the iranians. >> general mccaffrey, thanks to you. msnbc will have much more on this breaking story right now with chris matthews on "ha "hardball." major breaking news at this hour. iran says it has launched a decisive response to the killing of its top general by the united ates last week. launching missiles at multiple locations today including an american airbase in western iraq. this comes just hours after the funeral for that military leader, general soleimani. in a moment we're going to go to nbc's richard engel who's in irbil over in iraq. in a moment i want to bring in jeremy bashaw. he's at the defense department. the ayatollah khamenei right after the attack and the killing of the general, soleimani, by us

said this is going to be an open response by them. it's going to be against our military establishment. it's going to be carried in the open as he pointed out and it's going to go after our interests. it sounds like the first round at least of what he promised in retaliation. >> that's exactly right, chris. you see rocket attacks against the airbase where the u.s. has a presence there and a rocket attack against the irbil airbase. there are also reports about iranian fighter jets in the skies, potentially u.s. fighter jets as well. this is potentially round one where iran is trying to exact revenge for the killing of soleimani against primarily military targets. it's not going to stop there, chris, because they have other tools as well. they could go after u.s. officials, cyber attacks. >> our own cultural figures. they could do anything. >> they could, but i think here you see the leadership of iran clearly retaliating against

united states against military targets for the killing of general soleimani. i think they're going to wait to see what happens. they're going to gauge the american response and decide whether or not they want to proceed from there. >> we have senator jack read joining us. what do you see happening right now having followed this for the last five days? >> well, it's a shocking development, but it's no surprise. the iranian government articulated very clearly as you pointed out, chris, that they were going to take a military action against a military target. the critical issue at the moment is assessing the damage, the casualties. i hope there are no casualties, obviously. then the next step is to prevent a spiral that will take both of us, both iran and the united states, into a much more open and extended conflict. that requires either the third party or some type of back channel but the first point is to assess the damage and also to protect our american personnel that are in iraq. >> do you think this is in our

control or do you believe that the iranian forces led by the ayatollah through the revolutionary guard in this action right now as we speak against the american installation in iraq is stoppable or is this the first round? can we still stop what the next round's going to be? >> i think it's likely a first round and, again, i think we're in this very, very dangerous and treacherous territory where events could be controlling our decision makers rather than decision makers controlling events. we could be in a situation where the administration takes a retaliatory action. that prompts even more reaction from the iranians. again, what we have to have, i don't foresee this at the moment, some type of understanding, some type of situation where we don't let this spiral out of control. that's a very, very dire possibility. >> would you like to see the president of the united states

slow this thing down and call for this to slow at this point if he can, this escalation process which began five days ago? >> well, it's probably something that is best done not by public pronouncements by either the ayatollah or the president but getting a serious discussion between elements in both governments that can effectively coordinate some type of understanding or at least pause so that we can see if other means other than offensive or defensive military operations take place. again, it's reminiscent of so many episodes. within the cuban missile crisis there was the understanding that kennedy and khrushchev were losing control of the situation and intermediaries stepped in and began a dialogue that led fortunately to a peaceful

conclusion. so we've got to look for that. agai you can't emphasize it enough. we have to protect our troops. we have to hope and make an assessment that there are no casualties. that might provide more of a justification for moderation but this is a very, very difficult situation. >> thank you so much, jack reed. we'll bring in rand paul of kentucky. senator paul, let me ask you about this. this has sort of a barbara tuckman guns of august aspect where one step leads to another without purpose. is that what you're seeing? we assassinated, if you will, their top general, one of the leaders of their country last thursday, and now they're attacking back as the ayatollah said they would with full action against our military in full daylight. who blows the whistle on this game? >> well, you know, i'm very worried about this. i hope and pray that none of our

soldiers are injured or killed. this has also been predictable. i think this maximum pressure campaign where we give no off ramp and there's no ability or attempt to engage, i think it's been a failure. secretary pompeo has been saying we will force them into accepting our will, but we got out of the iran agreement which broke the trust that we had developed with them. we then put an embargo on them and now we've killed one of their leading generals. i think this is predictable. i hate it and there is no easy answer now. i think that they will not have a full on war with us so i think this goes on intermittently. this is the opening salvo, but i think it will go on for some time now. i think they will try to avoid a direct war because we can defeat any other nation and we would defeat them in a matter of weeks but it would be another catastrophe and another mess times ten of what happened during the iraq war and i hope we don't go that route. i hope saner minds will pull back and say, enough's enough.

let's have 1078 means of conversation or engagement but it's difficult because the iranians are very, very upset with the killing of their general and i don't see them being open to any type of eng e engagement at this point. >> senator, you made the point well because just in the last minutes we have learned that 59 people were killed in the steeps of iran. there's blood there. there's blood perhaps tonight in iraq. we have blood on our hands from killing soleimani. who's going to show the first -- who's going to be the first country to blink as we said during the cuban missile crisis? do we expect the ayatollah to blink or will trump blink? >> our founding fathers had an answer for this. our founding fathers said no president should have this power. no single individual should ever have this power so i'm looking very carefully at senator cain's resolution on war powers because i do believe that the congress should be the ones making

decisions on whether or not we declare a war. i think killing a major general for another country is an act of war and so i think that there is a possibility if congress were to come together, republican and democrat, and say this is a power too ominous for one person to have. unfortunately, it's partisan. not many democrats wanted to rein in the killing and targeted killing of obama and not many republicans did either. now we're at a point where democrats are a little bit more open to restraining a republican president but i don't know that we still have the votes. we're going to look at it. we've tried in the past with regard to saudi arabia, and hopefully if more -- more voices are included in this debate, maybe we'll be able to stop the escalation. >> how do you get the president of the united states to sign such a document? >> you'd only get it accomplished with a veto prudent majority. we're not there. it doesn't mean the vote's not worth having. we've been having this debate for a long time and really since

world war ii we haven't declared war. it was a big mistake that we allowed the vietnam war to happen without the authority of congress. this is a debate that's ongoing. most republicans and many democrats have acquiesced to the fact, well, the president can do whatever he wants. i don't accede to that. i think absolutely the constitution says that we should be in charge when we go to war and some will argue, oh, congress is too feckless, they'll never go to war. after 9/11 we were nearly unanimous in people who attacked us and pearl harbor. we haven't been so unanimous with the iraq war. that was a mistake. we ought to have a debate and we ought to have someone come and say to us why is a war with iran in our national security interests and why does a resolution from 2002, look, o'brien, the national security officer -- >> okay. >> that is ridiculous on the

face of things and ought to be laughed out of the room. >> thank you so much, senator. we've got breaking news. senator rand paul, thank you for joining us from the senate. first, as i said, joining me from the pentagon, nbc's courtney cube. what's going on now? >> reporter: we've got some breaking news here. pentagon u.s. military is acknowledging iran launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles in iraq. this is what we were waiting for here. against al assad airbase in western iraq. a dozen -- more than a dozen ballistic missiles and they're saying they were launched against -- excuse me, from iran targeting to iraqi military bases hosting u.s. military, not just at al assad and also in irbil. that was when we were trying to find out reports of explosions in irbil. now we know they were ballistic missiles fired from iran. iran had been saying that in fact this was the case.

it's not surprising that if they were in fact -- if they were launching something out of iran to target u.s. installations, u.s. military inside of iraq, they would have to be ballistic missiles given the distance. this is a much more serious attack in the fact that a missile versus a rocket does a lot more damage so the fact that they were not the kind of more crude rocket attacks that we've seen against the u.s. and iraqis inside of iraq in recent days and weeks really rachets this up a notch there, chris. >> thank you, courtney at the defense -- department of defense. let's go to richard engel in iraq. thank you for joining us. it looks like when you use missiles, ballistic missiles, you're looking to hurt people, to punish. this is not a harassment move by tehran. >> reporter: this is iran's response or part of iran's response. it is signaling primarily to its own people that it's not just

going to sit back and take it. every couple of minutes for the last hour or so iran has been putting out on social media through its official channels patriotic slogans, hashtags. #soleimani. #decisiveresponse. they want the world to know iran did this. they put out video of what are apparently ballistic missiles. you could see three of them. you could hear of roar of what sounded like a jet engine. we are here in irbil and two hours ago we heard certainly one, perhaps two explosions. now courtney was saying it appears that was the incoming rounds coming from iran fired at a base here in addition to the base much farther from here in the desert region of enbar province. the fact that iran is firing ballistic missiles from its

territory at two airbases and bragging about it, posting about it every 15 minutes trying to create a hashtag. last time i checked the video it posted had been seen over 100,000 times just in the last maybe hour since it's been up gives the sense that iran wants the world, wants its own people to know that it is doing something after millions of people took to the streets in iran and about 50, 56 according to iranian news agencies, died in a stampede during the funeral. so iran felt it wanted to respond and now it's telling the world that it has. >> do you have a sense that comes across in your reporting now that there's a restrained being shown here by tehran, by the ayatollah. they don't want it to go too far and don't want it to go too far. do they think it will draw another proportionate attack by president trump? >> reporter: well, they did --

iranian officials consistently have talked about targeting military targets. they said that their goal, and this has been a unified message from iranian officials and from leaders who support iran, from hezbollah to iranian backed militias here in iraq, that they think the appropriate response would be to target military installations, that it would be an appropriate proportionate response and that the goal is to drive americans out of iraq and the region if possible. they think this will trigger a response. if you read the iranian news reports, they're issuing threats. there will be more threats if the united states responds to what is happening right now. so they do know that this could be provocative but they do also seem to be trying to keep it military to military. their general was hit, now they

are firing on military bases. >> thank you so much, richard engel who's in iraq covering this from close range. thank you so much, richard. let's bring in national security advisor ben rhodes. this is in your face. it was in your face when we assassinated their general last thursday. this is in our face right now. it doesn't look like these countries are worried, worried about escalation. in fact, they want to do it in the face of the enemy to let everybody know they're escalating. >> that's right, chris. i'm struck by how brazen it is. you think about the history between the united states and iran. we've never before encountered something where you literally have a conventional military strike from within iran on u.s. troops directly less than a week after the killing of qassem soleimani. so this is iran saying they're not going to be cowed by a strike like that. they have other ways they can

respond and there are proxies in different countries and they could take actions that iran doesn't have to necrily claim that would also be in revenge for soleimani. i don't think we should see this as the end of their response. the challenge that we face, chris, we face in this entire escalatory cycle since trump's withdrawal from the u.s. nuclear deal, we're expecting trump and ayatollah khamenei to de-escalate. they're not leaders whose first instincts is de-escalation. they've gotten on an escalatory cycle here. what you'd need is careful diplomacy, back channel diplomacy. there are other countries like oman or france that has had frequent diplomatic conversations with iran. it is up to one of those leaders to take that deescalatory path and we're in a situation where

neither one of those leaders seems particularly inclined to do so. >> i'm thinking in comparison to the shooting war situation we're looking at now with the ballistic missiles coming from tehran directly into our base in iraq and i'm comparing that in my mind to jimmy carter when our hostages were taken in 1979 when this all began, in 1979 when this open conflict with iran began. he sent a secret message to the ayatollahs if any of our captured people, our prisoners, our diplomats are killed, we're going to war. he said, if they're not, we're not going to take war-like steps against your country. you're right, there's a difference in the way this is being run. one side hits the other side. nobody says, let's slow this thing down. >> that's right, chris. look, we have been in very close contact with the iranians for many years inside of iraq. at the height of the iraq war you did have obviously attacks

on u.s. personnel that led back to iran but iran always worked through proxies and the shia militia that had relationships in iraq. it's an entirely different step to take this act of war and fire at additional troops. that leads you to believe that the qassem soleimani was a break from the proxy wars we've been in. instead of it being a proxy war, we took out one of their generals so they were going to take out u.s. military targets. i don't think this is sadly the end of the story. >> hold on there, ben rhodes. as always, we value your testimony here. let me go back to senator jack reed on armed services. is there any way to put up the flag, not a yellow flag, maybe a checkered flag or something on our side, the president could do it, say, okay, you've gotten us back, we got you, let's cool it? >> well, i think the first thing is the assessment of what actually happened on the ground. if there are significant casualties, i think it would be

very difficult to just simply say, let's stop. however, we do have to get off the escalatory spiral as ben indicated. that's going to require as i suggested, he also suggested, either a third party intervention or serious back channel discussions. if we don't do that, then this escalatory spiral will go out of control and we'll be in a situation where we are in a full blown day after day struggle with the iranians, not by proxy, but directly. that could be catastrophic to both countries. >> how do we react to a missile strike without hitting their missile launchers? senator. >> well, there are a number of ways to do this. one goes to are we trying to signal we won't accept attacks on our troops but we want to find a way to get off the escalatory spiral.

one thing we've done in the 1980s was we've taken out some of their off shore platforms. we've done that by telling them to get off before we destroyed them. so there are targets that are accessible that we could hit without significant casualties which would send a very strong message. that's one possibility. again, i don't know if these were fixed or mobile missiles. it would be hard to track them down. they're probably in hiding. there are a series of targets. we could choose to take targets that are less contentious and some that wouldn't involve problems on either side. >> carter said if you kill any of our hostages or diplomats, the 50 or some being held in tehran, then we're going to war. we're not going to war

otherwise. aren't there people, senator reed, out there like john bolton who are rooting for this to escalate, to lead to regime change to get rid of the ayatollahs? >> there are people who have made those arguments. the maximum pressure campaign which the administration has been pursuing was a formula for regime change. there is no sort of midway position where if you do x and y, then we'll sit down and talk. it was you give up this, you give up that, et cetera. as senator paul pointed out, and i concur, the maximum pressure campaign has not resulted in the collapse of iran. they've accelerated their response to us. they've picked up the pace, which has i think produced on our side the incentive to go after shia militia in iraq and soleimani. this started with the departure from the jcpoa and the maximum

pressure campaign. it's about regime change or capitulation by the regime to the united states. that was not going to happen. now we're in a situation with a level of violence that has accelerated to the point where we're seeing attacks by -- openly by iranian forces against our forces. if that continues, it only gets much, much, much worse. so if we are retaliating, that might be appropriate, but we still have to think about how do we get off this escalation spiral. >> thank you so much for joining us, senator jack reed of rhode island. let's bring in christopher hill, former u.s. ambassador to iraq. thank you for joining us. here we are in the middle of a shooting war, it began last week last thursday with our targeted killing of general soleimani. now they're reacting to that. in fact, with the backdrop of 59 people killed in a stampede during this very emotional,

passionate funeral procession over there today, the ayatollah is out for blood. the question is where does this stop. ambassad ambassador? >> first of all, it's clear the iranians don't believe in the fact that revenge out of the coal. they're out of the oven. what i worry about is where is this going to leave the u.s. troops in iraq? i mean, already you had a lot of noise from the various iraqi politicians saying, we've got to get out. we've got to stop bringing our problems to their country and that was a signal they're not very happy watt iranians either. i think this is going to have a tendency of saying, americans, we've loved you here but time to leave. so i would watch that space. in the meantime, i agree with all of the things that the senators have said, we've got to stop this escalation. i would stay away from economic targets. the iranians have already shown they can really hit the button

before we've had breakfast in the morning. we should stay away from oil stuff but i think we probably will want to do something more than symbolic reach. it kind of depends where we are casualties so we don't have too much damage assessment from al assad right now. i hope we can kind of have the wisdom, if you kind of slow this down. mabrey in some mediators like omaha and places that have wanted to see this calm down. our president is not into that. i would think he would want to mediate things himself. >> let's talk about this progression now that's accelerated with our attack directly from tehran with the ballistic missiles. the orders, it would seem by the ayatollah himself. we went into iraq. those that supported that, they thought they would get rid of a

bad guy, bad actor, operator on the stage, stay dad hussain. we removed one buffer. now we're talking about who lost iraq as you just said. could the iranian ayatollah now be saying with these attacks going on as we speak, we can not only seek revenge, hot revenge on the americans, we could get them out of iraq, two birds with one stone? >> i think that's very much on their minds. obviously the iraqis have the prime minister. he's just holding down the fort. there are no prospects of having a strong prime minister. prime minister qurd is not in a position. they're in a weak position. they're going to see what can be done to create the circumstance to get us out of iraq. i think that's very bad news

because of all of the talk of iran and its capabilities with terrorism. we do have to keep in mind that isis kind of wrote the book on terrorism in the region and we don't want a situation where they have free rein with a weakened iraqi government. >> that's right. our groups were in iraq guysing isis and now they have to be done with this ballistic missile attack on our base. let's bring in nbc news chief white house correspondent hallie jackson. ha hallie, does the president understand where we stand in this tit-for-tat real war game with iran? >> reporter: that has been the question, chris, that has been asked since the soleimani strike last week. let me bring you up to speed. we know that the president is being briefed and monitored about what is unfolding, chris, as we speak right now over in

iraq. i can tell you that based on my reporting, the vice president has made phone calls to several key members. i'm told that both were briefed on the attack by iran. now at this point the pentagon is confirming clearly this is a more active night than expected here at the white house. top advisers are presumably with the president here as this is going down. the question now is a tit-for-tat. how will the president retaliate? he has a poernl connection unlike any other site that they could have picked. this is the first place he ever visited in a combat zone. christmas 2018 he made a surprise visit to this exact base. he knows it. this is a president who oftentimes will viscerally connect to certain things, right? we know he likes imagery, understands, processes information through sort of imagery. having been there i can imagine

the president is flashing back to those scenes when he was in iraq. different soldiers, but the same place that's crently under attack by the iranians. the question is, what is he going to do? is this a retaliation that some might demand. he's put everything on the table. what we have seen over the last six hours or so is the president back away a little bit from going after iranian cultural sites which would be a violation of international law. the president had doubled down on that suggestion even as recently as the weekend. in the oval office today just a matter of hours ago he seemed to suggest that he would not go that far. clearly the message is from his secretary of defense and secretary of state got through to him publicly when they said they would not, first of all, follow an order to break international law in so many words. secretary pompeo didn't believe the president would give an illegal order like that. at this point this is also coming in.

it's also developing. that's where we are based on my reporting at the moment. >> the one concern i would have, they've spent today trying to justify their assassination or targeted shooting of the general. >> right. >> if they were so confident it was the right thing to do, they wouldn't be spending time explaining it. it looks like they knew why they did it. something's bad coming, why did they have to set this chain reaction in action. that's what's happened now? it's not just the killing of one general, it's the killing of all of the people in the streets of tehran and now perhaps the killing of u.s. service people in an airbase in western iraq. this isn't going to stop. now the question is why did it begin. >> reporter: there was no exp t expectati expectation, chris, based on the sources i talked to in the hours behind the soleimani strike, that iran would no longer -- he

was taken out by order of president trump. i am told preparations were in place the moments before, during, after. immediately after the strike knowing that there would be retaliation from iran. the president was in south florida. we were covering him in west south beach. the president huddled with his aides, talking to them about what is the next step. it should not be a surprise to anybody much less anybody in the west wing that iran would have retaliated. now we have a more clear picture of that as this is unfolding tonight. we also don't know if this is over yet or if there's more to come. >> looks like one of those road rage scenes where both guys are out of their car face to face. the question is, who's going to get back in their car and drive away. doesn't look like either side is going to do that tonight. great reporting from top white house correspondent hallie

jackson. nbc's cal perry is over in doe hare, qatar. what do you know about the tit-for-tat that is ongoing. we've got a shooting war. >> reporter: yeah, we know it's happening as we speak. there was waves hitting the al assad airbase as hallie pointed out. they will be able to play video of president trump visiting the troops there. this was clearly a signal to people in iran. the key they were fired from iran into iraq. the shia militias. these were ballistic missiles. at least a dozen of them fired from iran. they would have had to travel 200 miles. so what the eye rainies are doing is sending a message to

the u.s. military that they are willing to use these ballistic missiles. clearly after the killing of general soleimani, the u.s. military will stay on a heightened alert. the key is is this over? is this the first wave of many waves? >> let's talk about the weaponry here. it's asymmetric as always with us in the middle east. we use drones from a helicopter to kill soleimani. they're using ballistic missiles which are not exactly surgical. when they do that, anything and everything in front of them gets killed. they're not being careful of our service people out there. they're out to kill people. >> they are. they're out to kill american service members and they're out to make a statement. the point you make is an excellent one. they could have used drones.

the iranians have a fairly good drone program. they used drones in september to attack oil fields in saudi arabia. they could have done that in a place like united arab emirates, qatar. they are massive depending on the pay load. you can load anything in the top of the ballistic missiles. it appears what was loaded into them was high explosives. the way this attack was carried out, very conscious choice from the timing. well, they buried general soleimani while they rallied him. then almost virtually as soon as that funeral went over. there was a lot of talk that they would take their time. certainly i think the fact that they have unleashed these ballistic missiles and a dozen of them that appear to have hit the target is hugely significant. they're also testing president

trump. president trump has now boxed himself in saying that he would respond. that's exactly what the iranians did. clearly they are at the very least trying to see how far the u.s. is willing to take this. >> cal, thank you for the great reporting. back with jeremy bash and malcolm nanz and joshua gelzer. let me go to malcolm. in the room i always ask in politics, this isn't about warfare but generally including warfare, who's in the loop? who's in the room with our president? who's in the room with the a yeah tow la khamenei. we killed that general. we assassinated. we killed him and assassinated this. real hawks, almost relidge gougsly so. are we counting on the fact that

the people on the other side are less hawkish, less religious in this confrontation? your thoughts? >> i certainly hope we don't think that is the case. the iranians are not suicidal people. they are trying not to be extreme. tonight's attack is a very good example of that. they could have chosen many, many more extreme ways of retaliating against us. getting proxies to carry out suicide truck bomb attacks. bombarding that with hundreds of rockets. they choose to do it from iranian territory using short range ballistic missiles where the united states would know where they boosted from, where they were going, impact an area that's 25 square miles.

hopefully not injure or kill as many people. perhaps they are being rational about this. the question is who is going to be the next rational player? will we go after these highly mobile erector launchers? they are gone. they are nowhere near where they launched from tonight. i spent ten years in iraq. they generally tend to have wanted real blood. to have drawn real blood. hopefully this will be a propaganda coup and hopefully cooler heads will prevail. >> what do you think about us. we don't know the casualty figures. we don't have any idea how bad it's going to be in that base over in western iraq. we do know we knocked out their

top general, we killed one of their heroes. that was done at the behest apparently of mike pence who's religious on this issue. they appear to be as passionate about going after iran. why do we assume -- you say you already see restraint on the other part of iran here. >> well, i don't think that the -- i don't think that our side is going to see this as restraint on the part of iran. i've been in that region when theater level ballistic missiles have boosted into the air. you cannot imagine the level of tension that goes up inside these command posts because when they come down, we don't know what's going to be in them. in this case they were 1500 pound high explosive warheads. in the first gulf war we didn't know whether they were chemical, biological or other types of weapons. and in this case iran has used

its conventional military capacity to do that. now will we let this lie in iraq or will we escalate further and hit the iranian mainland and go after some of the launcher sights? because we have a very good capability of understanding when they go to so they could get the best on their resume and so retaliatory stances won't happen. the president is sitting in the situation room and what are the options? >> to do nothing. wait. let them have the propaganda victory and de-escalate. i think that's probably most likely the recommendation the president is getting.

let's let round one happen. then there's the recommendation you might hear from the field. we cannot live and abide by the fact that missiles are raining down on our troops. we have to retaliate. we have to tactically -- >> how do you go after mobile launchers? >> you have to pinpoint their location and go after them. you can degrade their command. there are many ways to retaliate. i've been in a room where a general once said, let's not waste the crisis. if iran attacks us, it was about the straits of hormuz. if iran does that, let's set their navy back 25 years. >> let's go to josh gelzer.

you know the president of the united states and how do you see this coming together? >> well, it looks like this was classic confusion by the trump leadership with a tactical success without a strategic vision. that's a tactical success. it perhaps entranced the president as a victory. unless you have all out war victory depends on a plan. there is no indication that when donald trump entered into the soleimani strike he had even a vision let alone how to get there for that ultimate strategic outcome. >> did we understand the passionate belief if not reverence for general soleimani when we killed him?

to be blunt. i have every reason to think president trump didn't. at most he reads a little bit, he listens a little bit. he takes the word of advisers and gets a gut feeling and goes with it. this is far too important to go with a gut feeling. it should be driven by intelligence and expertise. that's not how this is working under president trump. >> hang in there. we'll get back to you. let me go to ben rhodes. ben, you're a political guy and a man who's worked in government at this level with the national security council. chess is not a one-move game. we have to think ahead the way henry kissinger used to do. what would be the smart american move if this weren't the president? if a normal president were

president to be blunt about it again. but also if this is an opportunity for someone to exploit, people who want regime change, what must we fear here with people in the room with trump? >> we fear that trump has made these decions without any regard to consequences thus far. this was not a surprise. when qassem soleimani was assassinated, it was quite obvious what the response would be in iran given his stature. here we are. if you were sitting in the white house today, look, you would want to de-escalate this situation. you would want to make sure we're protecting our diplomats in our facilities but you would immediately be talking to other countries that have service channels between the united states and iran in the past. oman that hosted the secret talks that led to the iran nuclear agreement. our french allies who remain in frequent contact with the

iranians and try to find some pathway towards de-escalation here that both avert the risk of a wider war and also may be aimed to deal with some of the issues between the united states and iran for the nuclear issue. president trump has not been inclined to take that. while it may seem there's a political imperative response here, we have to keep in mind one response will beget another response. in terms of a long-term war with iran is far greater than what we might gain in a response here. the overwhelming imperative should be to avoid another middle eastern war that could take place in other countries with a country three times the size of iraq and let me see if i can see where the insurgency has been. on the other hand, i think the hard liners, mike pompeo, may see this as an opportunity. they may think it is usually

easier to get this back. they may think a targeted number of strikes at a facility and places inside of iran could cause the regime to crumble. i reject that. this country fought a brutal, brutal war with iraq for nearly a decade and did not capitulate in that through the decades. they're accustomed to violence. while i think pompeo and others may want to rachet it up, time and time again regime change itself is not the end of the world either. so when i hear things saying things like we don't want to start a war, we know where it ended, let's focus on ending a war that we got into nearly two decades ago. >> thank you, ben. we're watching the footage right

now of the incoming ballistic missiles in iraq. we have the facts on the table. last thursday the united states under the orders of our commander in chief, donald trump, assassinated a top general, in fact, one of the most revered figures in the country of iran. the ayatollah immediately threatened us. he said, we're going to move against you with our fces in broad daylight. we're going to hit our military with your military. right now to talk about it is kelly maximin. thank you. put it together right now. what happened last thursday to the killing of jenna soleimani. where are we going from here? >> yeah. i think what you're seeing right now is proportionality does not necessarily mean de-escalation.

i think these kinds of events have a way of spiraling out of control. even though the iranians are responding in what appears to be a proportional and conventional way, it will trigger another u.s. response and push us into a further escalatory cycle. i think for the president of the united states he has to ask himself where do i want to land this claim? is it going to be a full blown war or is it going to be -- >> i have to apologize. kelly. we have a big, hot thing i have to go right now. i want to bring in elliott rusi. tehran bureau chief live from tehran. ali? >> reporter: hi, chris. yes, iran has launched attacks on -- hello, can you hear me, chris? >> yes. i can hear you. >> iran has launched attacks on the al anbar attacks.

if there's anymore retaliation there will be more attacks on all of the regions in the nation. we've just gotten report that a second wave of rocket launches. ayatollah khamenei was in the control center coordinating these attacks. this is -- iran state media says 30 u.s. soldiers have been killed in this attack. this is not confirmed, it's just coming from iranian media. we have just stepped over the precipice here, chris. we have to wait to see what the response is from the united states. this is undoubtedly the most serious moment between iran and america in the last 40 years. it's very, very tense here. on the way to the bureau i had the radio on. songs of marches to war were

being played. we're just getting reports now that iran has deployed its entire air force. they are saying that if they are retaliated for these attacks, they will launch attacks in the emirates, dubai, anywhere else that it is complicit with the united states. also, ayatollah khamenei just released a statement saying he sees no difference between the united states and israel in this conflict. this is drawing people from all sides into this what is potentially the beginning of a war, chris. i don't know how this is going to go in the coming hours, but it's not looking good from the rhetoric that came out from president trump earlier today saying that he will retaliate against any retaliation from iran. i think we can expect an attack on iran imminently. >> let me ask you about putting those together and what you know

over there. that is the assassinating of the revered general soleimani, the references by the president in the last week to going after cultural sites. he sort of pulled back on that, but the fact he threw that out there, we'd go after their treasured persian sites and now i'm sensing a religious fervor for khamenei. it's getting to the mortality of each country. both countries saying we're throwing everything on the table here. >> absolutely, chris. it seems like iran is all in right now. there have been very hard lined elements in this country that have been staunchly antiamerican since the revolution in 1979 and they've been itching for a

conflict. this seems to be the opening for that. now initially we were expecting iran possibly to retaliate using its proxy forces in this region but they've decided to use their conventional army, the irgc, to send a very clear message to say this is coming directly from iran. they don't want this mistaken as a sign of weakness. all bets seem to be off. is president trump going to attack cultural sites here? i mean, that would make ordinary iranians even more upset than they are now. i can tell you there is a great sense of anxiety in this country even though it's just gone past 4 in the morning. everybody is awake. they're trying to get their families out of major cities like tehran out into the country. they experienced an eight year bloody war with iraq where

500,000 iranians were killed. i know many, many people here still remember the air raid sirens going off, having to go and hide in bunkers in tehran. it looks like those scenarios may be unfolding again. they're not facing iraq, they're facing the united states. the united states has a formidable military force. iran's air force and navy are no match for america's military might but they can wreak havoc in this area. if all is in great danger. the group that attacked the u.s. embassy that sparked off the crisis released a statement this morning saying we are waiting for iran's army to launch a

military strike against u.s. forces and then we'll go immediately into action. we're expecting the proxies to strike back as well. this is what you call the fog of war. we're not sure what's going to happen from moment to moment as we're going forward. i think iran also caught america off guard. they've been saying they're going to attack. they were trying to keep it as sort of elusive as possible, if you will, and all of a sudden in the dead of night they have hit that base in iraq, which we have to see how the u.s. retaliates. if the u.s. retaliates, this is going to blow up beyond any imagination. >> ali, you've given us a lot of clarity tonight, sir, in these remarkable circumstances. i want to bring in mark jacobson joins us by phone.

mark, the question is if iran is serious now in threatening, if we go back and retaliate for this attack, they're going to do everything. >> chris, this is how you stumble backwards into a war. i think historians will look back and see jcpoa, the killing of soleimani. right now we're at the narrow end of a funnel in terms of strategic options. i don't see how you respond without incurring further responses from the iranians. there is one thought i've had. that's we may choose a series of strikes to suppress iranian air defenses, which would be a prerequisite. but it sends a really sound signal. you want to escalate, we're hoping to get it back, sometimes

you see some restraints from the white house. i worry we don't have the restraint. trump is knee-jerk. >> yeah, there's options the president wouldn't use but they did. thank you, mark jacobson. let me go to ben rhodes. ben, i look at history here. it's been mentioned tonight. barbara tuckman's book, the art of world war ii. all unintentionally. here we are with the ayatollah putting the word out if we go and attack them with how many casualties, we don't know yet. how did we get a situation when trump isn't going to act?

he always acts. ben? i think we lost ben rhodes. let me go to jeremy. >> yeah, i think the president has very few strategic options. if he doesn't retaliate, he in his own mind will look weak. if he does retaliate, he wants to escalate it. he's boxed his way in that i do not foresee. number one, there's an attack on a third site. there are reports of casualties at the al assad airbase, potentially iraqi casualties and there are also reports fighter jets have taken off from uae, el dafra and iranian are off. there is a military situation,

precisely the situation i can lead to, conflict, if you sit with the president in a situation room right now and you put before him options will there be another one of these dangerous options like assassinate soleimani? my question is is the president going to have within reach the possibility to escalate this war? >> to jeremy's point, he can widen the president's options, not shrink the president's options. what they're putting together is a deescalatory response which could be a potential diplomatic opening. something that gives the president something to hang on to that doesn't get us back into

a tit-for-tat. that will spiral out of control. >> well, among those options, how far would they go in the dovish direction? >> to the point, the president has swung wildly back and forth between wanting to get the better deal with the iranians and obama. that's motivated him from the beginning to wind up being pure tough. his inconsistency is consistent. it's the job of the national security advisor to guide him to a place where he wants to end up and to give him a set of options that is going to create a circumstance where he's not boxed in purely to a military response. >> if you were there and you -- would you put an option before him that said no stupid wars. would that be one of the boxes to check. he ran on that. he said he wouldn't do this, now

we're finding our way step by step, tit-for-tat from an assassination of a beloved general. next we have the situation where the ayatollah says he's going to do something. use this to hit us. not all of this is blind or fog of war. this is pretty obvious when you are doing your homework and you know what you're killing, hitting especially when the other side tells you. it isn't all difficult for a reasonable mind to operate in. >> that's absolutely right. i think there should have been far more process before the decision was made. it's interesting it was being briefed this evening. my question is was the gang of 8 reached on what the iranians would do and what you're seeing are the implications.

they did a very good job in explaining what could potentially happen. >> thank you so much. you know, during the cuban missile crisis i go back to my brain because i grew up with that. curtis lemay, the wild bomber of the air force. he hit the soviets, they wouldn't do nothing. of course they would. reasonable minds said let's stop this. >> that's right. will this be a propaganda victory and for their domestic areas or will this lead to a greater escalation? will they say, no, we have to hit the mobile launchers. >> when's the last time donald trump left some money on the table? >> well, i think on june 20th he did. he didn't retaliation.

he has swung wildly. thank you all for joining me tonight all night tonight on msnbc. "all in" with chris hayes starts right now. good evening from new york, i'm chris hayes. nbc news is reporting al assad airbase in western iraq along with iraqi service members has been attacked by multiple missiles. less than an hour ago the pentagon released the following statement, at approximately 5:30 p.m. eastern iran launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles. it is clear they were launched from iran. irbil is in iraqi kurdistan.