and again, still on fire, still burning, and you can see that thick black smoke through the entire city across all of Tehran. It's been raining this morning in Tehran. There was oil mixed into the rain so this is definitely a massive incident that is still going on.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: Our thanks to Fred Pleitgen and his team for that report.

And still to come here on CNN NEWSROOM, President Trump says that the rising cost of oil due to the war is a small price to pay, but the conflict could create much bigger issues for countries that are more dependent than others for fuel. We're going to dive into all that, plus political blowback potentially closer to home. Don't go anywhere.

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JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump told Reuters about gas prices, quote, "If they rise, they rise." Is that really the message of the Trump administration to consumers who are already struggling?

CHRIS WRIGHT, ENERGY SECRETARY: The Trump administration has been all in on lowering energy prices, and I would say quite successfully. Gasoline today is still $1.50, a gallon cheaper than it was in the middle of the Biden administration. But you're right. We want it back below $3 a gallon and it will be again before too long.

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SANDOVAL: You just heard from Chris Wright, Donald Trump's U.S. energy secretary. But it may take longer than expected to make good on that promise you just heard from the secretary especially as the price of oil continues to soar. In fact Brent crude surging past $100 a barrel on Sunday. This is the first time the global benchmark has crossed that mark since Russia's invasion of Ukraine back in 2022.

You can see where the numbers are right now, with oil prices soaring past $114 per barrel, that 25 percent climb. WTI, the U.S. oil benchmark, also hitting its highest level since 2022, And President Trump, though, he's trying to calm any fears of rising fuel costs here in the U.S. In a Truth Social post, the president said in part, quote, "Short-term oil prices are a very small price to pay for USA and world safety and peace."

But those surging prices, they have been rattling some investors. You look at some of the futures there all across the board down as we enter another week of trading. And traders are very worried, as you can imagine, that the lengthy spike in fuel prices, that it could cause inflation to rise and potentially even damage the economy.

I do want to show you also where some of the Asia Pacific markets head at this hour, where you can also see markets across the board dropping anywhere from 7 percent or possibly as low one, where you see in some cases.

Let's go now to CNN's Mike Valerio joining us from Beijing with much more on the situation.

Mike, it's good to see you again. Look, you have this conflict certainly causing disruptions in oil distribution. I wonder if you can walk our viewers around the world through what this means when it comes to global markets.

[23:25:04]

MIKE VALERIO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. And specifically what it means to friends and family in America back home. So we're broadcasting now from Beijing. You saw the red and the numbers right there, how traders are responding to sharp selloff in Tokyo and in Seoul, down around 7 percent.

But I want to stress to Americans that even if these numbers are in the red around the world and people back home are thinking, well, America is a huge producer of oil. This is not going to impact us. It certainly will because, yes, America is a huge producer of oil but if there are disruptions here in Asia, in the Middle East, shortages, American producers are still going to sell at higher prices to all of these markets, like where we are right now.

That could be experiencing shortages because the oil market is a global market. So even though the production of oil might be fine in America what we pay in California, New Hampshire, Alabama, everywhere, in between is going to be felt by these -- is going to be affected. And feeling these disruptions and this is why all these numbers in the red matter.

So I want to focus specifically, Polo, on Taiwan, for example. This is an area, this is an island that imports so much of its energy supply from the Middle East. And specifically our reporting has really honed in on liquid natural gas. So according to the Cabinet of Taiwan, coming out with a statement to the public writ large. They said Taiwan's cabinet has enough liquid natural gas, according to the reporting from the body.

For March, and is working to ensure that it has sufficient liquid natural gas for April. So when we think about that statement, Taiwan, why is it important? In addition to being a bastion of democracy in Asia, it manufactures so many important things that we need. The hub for advanced chip manufacturing throughout the world. So if there's a problem, a disruption with its energy supply, perhaps when you follow that through to conclusion, that means perhaps an economic slowdown, perhaps an increase in prices of what we buy from Taiwan.

Furthermore, let's look at where Taiwan gets its liquid natural gas. About a third from Qatar, another third from Australia. So when we get into the weeds with these numbers, we don't want to suggest that anybody is going to run out of fuel. But that is a significant chunk that this key economic engine gets from the Middle East. So as we're entering a new week, that is something we are acutely watching -- Polo.

SANDOVAL: Yes. That's an important point. That fuel will be there. It's just going to cost a lot more potentially. I mean, diesel prices here in the U.S. I was looking at numbers, Mike, now $4.51 a gallon. For farmers, growing season around the corner certainly now has that trickledown effect that you just walked us through.

So, again, CNN's Mike Valerio, really appreciate all that for our viewers around the world.

We do want to get some more now from CNN senior political analyst and Bloomberg columnist Ron Brownstein.

Ron, it's great to see you again.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Good to be with you.

SANDOVAL: Let's pick up on where we left off in our conversation just yesterday, especially as the administration continues to keep on the table. This idea or at least the possibility that it could potentially send U.S. troops into Iran. Now, if President Trump does decide to go that route, maybe even send special forces in specifically to seize Iran's nuclear stockpile, how much support do you think he may get from the American public?

BROWNSTEIN: Special forces? Maybe support? Large ground troop invasion, which obviously there's no planning for it. It doesn't really seem to be on the horizon. I think very little support. Even the gas prices, I think, are a real pressure point. You know when the president says this is a small price to pay, I think the vast majority of Republican voters will agree with that, as they have been supporting this.

And that will keep most Republican -- almost all Republican elected officials in line. But you just can't overstate the two underlying facts here that he is starting this war with a majority of Americans opposing, which is something we have very rarely seen, as we've discussed. And he's also starting it with a significant majority, believing he has failed to make progress on the biggest thing they elected him to deal with, which is their cost of living.

So he is just extremely vulnerable, I think, to the idea that this conflict is driving up costs for Americans at the pump. They just don't see that great a stake in it, I think, that would, in their mind, justify paying more every week in the way that he is describing.

SANDOVAL: Help us look into the weeks or days ahead when it comes to the Trump administration. Do you see the president perhaps moving the goalpost and maybe even redefining what a political victory in Iran actually is if he fails to secure this unconditional surrender?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Look, I think that's one thing we have seen from the president.

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You know, he does -- he is a very ideological president in many ways. But he has also kind of a ruthless pragmatist, and he has shown himself willing to reverse course and cut his losses as we talked about before. I mean, just look at how quickly they basically backed down in Minneapolis. I thought, you know, if Minneapolis had gone well for them, they probably would have taken that show on the road to other major blue cities.

But after the killing of the two American citizens and the intense backlash, he basically has kind of really toned it down. And I think you could see here, I mean, they have accomplished a lot of, you know what they set out to do. They have basically eradicated the top leadership of the country. They have degraded its military capability. And I do think that if the costs start to mount, that he may be much more willing to say, basically, declare victory and go home than some of his allies, both like Lindsey Graham or Benjamin Netanyahu might prefer.

SANDOVAL: It's great to get your perspective, Ron, as we face what will likely be another very eventful week ahead.

Ron Brownstein, appreciate your time.

BROWNSTEIN: Thanks for having me.

SANDOVAL: And still ahead here on CNN NEWSROOM, Iran's Assembly of Experts already chose their new supreme leader. We'll take a closer look at the new ayatollah and also what his appointment means for Iran's future and the region.

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SANDOVAL: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. We want to get you back to our breaking news story at this hour. Iran naming the son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the country's next supreme leader. That's according to Iran's state media.

Here's what we know about Mojtaba Khamenei.

[23:35:01] He has kept a fairly low profile, yet wielded significant political influence behind the scenes. The Assembly of Experts now urging Iranians to maintain unity and also to pledge allegiance to the new leader. In a statement, the IRGC has issued its full backing to Mojtaba Khamenei but U.S. President Donald Trump says that the new supreme leader, quote, "is not going to last long without his approval."

We want to go now to Kian Tajbakhsh for more on this. He's a professor of international relations at the University of New York -- at the New York University, I should say. He also was held as a political prisoner in Iran's notorious Evin Prison for more than a year. He joins us now from New York.

Kian, thank you so much for taking the time to join us.

KIAN TAJBAKHSH, FORMER POLITICAL PRISONER IN IRAN: Thank you.

SANDOVAL: I'm wondering if I could just get your immediate thoughts right now. What's going on right now in your mind with this announcement of Iran's new supreme leader?

TAJBAKHSH: Well, I think it indicates a number of significant developments. First of all, by all reports from inside Iran, the IRGC pressured the Assembly of Experts which is itself, if you consider it's a very sort of very important, but nonetheless marginal organization that really doesn't -- just rubber stamps the supreme leader. But the fact that the IRGC pressured them to select the son of the deceased supreme leader shows, one, that they want someone who is aligned with the interests of the military with the IRGC.

And I think the second thing it importantly shows is that as far as the war is concerned, the IRGC is -- wants continuity. That is to say, it doesn't indicate any change of direction or even the possibility of compromise or even capitulation with the United States. So I think that this selection shows that the IRGC wants to dig in and keep fighting, and it has chosen someone who will represent them, but also be weak enough that they can control it, control the leadership from the outside.

SANDOVAL: Yes. To your point, this announcement is everything but that unconditional surrender that President Trump had been calling for. And as a former political prisoner, I think your perspective here is quite unique and just so important right now. I'm curious what your fears are when it comes to people in Iran. We saw them take to the streets earlier this year and the regime at the time respond violently and in a deadly way. What are the concerns now moving forward with this new leader being appointed?

TAJBAKHSH: Well, thank you for bringing that experience up. I was one of the American citizens longest held in Iran, imprisoned in Iran for working for closer ties between Iran and the United States, and for working for strengthening civil society and democracy inside Iran. My experience tells me two things. And it's my experience that frames my interpretation. First of all, the IRGC and the new supreme leader are implacably opposed to the United States and to Israel. I was arrested as an Iranian American citizen, a dual citizen, and I

was told very clearly that we do -- we see all Americans as enemies, and that we see you particularly as a treasonous Iranian. So one thing that the selection of the new supreme leader tells me is that the regime is not going to reconsider its anti-American position. The second thing it tells me is that I was arrested for working with all the civil society groups working in -- for democracy and for a free Iran.

Unfortunately it is true that in -- that the regime has brutally massacred perhaps 10,000 of its unarmed citizens. And that shows me that the Iranian regime will continue to repress its people and anyone who speaks up against them. And so, unfortunately this regime is often used the shadow of war to disappear people, tens of thousands have been arrested and perhaps are going to be secretly executed. And I think that's something that the world should keep its eye on closely.

SANDOVAL: Kian, I've just a few seconds. Perhaps I can get your final thoughts. We did have Israel's ambassador to the U.N. on CNN on Sunday say that it was his hope that the people of Iran will essentially rally together and take back their country. Given everything that you've discussed and your experience, should the world be hopeful that that can actually happen?

[23:40:01]

TAJBAKHSH: It's possible but at the moment unlikely. The only factor that could possibly bring us to that kind of scenario would be that the military operation that Israel and the United States is undertaking so degrades that the regime and its repressive apparatus that we begin to see cracks. At that point possibly the people that the balance of fear in Iran shifts and towards the protesters. But only if there is a crack in the military.

At the moment from family that I'm speaking to inside Iran on a daily basis, unfortunately the regime is still deeply in charge of all the streets and they have warned people that they will react very strongly against any protests. So for the moment, I don't see it in the short term. But if this military operation cracks the regime, it's possible we do see such an opening for the people of Iran.

SANDOVAL: Well, we thank you for sharing your story and also for sharing some of the accounts of those voices inside of Iran, those accounts that are struggling to get out right now.

Professor Kian Tajbakhsh, thank you for your time. Appreciate it.

TAJBAKHSH: Thank you very much.

SANDOVAL: And stay with us. We'll be right back with more.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GARRETT: The president said recently there will be no deal with Iran except unconditional surrender. What does that look like? Unconditional surrender? How will you know it's real?

HEGSETH: It means we're fighting to win. It means we set the terms. We'll know when they're not capable of fighting. There'll be a point where they'll have no choice but to do that. Whether they know it or not they will be combat ineffective. They will surrender.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: That's U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on CBS, telling "60 Minutes" that President Trump will set the terms of surrender.

[23:45:03]

Secretary Hegseth did not offer any specifics on what that may actually look like.

And then there are some reinforcements moving in Ukraine sending experts to the Middle East to help repel Iranian drone attacks. Ukraine now has four years of experience in countering Iranian made attack drones.

Now the downing of drones, it has posed a significant military challenge across the Middle East. Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that experts would be sent in to the region in the coming week. He also suggested that sharing resources would be a two- way street. That's obviously an apparent reference to receiving U.S. air defense missiles as Ukrainians continue to face off against Russian forces.

Let's get some analysis on that and much, much more. We head over to retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery. He leads efforts to advance national security through tech innovation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Admiral, it's so great to have you with us. Thank you so much for joining us.

REAR ADM. MARK MONTGOMERY (RET.), SENIOR FELLOW, FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: Well, thank you for having me.

SANDOVAL: Admiral, let's start with your assessment on the Trump administration's attempt to try to get traffic in that critical Strait of Hormuz back to normal. You have previously participated firsthand in operations to try to protect that crucial waterway against Iranian missiles. I'm not sure if you heard from the energy secretary earlier on Sunday saying that it is his expectation to get traffic back to normal, not in months, but in the weeks ahead.

Is that realistic, in your view?

MONTGOMERY: So you're right. I have done, you know, 30 or 40 Straits of Hormuz transits sometimes during crises where we're trying to keep it open versus the Iranians, and I'll tell you given the condition we're in and a condition of all-out war with the Iranian IRGC forces, I think it's going to take the whole of the four-week air campaign to set the conditions for a reasonably, not risk free but risk manageable transit scheme. So what I mean by that is it will take four weeks to set back their ability to mine, their ability to do anti-ship cruise missiles, their ability to fire drones into tankers being escorted by the U.S. Navy.

And so you want to reduce that risk, set the conditions, and to me, that's probably about four weeks from now and that's a tough number and one the president and the secretary of energy wish were quicker. But to do it faster means a lot more risk for everyone involved.

SANDOVAL: Yes. Without a doubt. The secretary is also quite familiar with the political implications of these rising oil prices. And as you know very well firsthand what happens there in the Strait of Hormuz certainly has that trickle-down effect.

Let's shift gears to some of that reporting that we just shared with our viewers around the world a little while ago about Ukrainian forces now providing some assistance now to the U.S. military. If you could just share the unique expertise that the Ukrainian forces offer the U.S. military that U.S. forces can't find anywhere else.

MONTGOMERY: Thanks. You know, I spent a couple of months a year in Ukraine training their forces and working with them. And one of the most impressive things they have are these counter UAS or counter drone systems. They mix in both air protection using F-16s with advanced precision weapon system, which we have with our F-15s. But they mix it with a ground based capability drones like Merops and Octopus that -- and Bullet that can all be fired and protect an area one to 10 kilometers in radius.

That is what we're missing. And the fact that Ukraine is willing to send us people and equipment and send our Arab allies people and equipment while they're in the middle of a war with Russia where they could use these forces, demonstrates just what a good ally Ukraine is and how willing they are to help us in our time of need and our Arab partners in their time of need.

SANDOVAL: I wonder if you could also address the new supreme leader's announcement there out of Iran. Do you see any potential changes when it comes to so many countries now in the Persian Gulf that continue to report these Iranian strikes. Does a new leader perhaps mean a new strategy for Iran and these strikes against some of their neighbors?

MONTGOMERY: So as it comes to the United States and Israel, no. I mean, this is a person that was a hardliner and his mother, father and wife had been killed in the last week by U.S. or Israeli forces. So I don't think he suddenly -- he's not Delcy Rodriguez and ready to, you know, make that kind of deal with us. So, look, from my perspective, the most important thing we can do is maintain our air campaign to destroy all those forces that Iran has had to impose costs on others.

In other words, their missile systems, their drone systems, their nuclear systems, their naval ships, their enemy air defense.

[23:50:05]

You know, we have to knock those systems back three, five, seven years. That should be the strategic aim of the United States at this point. The idea that we're going to make a deal with a IRGC follow-on leader that somehow liberates or opens Iran is probably a misconception by the president. Instead, he should press hard with the military campaign to eliminate Iran's ability to impact its neighbors, Israel and the United States.

SANDOVAL: Yes, Admiral, you're just the latest out of many experts that have shared why Iran is certainly not Venezuela in terms of the geopolitics at play here. So thank you so much, Admiral, for laying all that out, and as always for offering your expertise.

MONTGOMERY: Thank you for having me.

SANDOVAL: Want to get you some breaking news now. Countries across the Persian Gulf are reporting more incoming aerial attacks. We just touched on that a short while ago with the admiral. For example, in Bahrain, at least 32 people were wounded, four of them seriously wounded when Iranian drone strikes hit south of the capital in the early hours of Monday. And that's according to information from officials there.

And while a CNN team on the ground in Abu Dhabi reported loud booms, meanwhile, in Kuwait, a drone was shot down by the National Guard there. And in Qatar armed forces intercepted a missile attack on Monday morning. And that's according to the Ministry of Defense and information they posted on social media.

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[23:55:24]

SANDOVAL: Welcome back. An improvised explosive device was thrown near the residence of New York City's mayor on Saturday after opposing protests actually clashed nearby. This happened after tensions were rising during an anti-Islam protest. Well, police say that a counter- protester threw the apparent explosive. The New York City Police Department saying that the bomb was capable of causing serious injury or even death.

Earlier, CNN spoke to chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller about what the explosive device tells police about the suspect who put it together. Listen to this.

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JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Their preliminary results is that this is TATP. This is a particular favorite among terrorist groups because it can be homemade from readily available products at a Home Depot, but it's also extraordinarily powerful. But it's also extraordinarily unstable.

If you look at a close-up picture of this bomb being thrown in the hand of the individual who threw it, you'll also see that there are two fuses coming out of the top of it, not just one, which means whoever put this together must have dug deep into the instruction book to come up with this double primer idea that if one fuse fails, the other one should take. The fact that what --

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Is this the device you're talking about?

MILLER: That's the device. And the fact that the device didn't go off with the power that it would have had given the amount of high energy explosives in it, and the shrapnel which would have gone at somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 meters per second, think of that force and speed, is some kind of testimony to one critical mistake they made in their chemistry or just extraordinarily luck that people weren't torn apart or killed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: Yes, this could have had a very just awful ending.

I'm Polo Sandoval live in New York. I'll be right back with you in a few moments with much more of CNN's breaking news coverage of the war with Iran. Don't go anywhere.

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