as we mentioned a second live hour of our coverage tonight. so good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters in new york. the start of day 1,084 of the trump administration, this day now after iran struck back for the death of soleimani. tuesday night iran fired over a dozen ballistic missiles toward two iraqi military bases that happened to house u.s. personnel and serve as a base of operations, al asad and the base at erbil in the north. two big questions as we entered wednesday morning on the east coast.

is this it? is this the sum total of iranian retaliation for the death of their general? and if there is to be a counter response from the united states, presumably we will learn about it in the president's remarks in the morning. what will it be? especially crucial, since status night iran warned if the u.s. counterstrikes, iran says it will destroy the city of dubai in the uae, a city always full of westerners, and the seaside city of haifa in northern israel. more from there in just a moment. iran posted a statement shortly after the attacks that gave people hope. it said, quote, it does not seek escalation of war but will defend itself from any further act of aggression. now that the sun is up in the region, the pentagon is carrying out battle damage assessment. there were initial unconfirmed reports of american casualties, now thought not to be. it is thought that all on both bases survived.

no immediate reports of american casualties. and, again, as we go into the morning, we will hear from the president. last night now, a lot of senior civilian and military commanders rushed over to the white house hours after the president said this in the oval office. >> is the u.s. prepared for an iranian attack? >> we're prepared. we're totally prepared, and likewise we're prepared to attack if we have to as retribution. >> then tonight we got this. late tuesday night after the missile attack, the president sent this out on twitter. it reads, quote, all is well. missiles launched from iran at two military bases located in iraq. assessment of casualties and damages take is place now. so far, so good. we have the most powerful and well equipped military anywhere in the world by far. i will be making a statement tomorrow morning. we have another headline coming out of the region tonight, and

it's this. state media in iran -- there is no other kind -- reporting that a ukrainian passenger jet believed to be a u.s.-made 737 crashed after takeoff from the airport in tehran. 180 total souls onboard. iranian tv reporting it appears mechanical problems caused the airliner to go down. more on that if and when we learn it. we'll get to our leadoff discussion in just a moment, but first joining us for the very latest, we have correspondent matt bradley with us from tel aviv in israel. and, matt, what an interesting development here and in that part of the world where you are, to read from iran that their next volley, if we had counterattacked overnight, their next volley was aimed at haifa, the beautiful seaside city north of you along the mediterranean

coast, and at dubai in the uae. as we mentioned, a modern, gleaming city that grew out of the desert and is always home to upwards of hundreds of thousands of westerners. tell us about the reaction to that threat there. >> reporter: yeah. you know, brian, it's interesting you mentioned dubai has so many westerners in it. don't forget dubai also has a lot of iranians in it and has historically. so that's a very major risk that tehran could take if they attacked dubai. but here in israel, the israelis have been girding, have been waiting for the other foot to drop. now that it finally has, and if it's true that the iranians have no intention of progressing beyond this unless the u.s. or israel or some other retaliates against them, you know, the president seems satisfied. the israelis, they're waiting for an attack, but here's the thing, brian. the israelis are always waiting for some kind of attack. so if the u.s. or israel or some other force decides to retaliate

and if iran does fulfill its twlaet and does attack haifa, which is only about an hour from where i'm standing right now, thene will see a major escalation because right now the israelis, they are waiting for any pretext, any opportunity to strike back not just against iran in a conventional sense, but also against iranian proxies like hezbollah. a lot of people on social media have been remarking, everybody expected this retaliation from iran to come through one of its proxies, hezbollah north of here, palestinian islamic jihad, which is in the gaza strip southwest of where i am. so a lot of people have been expecting some kind of cat's paw to react. instead it was a conventional attack by the iranians, using their missile system to attack conventional american military targets. it looks as though the next stage, if we get there, is going to be going through the proxies, through hezbollah, possibly through palestinian islamic jihad in the gaza strip, and attacking what is, as you mentioned, very much a human

site, a civilian site in dubai. that would wreak massive havoc not only on the entire region for people but for the financial systems, and so, you know, israel is going to be waiting for some kind of retaliation. they're expecting it. they're always on a heightened state of alert, brian. >> absolutely. israelis so often have been forced into the shelters because of the regular rocketing across the border in parts of that country. matt bradley, thank you very much for that as a new day dawns over tel aviv in israel. here with us for our leadoff discussion for this hour's coverage, jeremy bash, former chief of staff at the cia and at the pentagon. shannon pettypiece, senior white house reporter for nbc news digital, retired four star u.s. army general barry mccaffrey back for a second hour. of course decorated combat veteran of vietnam and a former battlefield commander in the gulf. and retired u.s. army colonel jack jacobs, who happens to be one of 71 living recipients of

the medal of honor for his combat actions in vietnam. both gentlemen msnbc military analysts. welcome to you all. mr. bash, i would like to begin with you on the state of the iranian military because the target package and the arm amentes they used in this attack tonight are important. their air force does not lead the world. a lot of their aircraft have over three, four, five decades on them. they decided long ago to put their money and their research into ballistic missiles. these have a long range. some of them have a lot of heft, and they proved tonight they have guided missile capability, which led so many people to leave that had they wanted to inflict more damage, had they wanted to rack up casualties, especially american casualties, perhaps they could have done so. >> yeah. tonight was important, brian, for a couple of reasons.

first of all, it was the first time that iran, under its own flag, by its own military, fired ballistic missiles at the united states of america, at u.s. military personnel in the region. previously they had done so through surrogates, through proxies using shorter-range, unguided rocket artillery and mortar pieces. and of course we know of the hundreds of thousands of rocket artillery and mortar pieces, entities like hezbollah possess. but we've also seen iran use a precision guided munitions capability. on september 14th when they fired at the saudi oil facility, they utilized drones. they utilized land attack cruise missiles to put precision guided munitions on that target. now, it was stated earlier by andrea mitchell and others that perhaps the iranians wanted to miss tonight. i'm not so sure. i think if they had used pgms,

they could have done more damage. but by using less guided ballistic missile systems, they were taking a huge gamble, a huge risk because if, in fact, one of those missiles had slammed into a place where american service members were and there were casualties, it would be a game-changer in the entire military dimension would be altered. so i think in some ways, i don't take much solace from the fact that they used unguided missiles. i think it was a huge gamble, and i think we're still very much on the brink of a significant conflict. >> shannon pettypiece, as a practical matter, given our eyes on that country and that region, when missiles are on the move in mobile launchers, we see them. when missiles that don't have solid fuel, when they need fueling, when that process starts, we see it, and certainly we see the kind of muzzle flash on a launch. we had ample reason to have advance warning on this tonight,

so we assume the pentagon got whatever word out they could to the forces in the way. but if you listen to jeremy bash's analysis, we're at the start of something this evening, not the conclusion. >> right. and i guess that's been the question all along with iran is how long is this game of tit for tat, cat and mouse going to go on. i don't think any president really ever starts -- engages in a conflict thinking it is going to stretch on into some ten-year endless war with tens of thousands of boots on the ground. a lot of presidents begin a conflict thinking it will be quick and dirty, get in, get out, and that they can avoid some sort of protracted conflict. so that's of course the risk here that the president now faces is whether unwillingly he is going to be pulled into a conflict. i don't think there is an intention in the white house, in

the administration, to get the u.s. involved in a long-term, thousands of boots on the ground type of conflict. but many times you cannot avoid that, and that is where these things end up. so it seems when you look at the president's tweet tonight at least that there is a sense of trying to downplay the seriousness of the situation. the all's well, so far so good, potentially an attempt to lower the temperature. we'll hear from the president tomorrow morning. it will likely be a scripted, prepared statement, but in the past we have seen the teleprompter trump measured statement only to be followed by a fire and fury-style tweet or, you know, remarks to reporters afterwards. so a lot of us have been trying to get a sense of what the mood is in the white house right now. i think a lot of people involved right now are frankly probably in the situation room and away

from their cell phones and not able to, you know, communicate with their favorite washington reporters at this moment. so as the sun comes up in washington, we should get a little bit more clarity on what the next moves are going to be and how the administration is going to be positioning this. >> jack jacobs, apparently there was some attempted symmetry with tonight's missile launch. one of the targets was the base where the attack on their general was initiated. the time of the initial volley missile launch was the exact time the general was dispatched by an american air strike. his burial in his hometown was suspended, paused briefly, and then carried out after the missiles were launched. but from you i'd love to hear what you think about the decision, the action that got us here in the first place. >> yeah, it's difficult to envision how anybody with any brains who looked at the

strategic aspects of our relationship with iran would countenance even suggesting this kind of action. and one has to come to the conclusion that it had to be all pompeo. i'd like to give secretary esper and general milley the benefit of the doubt and say it wasn't their idea. so, therefore, it had to be -- it had to be secretary pompeo. on the other hand, presented with the decision that is clearly illegal in international law, to say nothing of dangerous, and we see what happens as a result of that, it's hard to see how the military establishment in the united states would countenance doing such a thing, why it wouldn't say, no, we're not doing that.

i mean it's too dangerous, and we're not doing it. and yet it happened in any case. it's very disconcerting. >> general mccaffrey, the redstone rocket that brought us into space initially was a ballistic missile. these are formidable weapons. as i said, the iranians chose to go deep in this area of their arsenal. they've got a lot. they have a lot of different sizes and ranges and payloads and fueling systems, and tonight they kind of -- it was a reminder of their ability and their reach, was it not? >> look, there's no question the iranians possess in the middle east the most massive and effective missile capability, and they've exported a lot of this stuff to men ace the israelis in particular. but let me go back to something. i totally agree with jeremy bash. there is an element of searching

for good news out of tonight. these missiles they fired, as i understand it, have 1,500-pound warheads. i mean if they had made a direct hit on one of the bunkers at either one of these air bases, we would have had significant casualties. so i think basically they stepped forward. they took official iranian military action, irgc out of iran, into iraq. hopefully there were no casualties, but we've got to give credit to the u.s. troops on those two bases for getting under cover and for the intelligence service to give an early launch. at the end of the day, this was a disaster, nailing soleimani at baghdad international airport. we managed to unite the shiite population in iraq against us and our vulnerable bases throughout iraq, never mind the embassy and the oil contractors, et cetera, and in iran, who had gunned down hundreds of their own people.

now the nationalistic fervor brought them behind khamenei again. so this is not a good outcome. the next strikes by the iranians will be through proxies, assassinations, rocket attacks. this isn't over. they want us out of iraq. >> to our viewers joining us a quarter of the way into our second hour of special live coverage here, we're into wednesday in the east. still in the 9:00 p.m. hour out on the west coast. we're going to ask all our guests to stick around for a second while we take a break. so jeremy bash, shannon pettypiece, colonel jack jacobs, and general mccaffrey will all be back as part of our discussion. coming up, more on what the president may say when addressing the nation in the morning. more on what he can say. and later, iran calls the military response to the death of its top general proportionate and in self-defense. but, again, is it over? we'll talk about that when we come back. alexa tell me about neptune's sorrow.

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let me say tonight if you're watching television in iran, i just got off the phone to the president. your fate is in your own hands in terms of the regime's economic viability. you continue this crap, you're going to wake up one day out of the oil business. >> that was lindsey graham. still with us are jeremy bash, shannon pettypiece, general mccaffrey, and colonel jack jacobs. i get by most nights out here with a high school dreg, but i need your help.

what was he talking about there? >> i think there were two dimensions to it, assuming there's a logical coherence. number one is he was appealing directly to the iranian people, which sounds an awful lot like a call for regime change, which we were told is not the policy of the united states of america, but it's sort of the way lindsey graham is articulating it having talked to the president of the united states. the second piece is of course a direct threat on the civilian economy of iran, threatening that they would, quote, be out of the oil business, implying somehow that we would be bombing their oil facilities or their pipelines or part of their energy infrastructure. and, again, i think if the president were to undertake such a step, that would, by its own nature, be highly escalatory and would lead to fundamentally all-out war between the united states and iran, which i don't think even we're seeking. so i think lindsey graham is out of his lane here, and he's not accurately reflecting what a sound policy vis-á-vis iran

would be tonight. >> jack jacobs, two points here. number one, that's why bash went to harvard law school. >> well, he speaks in complete sentences. >> you spent some time with the 82nd airborne years ago and far away. what do you think they're doing in iraq tonight? >> well, you know, there are 3,000 or more folks from the 82nd airborne division there. they got deployed very, very quickly. that's their capability. they constantly have a whole company that's ready to go immediately, a whole battalion ready to go within 72 hours. brigade plus its support very soon thereafter. what are they doing there? well, one of the things that the 82nd can do in these quick reaction forces can do is to aid withdrawal. and one of the things we used to practice all the time was securing lines of communication, that is main supply routes and airfields. so one can conclude perhaps even

the principal reason why they're there is for evacuation. >> general mccaffrey, you once had so many young men and women under your command in exactly this part of the world, and because of what jack just said, a lot of american families watching tonight may have great reason to worry about a loved one in uniform wearing our flag on their sleeve overseas tonight. what do you tell them, and what do you hope for for the men and women in uniform? >> well, first of all, you've got to underscore the fact, particularly with forces like the marines and the 82nd airborne, the ranger regiment, they actually are not running from any fight. so they're prepared to go in, do their job. they've been -- we've had 60,000 killed and wounds over the last 19 years fighting this war on terror. so these troops are not new to it. they know what they're doing. i think jack's entirely right.

this is a potential force to assist in an emergency withdrawal, embassy beleaguered 200-man units deep in iraq. but back to something jeremy bash said, you know, at the end of the day, this was preposterous bad judgment by the president of the united states. secretary esper, very competent, qualified guy, general mark milley, years in combat, all he's done is fight. they know what they're doing. can you imagine what was going on in their mind listening to the president of the united states talking about bombing unesco sites and antiquities. i mean the whole notion that here in the united states we'd have the marines guarding the smithsonian, you know, museum. so the president's judgment has been appalling. hopefully tomorrow -- i think he got scared to death on what transpired. he watched that funeral for

general soleimani, and it scared him. hopefully tomorrow we'll take a reasonable course. we don't want war with iran, and politically it will be devastating to him personally. >> hey, shannon, there in the oval office was the walkback on the cultural sites in realtime as the president explained he likes to follow the law. >> yeah. it was almost like we got a sense that he didn't realize that that was the law or that bombing cultural sites would have been a violation of international law. he seemed to say something to the effect, well, i suppose that's against the law. i like to follow the law. you know, but he continued to say, but, you know, these guys can do all sorts of bad stuff to us, but we're not allowed to bomb their cultural sites. okay, well, so be it. that's fine. so he did take a big walk-back from what he had told reporters earlier. and i think he is aware

politically he has to walk a very fine line here. this administration hasn't done a great job of making a villain out of iran. they have tried, but the american public's focus has really been on other issues. this isn't 2001 or 2003 where terrorism is at a top list for voters. the public has said it's concerned about immigration. they're concerned about health care. they're concerned about the economy. so when we talk about things he has to say tomorrow and things he needs to avoid saying like attacking cultural sites, i think he needs to come out if this is going to continue to escalate and make a villain out of everyone some more. >> to jeremy bash, to shannon pettypiece, to barry mccaffrey, to jack vjacobs, our thanks. coming up, we'll head back to the middle east where it's now early morning on wednesday for more on where military tensions between our country and iran now stand. (whistling)

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it may be that there's a little noise here in the interim that the iranians make the choice to respond. i hope that they don't. president trump has made clear what we will do in response if they do, that our response will be decisive and vigorous just as it has been so far. >> that was our secretary of state with chuck todd this past sunday morning. for more on all of it, we are joined by nbc news international correspondent cal perry, who again is in doha in qatar for

us, morning their time. cal, what is the appetite in the places like where you are, across the gulf, across the very business and commerce-minded, gleaming cities in the gulf region for a conflict next door? >> reporter: none. so this country behind me is hoping to host the world cup in two years. so when they sent the foreign minister to talk to the iranians last week, it was all about stability. stability is business. business is tourism. tourism is the world cup. and that holds true for oman and bahrain and kuwait and all of the countries of the gulf. and i think what we're having now -- and you'll hear it today -- is a look at the balance sheet. what is the cost of being friends with the united states in the year 2020 when president trump is going to be constantly using this bombastic rhetoric against the iranians? what is the cost of having these

u.s. air bases once seen as a positive thing, a force of stability? now it's possible that these bases in these countries are becoming countries. you can see the lights coming on here in qatar at 3:00 in the morning when the iranians said anyone who assists the u.s. in striking iran will become a target. people woke up, and they woke up very scared and for a very good reason. these are very small countries with big ambitions and they basically border iran, brian. >> and how much do you think the u.s. is aware of these regional fears, aware of the tonnage and weight of the kind of the business world and the desire to continue the growth that we can actually see a front-end loader working behind you on one of the many projects, the growth they would like very much to continue on into the next century? >> reporter: yeah, that is one of those manmade islands where they're just building out of the gulf. i think the state department has

been gutted. you can see that here in doha when you talk to people. there's not the same level of communication that existed under previous administrations. i also think frankly people here feel unappreciated. the u.s. is patrolling the persian gulf. they're in and out of the strait of hormuz, and they're doing so really without a whole lot of thanks these days. and when you sort of -- the best indication for me was this. when i flew in here, i planned on making calls to all the gulf nations, asking were you a part of the strike? did the drone originate from your country? by the time i landed, almost all of them said, we had nothing to do with it. so people are starting to wash their hands of their relationship with the u.s. and specifically with the u.s. military, brian. >> our thanks for your reporting this morning, your time in doha in qatar. we are joined now by jeannine zakaria, former jerusalem bureau chief and middle east correspondent for "the washington post," who these days wisely teaches journalism at stanford university in the great state of california.

jeanine, where do your thoughts go given your life's work and experience in the region on a night when you hear of a volley of ballistic missiles from iran, headed to u.s. targets in iraq? >> well, it's obviously very anxiety provoking day, brian, but let me say two things. president trump is trying to establish some deterrence with iran after the provocations that we saw once he with drew from the nuclear deal, when we saw the attacks on the saudi oil fields that were unanswered. he went in this way that nobody expected in killing qassem soleimani, but he doesn't want a war with iran. likewise now the iranians want to have retaliation. they want retribution, but they don't want a war with the united states. so if there's any comfort there, it's we both -- the united states and iran don't want to go to war. so how do we square those two things? i think that the iranians, you know, i covered many suicide bombings that they sponsored in israel in particular.

so they support suicide bombings, but the regime is not suicidal. so they're not going to go too far to provoke president trump, i think, to try and find out what the 52 targets are that he has in mind. that said, i think that if you think that tonight's two missile launches or volleys of missiles are the end, that's quite naive. the iranians, you know, they had to do something right now symbolically, i guess, or maybe even more than symbolically. we don't know the results. but i would expect as some of your other previous guests announced, right now we're in a very uncertain situation. qassem soleimani was the head of shiite militias throughout the entire region. they can strike anywhere. the saudis, i'm not surprised that president trump had an unannounced meeting with mohammed bin salman's younger brother. the saudis are probably the most vulnerable. we've got our whole fifth fleet sitting in bahrain, and things could happen. the iranians will take their time. their proxies will take their time and strike whenever they

please. >> i'm old enough to remember the fight against isis, which ended on sunday. it may be a quaint notion to ask, are they just going to be hanging out doing whatever they want to do? >> well, i mean i think there's, you know, some issues here that i'm sure have been raised repeatedly throughout the day if what happens with the u.s. forces right now that are forced to be in a cowering position, a retreat position when they've been working for midably with the iraqi forces to continue to defeat isis. remember who else was helping us to defeat isis was qassem soleimani, and we had a meeting of the minds at least in their defeat. so i think that that's something that we have to keep an eye on. another thing to think about is isis not only in iraq but in syria. you had an interesting visit as a side note, brian, of president putin making an unusual, rare visit to damascus right after qassem soleimani's assassination, saying, look, you maybe took out one of the main players here, but i'm the other main player here. so he's going to shore up bashar

al assad. what i want to hear tomorrow from president trump is what on earth is our policy in the middle east collectively? what's happening here? by the way, what justified the killing of qassem soleimani right now, and where is the evidence that you had this attack that was imminent because if it wasn't an imminent attack, it's probably an illegal assassination. >> and does it take away from your argument that it was an imminent attack that you were heading off to then say repeatedly, this should have been done long ago? >> well, yeah. i mean, look, the long list of things that qassem soleimani has been involved in, the killing of american soldiers in iraq in 2003 and 2004 and subsequently all the militia groups around the middle east that he's sponsored, everybody has contended with this and this has been repeated. but what are the possibilities of what can happen now? what was president trump briefed on about those possibilities? what did he care about? he probably didn't care about

how this would undermine the democracy movement in iran or how this would unite shiites against the united states. and so we need to hear a little bit more about that. but i mean i'm not sure now. we can't put the genie back in the bottle. what did he say in the tweet? things are not so bad now? they're going great with an exclamation point. he can put as many exclamation points as he wants but we're in a very precarious situation right now. the israelis for their part are quite silent right now. prime minister netanyahu has told them to remain silent. i'm not as worried about a strike on haifa right now despite the rhetoric from the iranian news agency. i don't want to predict anything, but i am more concerned about the possibility of palestinian islamic jihad, in the comes months, once we lose our focus, they can hit whatever they want. >> i'm reminded the quote from the president tonight was, all is well. janine, it's a great pleasure seeing you again. thank you for coming back on the broadcast. we greatly appreciate it. coming up for us, u.s.

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easyaspie.com. that is easy. so, need another reminder? no, i'm good. reminder for what? oh. ho ho, yeah! need worker's comp insurance? get a quote in 3 minutes at easyaspie.com. in the trade it's called bda, battle damage assessment, and that's what's under way by the pentagon overseas tonight after iran launched this volley of somewhere north of a dozen missiles at u.s. forces based in iraq. there's new reporting as we've been talking about tonight that our forces may have had some advance word this was coming. to that end, with us from our washington bureau is ken delainian, our nbc news intelligence and national security reporter. and, ken, i know these systems are always the same reason we know usually that a north korean launch is coming in some cases,

and we certainly know when one has been fired off and is on its way somewhere. >> that's right, brian. one of the first questions i had when i heard about this strike was did the intelligence community provide advance warning because that is, after all, the first job of our intelligence agencies is to prevent a surprise attack. and it turns out that they almost certainly did because the national security agency north of here at ft. meade has this little discussed entity called the defense special missile and aerospace center, affectionately known as defsmac. it was created in the cold war, brian, but it's evolved since then, and its whole job is to track every missile launch around the earth. and it uses radar and satellites and other technology that's probably deeply classified to do that. and so what i'm told by sources is that there almost certainly was some minutes of warning that a launch had occurred, and probably the direction of the launch that would allow troops to take some kind of cover.

but it may have been more than that, brian, because this unit also eavesdrops on the communications at these facilities. so there may have been lengthy warning. we're not sure yet. but the fact of this entity -- and it's known to the iranians. it's not a secret -- is important in this respect, brian. it's another piece that by firing ballistic missiles, the iranians made a decision here that some -- many tonight are viewing as de-escalatory. they certainly could have deployed proxies to fire artillery rounds or rockets from a few miles away, and that would have provided much less warning frankly. but they chose to fire ballistic missiles across territory in a way that they knew the united states would detect, and now we're hearing from at least two u.s. officials have told colleagues at nbc that they viewed this as essentially a propaganda strike, a face-saving measure if, in fact, the reports are true that there are minimal casualties, if not no casualties, that it's pretty

clear here that the iranians have opened a door. they did this for domestic consumption. they chose not to kill americans because as your guests have been saying all night long, they have a very fisophisticated ballisti missile program. if they wanted to hit people, they could have done so. >> very interesting quote especially heading into our next conversation, and we learned about defsmac tonight from our friend ken dilanian, why that isn't a band name, an album, or its own genre, it's beyond me. ken, thank you very much for staying up late with us in our d.c. newsroom. as promised, we're back with our experts to talk about just what it is we have witnessed transpire tonight. before discovering nexium 24hr to treat her frequent heartburn, marie could only imagine enjoying freshly squeezed orange juice. now no fruit is forbidden. nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for all-day, all-night protection. can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn?

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some things are too important to do yourself. ♪ get customized security with 24/7 monitoring from xfinity home. awarded the best professionally installed system by cnet. simple. easy. awesome. call, click or visit a store today. maybe, just maybe, lawrence, based on the tweets -- i can't believe i'm saying that -- that we saw from the president of the united states and from foreign minister zarif, both of which

were optimistic, both of which were calm and carefully worded, maybe both sides stared into the abyss and said, let's figure out a way to step back from what could have been a very ugly situatio for both sides. >> back with us, having heard from the senator from connecticut there, congressman from connecticut, jeremy bash, shannon pettypiece, barry mccaffrey, jack jacobs, welcome back to all of you. jeremy, let's go back to ken dilanian in our last segment drawing that interesting comparison between a use of traveling garden-variety rockets, artillery pieces, which was not used tonight. instead, these lge ballistic missiles, not the largest in the iranian inventory, but require transporters, in some cases require fuelers. that gave us a heads-up. their targeting apparently did not blessedly take any american

lives, but it became a different -- it became a different event tonight because of all thoseaspects. >> okay. so our sophisticated systems gave us a heads-up, but i don't think that means that the iranians made a calculation to utilize those systems to spear american lives because of course these ems, the ballistic missile systems have much larger, more lethal warheads than the smaller rocket artillery and mortar pieces that their surrogates and proxies utilize all over the region. so i'm not sure i fully agree with that analysis, and i think the broader point is that the president wants to paint the picture of all is well. well, iran tonight fired a dozen ballistic missiles at u.s. forces, but all is well. iran tonight became the first nation state since saddam hussein's iraq in 1991 to fire cross-border ballistic missiles at u.s. forces in the region, but all is well. iran has broken out and developed their nuclear capability further tonight, but all is well.

iran has threatened haifa, and dubai, but all is well. and the iranian people are united when just a few weeks ago they were fully divided, but all is well. so i think the delusion coming out of the white house is still fundamentally misunderstanding exactly what's happening in the middle east tonight. >> colonel jacobs, you and i were just talking and you've already switched your focus to what we could see in the follow-on, and that is all the affiliated groups and individual actors who are -- who have nothing but time. >> yeah. a couple of days ago, the iranian u.n. ambassador, after the death of soleimani, said -- he said, there's going to be some retaliation. it has nothing to do with us. don't look at us. we have nothing to do with it. for the second phase of this, he's absolutely correct. some of these outfits are under control, and some are not under

control. but all of them are going to take some measure of encouragement because the united states has blundered so badly, and their perception is going to be that the united states, in the region, is on the run and we can be taken advantage of. when general mccaffrey earlier said that the next wave of attacks is going to be by surrogates, i agree, and most other people agree too. i think there's going to be a wave all over the region by surrogates of iran. >> general mccaffrey, let's not forget that there are networks set up to cover just business and the economy, and they're going to come on the air tomorrow morning with market reactions around the world to what we've been talking about transpired last night now here on the east coast. talk about iran's ability yet and still to clog the flow through the strait of hormuz, which may be the most expensive

21-mile stretch in the world, and once you've seen it in person, looks to be the narrowest 21-mile stretch in the world considering what has to flow through there to the wider world. >> yeah, sure. no question. look, a third of the world's oil supply goes out through that portal every day. it's almost impossible to defend it unless you go actively with offensive operations against the iranian air defense system, against their missiles, the irgc and a bunch of small submarines. so to defend it, you've got to go almost all-out, high intensity combat operations. i think the other thing -- jeremy bash is dead on target with all of this. what i think trump and a small people are talking about and didn't understand is the iranians took -- in the iran/iraq war, the two sides had a million casualties, a half million dead at least. their capacity to absorb

punishment is enormous. their oil isn't getting out of the gulf right now. our economic embargo has been quite effective. so, again, they have got to do something to bust out of this economic box. they're going to use surrogates. this is not over. this is a bad situation, and we need some thoughtful engagement, possibly through third parties, to get these people talking. our only strategic interest with the iranians is don't do nuclear missiles. don't do terrorism throughout the middle east. we ought to be able to talk them out of that in return for economic access. >> and, shannon, in the meantime journalists and the rest of us are left with two main quotes. if you want to pub lulish a pie that lasts tonight until the president's remarks, you've got his tweet and the iranian side, and that's it. >> and what we seem to be able to read into the president's

tweet so far, which we've been discussing, is this. all is well. so far, so good. a strategy of trying to downplay the consequences of these missile launches. politically that may be the smart thing to do. there is not necessarily appetite right now for another conflict in the middle east even though republicans have really been backing the president in the actions he's taken so far from iran. you know, independent voters, those democrats who voted for trump last time do not want to see a conflict in the middle east. so down playing the severity of this to possibly de-escalate the situation. and the administration also has an interest in downplaying the consequences from this killing of general soleimani. you know, they have tried to say, yes, there might be some skirmishes, some flare-ups here and there. we're prepared for all of them. so they want to downplay the retaliation that we see from

iran. but really at the end of the day when people wake up in the morning, the sun comes up in washington, it will be missiles fired on u.s. troops overseas that people will see. >> we hope the wisdom and experience of our guests has been a help to impeapeople watc and figure out what we have witnessed tonight on into this morning. our thanks to jeremy bash, shann shannon pettypiece, barry mccaffrey, colonel mark jacobs. thanks to all of our guests. the live coverage continues all evening long, all night long into the morning here on msnbc after this quick break. 4g lte networks for $20? unlimited talk? i like that! because on sundays you know i gotta talk to mama, then on... this is your wake-up call, people. the new tracfone wireless. now you're in control. the new tracfone wireless. if your adventure... keeps turning into unexpected bathroom trips. you may have overactive bladder, or oab.

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good evening. i'm ali velshi. tonight velshi. tonight, president trump has just been confronted with the biggest test of his presidency to date. if you're just catching up with us, here's the breaking news that the whole world is following. iran launched a ballistic missile attack at two iraqi bases which house u.s. troops in the early hours of wednesday morning, local time. more than a dozen missiles struck the al assad base and another air base in irbill, both in iraq. so far it seems that there were no casualties. sunlight has just arrived in that area of the world, so there is an investigation going on. but u.s. military sources said troops were given enough warning to reach shelter before the missiles struck. the attacks were iran's response to the u.s. killing last week