CNN’s Zakaria: Attack on Iran Was the U.S. ‘Essentially Attacking a Foreign Nation in an Unprovoked Way’

ZAKARIA: “Well, the president‘s speech was quite striking and very different in tone from the way he has been talking about this conflict for weeks, maybe months. You know, for much of the time that he‘s been talking, he‘s talked about how he doesn‘t hold anything against Iran, he thinks of it as a great nation and a great people, he wants it to prosper, they just can‘t have nuclear weapons. This time it was a much tougher speech, much tougher on the Iranians, talking about state sponsorship of terrorism, killing Americans, roadside bombs. So it seemed that the president had decided, having used military force, he now wanted to, you know, to amp up the pressure, to force an Iranian series of concessions, if not, in fact, some kind of surrender. And what strikes me about it is, with Trump, you really do see the the, you know, the emotional temperature changing. When the operation began with the Israelis, he was distancing himself from it. When he saw it succeed, he decided to pile on and he jumped in. And now that it‘s gone well, he is trying to extract maximum concessions. As you say, the most important question is, how are the Iranians going to react to all this? This was a very tough speech. It was basically saying, ‘Give up or else.’ And there was a threat in there, which is, ‘If you don‘t concede, if you don‘t do what we tell you, there will be more strikes and there will be more targets.’ And the implication was very clearly that the United States will do it. So this is not the end of the American campaign. This is a pause waiting to see how the Iranians respond. And we don‘t yet know what — how they‘re responding. One final thought about all this, Anderson, is, of course, it‘s also worth noting that the president used military force in a situation that cannot really be described as preemptive. There was no danger of an Iranian attack to the United States. And as many senators and congressmen have pointed out, including Republicans, the power to go to war against another country is lodged in the Constitution with Congress. And what President Trump has done, and he‘s done this in a variety of places, is really try to unshackle the executive Branch from any constraints that he believes it operates under. This was a case of the president of the United States essentially attacking a foreign nation in an unprovoked way, without any congressional authorization, without even — not even a congressional resolution or motion, which sometimes, you know, presidents seek even when it‘s not a formal declaration of war. So it‘d be interesting to see whether there‘s any congressional reaction to all this.”
COOPER: “Fareed, and we were told that he had given some advance notice to some members of Congress, not sure how many involved, but to your point, not perhaps what many in Congress wanted him to do and said and spoke to that. Fareed, thanks very much.”