she was a wonderful present. >> and we are blessed to to have known her as a friend. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. good morning. i'm garrett haake in washington. it's 6:00 in the east and 3:00 out west and we watching a lot of breaking news all over the world this morning including our continuing special coverage of the fallout from a u.s. strike against one of iran's top generals. president trump delivering new warnings to iran about the consequences of retaliation for solei m soleimani's death. vows of vengeance. how will it end? in the u.s. raising their voices. more than 70 anti-war demonstrations were held across the country overnight. also, australia on fire. how the dire situation there just got worse.

we begin for the funeral process for iran's top general killed by a u.s. air strike and his body arrive in iran for a series of memorial ceremoniys that will last in the tuesday. iran's foreign minister firing back with a tweet of his own saying that would be a war crime. the president confirmed two rocket attacks in iraq. no coalition troops were hurt in either attack. meanwhile, about 3,000 troops from the army's 82nd airborne division will soon be on the ground in due wait. members of immediate response force. anti-protesters took to the streets in washington, d.c.' white house officials notified

congress of the soleimani strike. debate continues on whether or not the killing was justified. >> congress will come together. i imagine o'brien and pompeo will come in and brief the congress in regards to this. the president has the authority to protect our men and women. he acted on that. remember what had fan place prior to the attack on the embassy and others. >> we should be vigilant and cautious but the risk of not doing things is certainly greater than the risk of taking this action. >> we will need to get our troops out of iraq and syria now. longer they stay there the greater the likelihood we will find ourselves in a never ending war with iran that will make the other wars like syria and iraq and afghanistan look like a picn picnic. >> we have a number of nbc

reports fanned out across the region to bring you the later. cal, bris us up on what is going on on in the region this morning there? >> from the small gulf nation of qatar, nation that is on edge and this day we continue toss a rise in the rhetoric not only from the u.s. president but also from the iranians and the irgc. a irgc commander make a statement directed to the united states saying iran identified 35 sites of u.s. bases within iranian reach including, as they said, quote, the city of tel aviv and israeli that seemed to have led to the tweets you referenced from the u.s. president saying he would hit back harder than iran had ever hit before. the most tweet they are talking interest to is this one.

it is that reference to iranian culture sites that many people around the world are taking issue with, specifically the iranian foreign minister who responded also via twitter saying this, quote. the rhetoric is continuing to ramp up around the region. we saw yesterday the qatari foreign minister meeting with the iranian foreign minister and

iranian president and, unfortunately, that visit seeming to making no difference and iranian made a statement saying the consequences of soleimani death will be painful for the americans and called the decision to respond as being decided and decisive. it sort of shows you where the region is and how the language is becoming more dangerous by the hour. >> it's one thing to tweet. another to actually mobilize the kind of assets you need to strike 52 targets in any period of time. are there signs there in doha that the u.s. military posture is changing in the region to actually potentially act on the threats that the president is making? >> certainly you have those troops moving out from ft. bragg and north carolina 3,000 troops moving into kuwait and seems to be more of a protective force likely to be centered around baghdad. what we are seeing on the ground here is the largest the u.s.

base has in the region and house 10,000 u.s. personnel. because qatar finds itself in the middle of a dangerous situation, the activities of that air base are highly secretive. it is on a high state of alert where we normally would see american personnel here on the streets of doha, they are not here, they are on base. those bases are on a high state of alert as they are around the world. certainly the u.s. military is keeping its plans close to the vest. can i tell you in the persian gulf behind me, you have within very close quarters iranian and american ships that has worried around the region. you have threat of further action but increased risk that accident could happen by accident and ship come in close quarters and a concern always in the gulf but the heightened

tensions and the crowds on the streets in iran and iraqi parliament are in an emergency session to try determine if they are asking u.s. troops to live iraq and seem we are in heightened levels in that we have not seen in the middle east in quite sometime. >> how concerned are the qataris are that they could be target the iranian retaliation and not just against american forces but our arthother allies in the reg? >> that is the top concern. this is a tiny gulf nation with huge ambitions and what they say here but it is, in fact, a tiny nation so that visit from the qatari foreign minister is very indicative of the fear that these gulf nations are seeing. the concern being that they will be caught up in this escalating rhetoric that the attacks that could be targeting u.s. bases will, of course, hit civilians. that is unfortunately the story of the middle east in the last few decades that military

targets become civilian targets and civilians who pay the ultimate price. when you look at these 35 u.s. bases in the region, they are, of course, surrounded by civilian cities. doha a perfect example. the city behind me is set to host the world cup in two years. the american national team was supposed to be here now on a training mission and that mission, of course, was cancelled. certainly the concern is exactly as you say that these nations could be caught up in further geo political tensions. >> cal, thank you. stand by. we will come back to you throughout the course of the hour. we are watching this morning as the funeral process continues for the iran general soleimani. ali, what is the scene there on the ground? how are iranians morning the death of this general? >> emotions are running extremely high here all over

iran. hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people have poured out into the streets here to follow the funeral proinvesting of general soleiman imptle ai. you can see throngs of people trying to get a glimpse of that truck carrying his coffin. the emotions are extremely high and people are very sensitive. the airport avoss where he played a pivotal role in the battles in that city has now been named after him. i can tell you the atmosphere here is being fueled by a combination of anger, shock, fear, and a strong sense of retribution. we are hearing from all quarters

of iranian establishment from the very top that revenge will be taken for his death. that could involve a whole host of different measures iran have at their disposal from the network of militias that soleimani built throughout the region that was fiercely important to him and could target the u.s. assets in this region, even scyberattacks, something iran is good at over the years and possibly not at the level of china or russia, but not far off. iran is sitting here mulling all of its option to take revenge of one of the top men in the country. the sense is they are going to buy their time on how they

strike back. they have a whole host of assets here. iran has always said that all u.s. personnel and bases in this region are within striking distance of iran's forces and militia and they could do it immediately, but iran are very good at playing the long game so i think, for now, they are going to keep their powder dry and strike when it suits them best, but they are going to strike because they don't want to show any weakness. they feel they have been put under immense pressure by president trump and any sign of weakness would hurt them further so we have now entered a very dangerous cycle between tehran and washington. if president trump act on that tweet of his that he may hit 52 sites in iran, that is going to be make people in this country extraordinarily angry, even people that may have

pro-american sentiment. >> i'm glad you mentioned that, ali. we have video in from the iranian parliament this morning. take a listen to this. my understanding this is the iranian parliament shouting death to america earlier today. do you get the sense that that kind of rhetoric is reflective of the regular sentiment among iranian citizens? >> it is amongst a long section of iranians and those are emotional scenes in parliament and only seen that happen once before before they burnt the u.s. flag during a session of parliament. this is the second time i've seen them all gather up and shout "death to america" there. there is a lot of anger in this country and president trump's tweet last night has unified many iranians. as i mentioned to you, there are people in this country that are

pro american that have problems with the regime but that kind of commentary makes people rally around the flag. there has been a multitude of comments this morning, especially regarding his mentioning of hitting cultural sites in iran. you have to remember, this is a country with 3 1/2 thousand years of civilization and most important monuments of the globe here in iran and if those were hit, it would deeply upset many, many iranians. i'm seeing on social media that they are now making comparisons with donald trump to the attacks isis made in. almera and taliban also made. they referred to president trump this morning as a terrorist in a

suit. so i don't think that has gone a long way to deescalating the situation here, nor has the president's tweet won any hearts or minds here in iran. >> ali, thank you very much. we return to israeli. security is heightened after the assassination of general soleimani. that country could also become a target. we go to a northernmost city that sits on the lebanon board where matt is. what else have you heard from israeli in response to this? >> reporter: very little, garrett. you have to remember, you know, it's tempting to assume that everybody is terrified what is coming next. israeli is always on a heightened state of alert and as far as israelis are concerned, i'm flush with the border with lebanon and if the weather would

only cooperate, you could gaze across this very hostile border into lebanon behind me. we are within a mile of heavily fortified hezbollah positions they are one of the militia groups that act the most, both like an army and political party in actually in the lebanese parliament. a lot of israelis are expecting if iran wants to retaliate, it could retaliate here in northern israeli with a strike by hezbollah and done it before. when people talk about the iranian capability and using their militia force and proxy groups, we have to remember the groups are populated by nationals from the countries they are in. hezbollah is populated by shared militia groups in iraq and they include mostly, almost entirely iraqi arabs.

they are subject to the whims and blitz of their own country. in hezbollah they are dealing with a protest group demanding that iran release its stranglehold over lebanese in hezbollah and if hezbollah were to attack in israeli, netanyahu who is running for third election in less than a year he will savor the opportunity to demonstrate he can beat back hezbollah and destroy them. if hezbollah decided to launch an attack against the israelis they could attack from the israelis demonstrating to the israeli public in a political way they are capable of securing greater israeli so that is the risk that all of these different groups in the region face especially between these heavily armed neighbors. >> a dangerous situation there. matt bradley, thank you. be careful out there. let's bring in a foreign affairs reporter for "the

washington post" and a senior director of counterterrorism for the not security council. the pictures out of tehran this morning are extraordinary with all of these people in the streets. what is your reaction seeing that and the reporting about the feeling on the ground there? >> clearly passions are high in iran and elsewhere around the region in the death of general soleimani. the question with the escalating rhetoric between the leaders in both countries and actions as well to include the rocket attacks on the u.s. base is what is next. it seems both countries are trapped in a cycle of escalation in rhetoric and action and the sentiment on the street is fueling this also. >> the rhetoric is hot on both sides. is there anything going on behind the scenes to tamp this down. how do you walk this back? >> it seems pretty difficult --

it seems pretty unlikely they can walk this back. there has been talk the past few months there could be an opening that president trump in his heart of hearts does want to meet with the iranians and sit down and thrash out some new understanding but this situation has put that completely on the back burner and we don't know in 2020 brings us a different administration we don't know how many damage is done to any prospects -- >> the white house is expected to brief congress next week on the reason behind this strike, the eminent threat they have been talking about. what kind of bar do they have to clear to make this legally and political defensible? >> apparently part of the sort of rational is based on the perception of the intelligence and i'm not privy to that information but from my time as

former counterterrorism analysis and steeped in the art of analysis, that is something people are going to focusing in on. what was the original intelligence that led to that decision and did the intelligence community judge that the attacks potentially by iran were eminent? hours, days, weeks? or was that a political call based on sort of the interpretation of the intelligence outside of the intelligence? >> i think this is an interesting point, soleimani is not a front line puller trigger. killing him stops an eminent attack is a confusing except. >> that is another one of these questions. even if the intelligence is accurate that there was an attack that was sort of in train that was only again, hours or days away from being implemented, what then was the rational for the strike against soleimani to disrupt that

particular plot that may have been in training? >> ihe is general, a politician. can you put in context the way he is viewed in that country and why we are seeing the kind of response we are seeing in the streets there? >> right. you could say he is a kind of macarthur for the iranians and say that with flue aware how much look on his hands and not exactly the best knowledge to make. but he is a figure at the head of a kind of project of resistance that the iranian regime has put forward the last few decades. he wasn't spending much time in iran but seen as the man of the helm of this whole web of proxy groups throughout the middle east. because he wasn't really stuck inside the iranian system, he wasn't a visible figure within

tehran and he wasn't exactly somebody who was caught within iran's own internal politics. >> sort of above the fray? >> above the fray. >> because he was not an internal politician? >> yes. >> okay. >> his death is important but at the same time i can't say he is independsible. the other guards have a deep tie and web to these groups around the middle east that don't hinge on his own personality and profile. >> last night, house minority leader kevin mccarthy saying remember the attacks. do you see this as another response to that and how do you view the president's tweets in keeping a balance of deterrence in the region? >> this is a tough question people are trying to sort out. what is that line between deterrence and escalation? based on the series of events

the past few weeks now the death of the american contractor and of the service members, our strikes against those militias, then the attacks against the u.s. embassy in baghdad, at what point was our action to strike soleimani in that realm? now the ball is in the iranian's court to respond in kind or potentially escalate further which one would imagine, if they do, will only trigger another wave of response from our end. so it's hard to see where the cycle potentially -- where it ends right now. >> gentlemen, stay with me. i'll bring in cal perry in doha who what a question for you as well. >> ishan, if you would love to tackle this fountaat first. what is a split screen moment of

the crowds in iran, what the sort of effects would be in the iraqi government -- i know it will be difficult for them to sort of reach a quorum -- but if the iraqi government ask u.s. troops to leave and what would that mean for the region and isn't that what soleimani's goal and mission was from the beginning? >> it's one of the biggest ironies of the moment. you have somebody who, in washington -- is this figure as a whole foreign establishment here decried his influence and decried the steptextent to whic soleimani have control over or profound influence and now by killing him and by launch is these attacks on iraqi sole, you've given the iraqi government pretty decent cause to further undermine your influence in the country and

pr presumably in the region as well. >> i'll jump on to that point. this is another one of the potentially unintended consequences we may have to deal with is if because of the situation in iraq, if the iraqis themselves decide that -- even without any further iranian retaliation that the u.s. military presence needs to be thinned out or removed entirely, this is going to have a dramatic compact on the counter-isis commission. if the u.s. forces are asked to leave, we don't have much left in the region outside of the smaller presence in syria to deal with isis so this is another issue we are going to have to think through. >> we have to squeeze in a break on this busy morning. thank you both very much for joining us. cal, we will come back to you later. coming up next, in the

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many candidates believe the top spot to launch them on the path to the nomination. joining me is daniel lipmann and hanna tru trudeau. how wide open is this thing? >> it's really wide open. we have almost no idea who is going to win the caucus in less than 30 days which is pretty typically i must say of the caucus buildup. we have seen several candidates surging up until this point.

pete buttigieg is the front-runner and haven't seen polls out in weeks so we are waiting for the final polls to come out and see if joe biden is able to catch mojo he left after launching his campaign in april, he is on his second bus tour in the state and bernie sanders and elizabeth warren are a major force to be reckoned four so i think those four are the ones to watch but it's anybody's guess who is currently ahead with the absence of the polls. >> bernie has raised so much money the last quarter he could do quite a lot of of damage in io iowa. >> definitely. he has a huge volunteer army there that is important to caucus turnout. this is a state where you have to rally your troops and if you have a huge volunteer army, you have lots of cash on hand, you have, obviously, the momentum from nearly winning the caucus state last election in 2016, he

has a lot of strength going into the caucus, no doubt. >> daniel, caucuses are always unpredictable but the other x-factor is the impeachment trial which will presumably start at some point and keep the five senators running for president in washington, d.c. a lot of the time. how do you see that potentially affecting the closing sprint into iowa or maybe even into new hampshire? >> i think it definitely helps joe biden and mayor pete who don't have a trial to worry about and hurts people like bernie sanders and amy klobuchar who has raised more money than she used to. i think this is something that -- i don't think a trial is guaranteed because iran and our tensions with iran, they seem to have taken the forefront in the washington conversation so that decreases the pressure on pelosi to finish a trial or even start one and send those articles over. so no one is really talking about impeachment any more

because of our potential war with iran. so that makes it much easier for her to just say let's have the president deal with iran and we can worry about impeachment. >> amazing one all assuming story can wipe out another like that. you both mentioned biden campaign and turnaround he appears to be having there. politico has good reporting about biden getting his mojo back in iowa. you've been covering his campaign, hanna. >> i should note his campaign often points to sort of a, quote/unquote false narrative that the media he claims put out there that he was never taking iowa seriously and that he had always taken iowa seriously. but i don't know that that is necessarily the case. he definitely focused more on south carolina and more diverse primary staltes but he received the covenant endorsement of a congresswoman elected in 2018

and he has tom vilsack who is the agriculture secretary and former governor there in iowa. it matters to people on the ground there and endorsements can only go so far but he has seen an uptick in his fund-raising and that is critical to organizing extra staffers on the ground and extra ads. he has been hitting the air waives and like i said on his second bus tour in the state. the first one successful by all accounts. i think it is safe to say he is kind of getting his mojo back a little bit. >> thank you. we have to leave it there for now. let's move on here to the wildfires down under intensifying the danger now greater than ever. the latest from australia in a live report in a moment. test fra live report in a moment. let's be honest, every insurance company says they can save you these. in fact, if you had a dollar for every time they said it, you'd have a lot of dollars. which makes it hard to believe, especially coming from a talking lizard. pip, pip, cheerio! look, all i, dennis quaid, know is that esurance is built to save you dollars without skimping on service. and when they save, you save.

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some 10,000 miles from where i'm sitting in washington a wildfire is growing nor dangerous. the wildfires in australia are

worsening because of the weather there. 12 million acres are scorched so far, twice the size of vermont. into the inferno, nowhere in site. jaens wh janice is in southeastern australia. what is the latest down there? >> there was a cooling of temperature and a little bit of rain today, garrett, so that was seen as welcome relief. the unfortunate part officials say it will be exactly that, it will be short-lived. temperatures will climb again by the ends of the week. things will dry out and there will be a return to those extreme conditions that have caused one of the worst crisis on record here. the smoke yesterday was so thick that it was visible from space. satellite imagery showing this wide haze spreading far beyond southeast australia, as far as new zealand. what was troubling about the

fire patterns yesterday was that even those who are tasked with trying to understand the behavior of how the fires move said they had no idea what was going to happen. the winds kicked up into the evening. at times reaching 80 miles per hour opinion and that, of course, embers flying and new fires were starting. in one case, one of the biggest wildfires in this area jumped over the river igniting new fires on the other side and putting entire neighborhoods under threat. officials were then going around telling people that they had to take shelter or try to get out. there is a lot of destruction to the north and to the west of here. officials figure another five or six dozen homes have been affected. tlrp thousands of firefighters who continue to work around the clock here trying to get these fires under control and there are more american firefighters who are on the way into the region. they are expected to get here by the middle of the week.

>> thank you very much, janice. we are watching large crowds in the streets of iran for the funeral of soleimani. officials in the iranian parliament chanting death to america there during a session to discuss the u.s. air strike that killed soleimani calling it a military act of terrorism. across the globe, world leaders are bracing for dramatic escalation between u.s. and iran and iran's supreme leader is promising harsh retaliation for the killing of soleimani. president trump tweeting this last night. joining me is douglas olivant director of iraq for the obama and bush administrations. what do you make of the tweets

by the president? this is a tactful deterrence or escalation even further? >> it's certainly one way or another. you have to see how people will respond to this. . you're in that psychological war fare game here and how the iranians responds to the united states is still ununknown. we don't know exactly where they are at. they probably take a couple of days as they mourn this death before they start putting their plans together. we suspect the middle of next week, we may a decent idea what they plan to do. >> you see language here was a military act of terrorism. do the iranians view a response as a military response or view it as a proxy response or view it as a terrorististic threat? >> they tend to find another way to strike back. so in response to this, their

men up -- menu of options would include cut off the gulf and disrupt shipping. they could, in theory, try to escalate by launching missiles from lebanon into israeli, that would be a big escalation, though. they could engage u.s. assets inside iraq. or do some type of cyber attack. they have a long laundry of list they could do and pick off that and do one, do some, or do all. >> cal perry has a question for you. go ahead. >> douglas, i'm going to hit you with a bit of a personal question for our viewers. not only did you serve two tours in iraq, you helped write the security plan for baghdad. you were a part of the surge on the ground. i saw the sacrifice that u.s. troops made there. i'm wondering when you read news like the mehdi army is reforming, what does that mean

for iraq war veterans or for somebody like yourself who made those sacrifices on the ground and seep the ground that has been lost, you know, 10, 15 years later? >> these are political wins that wax and wane. i've been watching iraq for 15 years now. i was there during the surge period but i've gone back. i was there just in september. they come and go and i don't think you can get too wrapped up about any one thing. things will happen and then we will see where they are. but, in general, the region tends to settle itself out. we have to remember that these people have been neighbors a long, long time. they know each other. they know that, you know, their grandfathers were neighbors and their grandchildren are going to be neighbors. you can't let it get too far out of control. >> nau f >>. the fallout at the gas pump. should we expect to see prices

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u.s. air strike that killed soleimani could have lasting of course, over the economy. the initial news of the strike caused markets to slip on friday and retaliation of iran could come in the form to a disruption of the world's oil supply.

seville, could you walk us through this? >> the biggest fear is what iran would do to take revenge for the killing of their top general would be to actually try to block off oil supply access at the strait of hormuz is what everybody is looking at especially economists. if they were to succeed in doing that that could cause oil prices to go up to $150 a barrel. significantly higher and, for americans, that could cause, when you go to the gas station to fill up your car , it could cause gas prices to spike up significantly. >> what happened to oil prices after the strike. did we see an effect right away? >> we did. markets take a dive and when it comes to oil prices, they spiked up 4% for crude oil. now when you look at what happens to the -- from $61 a barrel, went up to $64 a barrel and came back down slightly but

significantly higher oil prices than we would have had not this escalation in iran/u.s. tensions. >> how does that translate into consumer prices at the pump or heating oil? where would americans see the effect of this? >> americans are right to be concerned when they show up at the gas station it cost them significantly more to fill up their tank. so the estimates are that this escalation tensions between iran and the u.s. could add 3 to 5 cents per gallon or 5 to 10 cents per gallon will you depends on what iran's response is going to be if they to take revenge and if president trump feels compelled to have a full-fledged military assault on the country and cause iran's economy to collapse and send oil prices spiking for a prolonged period of time. >> of course, the u.s. doesn't buy oil from iran but a lot of other countries do. is there a big global ripple effect to this and iranian retaliation against us could

hurt china and russia or others down the line? >> the global economy is paying close attention to this. when it comes to the u.s., we do have a little bit of cushion because we do have our own oil reserves. so if iran were to cut off global oil supplies, we could be okay, although gas prices would likely still go up significantly for consumers. when it comes to other countries, they will be paying attention because it would impact them significantly. they estimate it could shave or 0.3 percentage points off global gdp should there be a conflict. >> thank you. coming up next, plain chicken. how the ayatollah of iran may have misjudged president trump. what will be the end result? nt p what will be the end result? like the old "tunic tug". you know it, right? but i don't have to, with always discreet. i couldn't believe the difference. it's less bulky. and it really protects.

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joining me is bloomberg opinion editor is bobby gosh. you write about the mistake you believe the ayatollah made about his calculation of president trump he didn't reckon with trump's own capacity for recklessness. both president bush and president obama had the chance to take out soleimani. >> you don't make a decision like this lightly. you make a decision like this based on information about an immediately threat the administration say they have but we haven't seen any signs of that evidence and you make a decision like this when you have clear understanding of what consequences will be. it does not sit easily with the trump administration and what we have seen the last couple of days suggest there was not much preparation. good.

no question soleimani is one of the most sort of -- has more blood on his hands and more muslim blood hois hands this ha. he is backr baghdadi is dead. he was a horrible man, responsible for hundreds of thousands of innocence being displaced. there are more images of people coming out to mourn for him, there are many, many more people than that around the middle east who would gladly spit on his grave rather than shed tears on it, but that doesn't mean you take him down without careful consideration of all the options. >> we are only a few days into the year, but this may be the only question i ever ask, the ayatollah spoke to president trump in a tweet and said you can't do anything in reference to the attack on the u.s. embassy in baghdadi. the president taking action a few days later, do you think the president tauntd on social media

may have played into his desire to act here on soleimani? >> well, that is the medium he understands best, the medium of which he, himself, is a champion. so he does understand and respond to social media provocations. but there were other factors. there has been very good reporting of this out of washington about how the president was upset by, he did set a clear red line that if an american civilian or soldier, an american national was killed because of reaction of iron on its problems sis, that would be a red line. >> that happened. he was also as we understand it, influenced by those images of iran-backed militia, attacking the american embassy in baghdad. so there has been a consistent ratcheting up of provocations from the iranian side and as i say in my piece, as reckless enough to go around here, the iranians have been incredibly reckless, soleimani was taking

things far too far in this instance, for a about a year, they had been attacking international shipping in the gulf. they had been attacking oil installations in saudi arabia. there has been a barrage during weeks of rocket attacks on many ba american bases across iraq. this was a the part of the campaign of turning up the dial in the expectation the united states would not respond, they calculated that president trump didn't want a war and would not respond to provocation. this was a mistake. to take it one step further and taunt him on social media, that's just plain dumb. >> so do you think the president then turning the threat level up to 11 with this tweet about 52 other targets in iran, do you think that might cut down on the risk of a mistake of a sloppy act of retaliation from iran knowing the president was willing to do this against soleimani, maybe he is serious about 52 acts of the next provocation.

>> there are two things to that. one is extraordinarily reckless and stupid thing for the president to say, attacking cultural targets, that is a war crime, even threatening it scourges the legality of -- it. but that's one part of the problem. the other part of the problem is that you are dealing with a, two irrational features here. on the one side, the president of the united states, the other the supreme leader of iraq. the supreme leader of iran cares about one thing, remaining the supreme leader of iran, of propagating a particular regime. the pain that that might cause to iranians doesn't seem to bother him very much. he's quite happy to dish out pane to his own people as and when he chooses. so that alone i'm not sure is going to change the way he thinks about it. he's, on the other hand, he may use that, the threat of attacks on cultural targets to rally iranians behind him. there has been a lot of speculation that a killing of soleimani would rally the

iranians around the flag. i'm very skeptical about that. a lot of iranians hated soleimani's guts with good reason. threatening the people, that might rally people around the flag and even an unpopular regime. >> that is much more like ply in my opinion. that's something we need the watch auto for. >> bobby, great reporting online. great analysis this morning. thank you very much for coming in. we do appreciate it. so we will go back to doha and bring in cal perry a little bit. cam, i can't help but think we are still stuck in a bit of a waiting game now. they're waiting to see what iran does next, waiting to see briefing members of congress. waiting to see how the rest of the u.s. government responds to this. do you get the same sense there we are stuck in suspended animation at this moment? >> reporter: yeah, i think the thing here is we are waiting for the mourning end in iran.

there is these three days of mourning. we are seeing pictures of these massive funeral processions. folks are holding their breath for what happens once that funeral is over. is that at the point at which the gloves come off? the other thing on the ground is a discussion of american politics. so often here in the region, the perception is so vastly different from the reality. i remember during the second war in iraq. people thought oh that's george bush after the oil fields. that's george bush taking revenge for an assassination attempt on his father. what i'm hearing now on the ground is people are saying this is about donald trump and his impeachment. this is the wag the dog theory. i'm wondering what you have to say about that. is that what you are hearing in washington as well? >> it's interesting. there are a lot of questions from democrats, remember in the immediate hours after this attack, you saw a lot of people resurface in a tweet from the president from i think 2011 saying barack obama is so desperate to get reelected he would start a war with iran.

a lot of folks looked around and wondered if the president was doing the same thing on impeachment. the question does an impeachment trial now maybe take a back seat for the iranian crisis that seems to be developing here, if a little bit in slow motion. but historically, bill clinton was bombing iraq during his own impeachment trial as well, he was carrying out strikes around the globe. it will be interesting congress' response to this, even those critical of the president in the past have been waiting a little bit to hear this briefing that they're expecting to get next beak. they want to find out if there really was an imminent threat here or not. there is such a lack of trust across the capitol, particularly among democrats, in anything that comes from this white house. they feel like they have been lied to on small things, so it's not a big step for them to potentially be lied to on big things. and i think, frankly, the iraq vote, the iraq war vote still hangs in the air for a lot of members, too.

the idea that they were somewhat convinced by intelligence reports then that there might be mass destruction in iraq. they don't want to make the same mistake here of believing intelligence that is not wholly sold to them. so you know it will be interesting, perhaps the most important thing that will happen in washington next week will be behind closed doors it will be the classified briefing. >> that could set the tone for what happens next in impeachment and in a butterfly effect element to this, that sets the tone to what happens in the 2020 campaign, if impeachment gets pushed off or delayed, if the trial doesn't happen until late february, that changes the dynamic on 2020 as well. so there is a lot of moving part here. i think we will talk about that in our next hour. cal, we will come back to new doha a little later. for now coming up, what happens in iran engages in cyber war against the u.s.? what's the danger? that's next. against the u.s. what's the danger? that's next. due to inclement weather... all two-wheel drive cross-overs should close for the day.

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