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Early Start with Rahel Solomon

U.N. Security Council Demands Iraq Stop Attacks On Gulf Countries; Concerns About Wider Impact Of Middle East War; Sports Minister: Iran "Certainly Cannot" Compete At World Cup. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired March 12, 2026 - 05:30   ET

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

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[05:34:00]

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN ANCHOR: Well, here's the latest on our breaking news coverage of the war with Iran. I'm Becky Anderson here in our Middle East programming headquarters in Abu Dhabi.

At least eight people have been killed after Israel conducted "large- scale" strikes on Beirut's suburbs. These strikes began after Hezbollah fired rockets from Lebanon, according to Israeli reporting. And amid a wave of Iranian attacks across Gulf states, at least one person was killed and dozens rescued after two foreign oil tankers were attacked off the coast of Iraq.

Meantime, the U.N. Security Council has adopted a Bahrain-led resolution demanding Iran stop its attacks on Gulf countries. It was adopted with 13 votes in favor and none against. Russia and China, members of the U.N. Security Council, abstained.

CNN's Paula Hancocks is joining me now here in Abu Dhabi.

Let's start with the U.N. resolution. Significance?

[05:35:00]

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is significant because it was so widely supported. You had 135 co-sponsors to this resolution, so it shows a global consensus against Iran when it comes to this retaliation against the retaliation against the Gulf nations. So it basically condemns in the strongest terms possible the -- what it calls the egregious attacks and then it names seven of the countries in this region.

And the fact that Russia and China abstained is significant as well. They have this veto that they could have used and blocked this resolution -- both of them are very key allies of Iran -- but they chose not to. They obviously were never going to support it, but they did abstain.

Now what it didn't do -- this resolution -- is it didn't touch the U.S.-Israel attack against Iran. That was a separate issue. This was just focusing on Iran's reaction and retaliation.

And it does give a recognition -- an international recognition to the Gulf nations as well about their argument of self-defense. That they reserve the right to retaliate under article 51 of U.N. charter now they are legally able to do that should they take that decision.

ANDERSON: Safeguards that opportunity for that right to respond that looks like at present, of course, is this sort of defensive posture ensuring that these countries -- these six Gulf countries plus Jordan, of course, being the seventh on this resolution -- can secure themselves against these unprovoked and reckless attacks. Those attacks, of course, continue despite this resolution in New York.

Just get us up to speed on what we know over the past sort of 24 hours or so.

HANCOCKS: So the latest information we have is actually from Kuwait. Authorities there saying Kuwait International Airport has been targeted by several drones, they say. Now Kuwaiti airspace is shut so there wouldn't have been many people there. That's -- and they say there's material damage. No casualties at this point.

Saudi Arabia -- we know that about 20 drones were intercepted heading towards the eastern part of the country, which is where the oil fields are.

And we know in Bahrain they're battling a fire at a fuel depot that has been targeted by Iran here.

In the UAE there's been waves of attacks as we know. A couple of drones having been intercepted and fallen in Dubai causing damage. No casualties.

But there's no letup, shall we say, in Iran's retaliation at this point.

ANDERSON: It's good to have you. Thank you. Paula Hancocks monitoring exactly what is going on around the region where we are. And we are, of course, in Abu Dhabi in the UAE and the repercussions -- the attacks from Iran around this region continue.

Well, my next guest is the deputy director for Middle East and North Africa program from the European Council on Foreign Relations. Ellie Geranmayeh joins me now from London. It's really good to have you.

I want to just start in Iran. Mojtaba Khamenei -- he has been appointed as the supreme leader to follow his father. You say he will have to prove himself capable of saving the Islamic Republic while "facing the lowest legitimacy from the ground up and confronting a war against two nuclear powers. And he must do this while trying to stay alive."

Just expand on that if you will.

ELLIE GERANMAYEH, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA PROGRAM, EUROPEAN COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Sure. Thanks for having me back, Becky.

Essentially, this is potentially the worst time to take the reins as supreme leader. Iran is facing its biggest crisis from within and outside. If you look back at the nationwide protests in Iran in January that were met with the most brutal, bloody response we've seen in recent history of the Islamic Republic of Iran, it really indicates a breakdown of the social contract between the state and society under Mojtaba's father.

Now it seems very unlikely given the networks that we know Mojtaba Khamenei had surrounded himself with in recent decades that this is going to be a very pragmatic, pro-reform, pro-opening with the U.S. and lifting sanctions type of supreme leader. And so the off-ramps available to him to essentially mend that state society relationship is going to be very limited.

He's also got a target on his back. The Israelis have essentially said that they will play a game of Whac-A-Mole with whoever pops up as the next central leadership figure in Iran. And so perhaps one of the reasons why we've not seen and heard much from him is an attempt by the Iranian authorities to keep him safe and safeguarded until this bombing, at least, stops.

He finally, also, he has to come to some sort of a negotiated ceasefire with the U.S. on how to end this war unless, of course, the U.S. and Israel are going all in for regime change in which case is another matter altogether.

[05:40:05]

ANDERSON: Ellie, the U.N. Security Council overnight condemning Iran's attacks on Gulf nations and Jordan with overwhelming support. One hundred thirty-five member countries calling for these attacks to stop on the resolution at the Security Council. Two key members, Russia and China, abstaining but not vetoing this which means, of course, the resolution can go through.

The attacks though continue. These are to the GCC reckless, unprovoked, illegal attacks on this wider region.

I want to talk to you about what's known as this "mosaic" doctrine. Our viewers may have heard this term used quite a lot over the past week and a half or so.

If the IRGC can keep fighting, even without orders from Iran's sort of leaders as it were, how much control does Tehran really have over this escalation, and where do you see this going next? I mean, do you see evidence of any off-ramp at this point?

GERANMAYEH: So let's start with the mosaic doctrine. This is a controlled decentralization model. So it was put in very intentionally by the security establishment in the event that there is either a ground invasion of Iran or a high-level decapitation of central leadership, which we had in the first day -- when this war commenced.

And essentially there were orders that as soon as that happened -- that war began by external adversaries, the 31 different provinces of Iran would go into a sort of decentralized model of warfare so that they were not dependent on orders coming from the center, but as long as there is essentially no ceasefire in place formally that operations continue. So it's not a loss of command and control, it's a decentralization and dispersal.

But I'm fairly certain that if Iran's Supreme National Security Council, which is the body that is currently running the show let's say, comes to an agreement with the U.S. on a ceasefire agreement that those attacks will halt. There might be blips but we've seen in the past, for example, in June that Iran does abide by a ceasefire once it's in place.

And then talking about the off-ramp, I think it's clear from everything we're hearing from President Trump at the moment that he's looking for that off-ramp, but we need someone that's able to sell the off-ramp to him and that's not clear to me who in his administration can do that.

But also, we need to remember that there are now two parties here. It takes two to tango. It's not just going to be that President Trump says ceasefire and we're out. You actually have to have a negotiation process with Tehran this time for that ceasefire to be implemented. And I think this means it's a very different war to what we had in June.

ANDERSON: Without a ceasefire and any evidence at this point that there are any sort of, you know, robust conversations about an off- ramp, Iran is acting -- its actions creating potential flashpoints from Yemen to the Horn of Africa to Syria, and that is a huge area.

How real is the risk of a multifront regional conflict at this point?

GERANMAYEH: So Becky, I'm of the opinion that we're very much in that regional war. Not everyone is shooting back yet, and this is a risk that Iran has taken that you're going to have a massive coalition in the region confronting Iran. We haven't got to that point, but you now have essentially open warfare in Lebanon. Yemen, with the Houthis, have not entered this war fully yet and they could very much be mobilized at some stage further up the escalation ladder.

But President Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have now opened this can of worms. It's going to be very hard to put it back in unless we have that off-ramp ceasefire.

And I think for now Iran is very much focused on creating global economic shocks of the type that get President Trump's direct attention. That hits his own interests, that hits the U.S. interests, that hits the Trump White House interests, and direct economic investments in the region. And we've now seen in the past 24 hours now after strikes against Iranian banks that Iran is now widening its response to attack banks in the region.

[05:45:00]

So this is getting messy very quickly. Let's not forget that in June this war ended after 12 days. We're now in day 13 and things have escalated very, very quickly in this round of war and I expect the more prolonged it is the more that this circle widens in terms of the targets that are being attacked and the countries that get dragged into this.

ANDERSON: Ellie, it's always good to have you. Thank you very much, indeed, for joining us.

It is a quarter to two here in the UAE, a quarter past one in Tehran. It is Thursday, March the 12th, 13 days into this war with Iran.

Rahel Solomon in New York picks up our coverage on the other side of this break. Stay with us.

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[05:50:10]

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back.

President Trump is struggling to keep Americans focused on what he claims are his economic accomplishments as the war with Iran escalates.

While in Ohio on Wednesday, the president continued to claim that the U.S. had won the war and said that the conflict would not have a long- term impact on the economy.

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DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The market is holding up well. I figured we'd be hit a little bit, but we were hit probably less than I thought, and we'll be back on track in a pretty short while. Prices are coming down very substantially. Oil will be coming down. That's just a -- that's just a matter of war.

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As the president mentioned, the war overseas is causing spikes in oil prices, domestic fuel prices, and affecting U.S. stock markets. It remains to be seen how this will impact Republican efforts heading into the midterm elections later this year.

All right, we're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.

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[05:55:15]

SOLOMON: Iran's sports minister says that under no circumstances can Tehran's national football team compete at this summer's FIFA World Cup co-hosted by the United States. FIFA's president said that Donald Trump has assured him Iran would be welcome at the tournament despite U.S. strikes on Iran.

But Iran's sports minister seemed to rule that out with a jab aimed at the Trump administration. On Iranian state TV he said, "Considering that this corrupt regime has assassinated our leader, under no circumstances can we participate in the World Cup."

The statement comes after several members of Iran's women's team sought asylum in Australia.

Before we go, a large NASA spacecraft has plummeted back into the Earth's atmosphere. The defunct Probe made its uncontrolled plunge near the south of Mexico early Wednesday. While the radiation-studying spacecraft was expected to disintegrate in a flaming blaze during re- entry, NASA says that a few components could have survived without the risk of the debris actually harming a person is low.

All right, that will do it for this hour of EARLY START. Our thanks to you. I'm Rahel Solomon live in New York. "CNN THIS MORNING" starts right now.

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