Said this is going to be an open response by them. Its going to be against our military establishment. Its going to be carried in the open as he pointed out and its going to go after our interests. It sounds like the first round at least of what he promised in retaliation. Thats 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. Its 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 theyre going to wait to see what happens. Theyre 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, its a shocking development, but its 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 rounds going to be . I think its likely a first round and, again, i think were 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 dont foresee this at the moment, some type of understanding, some type of situation where we dont let this spiral out of control. Thats 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, its 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, its 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 weve got to look for that. Agai you cant 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. Well 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 youre seeing . We assassinated, if you will, their top general, one of the leaders of their country last thursday, and now theyre 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, im 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 theres no ability or attempt to engage, i think its 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 weve 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 dont go that route. I hope saner minds will pull back and say, enoughs enough. Lets have 1078 means of conversation or engagement but its difficult because the iranians are very, very upset with the killing of their general and i dont 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. Theres blood there. Theres blood perhaps tonight in iraq. We have blood on our hands from killing soleimani. Whos going to show the first whos 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 im looking very carefully at senator cains 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, its partisan. Not Many Democrats wanted to rein in the killing and targeted killing of obama and not many republicans did either. Now were at a point where democrats are a little bit more open to restraining a republican president but i dont know that we still have the votes. Were going to look at it. Weve tried in the past with regard to saudi arabia, and hopefully if more more voices are included in this debate, maybe well be able to stop the escalation. How do you get the president of the United States to sign such a document . Youd only get it accomplished with a veto prudent majority. Were not there. It doesnt mean the votes not worth having. Weve been having this debate for a long time and really since world war ii we havent declared war. It was a big mistake that we allowed the vietnam war to happen without the authority of congress. This is a debate thats ongoing. Most republicans and Many Democrats have acquiesced to the fact, well, the president can do whatever he wants. I dont 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, theyll never go to war. After 9 11 we were nearly unanimous in people who attacked us and pearl harbor. We havent 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, obrien, 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. Weve got breaking news. Senator rand paul, thank you for joining us from the senate. First, as i said, joining me from the pentagon, nbcs courtney cube. Whats going on now . Reporter weve 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 theyre 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. Its 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 weve 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. Lets go to Richard Engel in iraq. Thank you for joining us. It looks like when you use missiles, Ballistic Missiles, youre looking to hurt people, to punish. This is not a harassment move by tehran. Reporter this is irans response or part of irans response. It is signaling primarily to its own people that its 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 its 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 its telling the world that it has. Do you have a sense that comes across in your reporting now that theres a restrained being shown here by tehran, by the ayatollah. They dont want it to go too far and dont 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, theyre 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 whos in iraq covering this from close range. Thank you so much, richard. Lets 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 doesnt 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 theyre escalating. Thats right, chris. Im struck by how brazen it is. You think about the history between the United States and iran. Weve 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 theyre 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 doesnt have to necrily claim that would also be in revenge for soleimani. I dont 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 trumps withdrawal from the u. S. Nuclear deal, were expecting trump and Ayatollah Khamenei to deescalate. Theyre not leaders whose first instincts is deescalation. Theyve gotten on an escalatory cycle here. What youd 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 were in a situation where neither one of those leaders seems particularly inclined to do so. Im thinking in comparison to the shooting war situation were looking at now with the Ballistic Missiles coming from tehran directly into our base in iraq and im 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, were going to war. He said, if theyre not, were not going to take warlike steps against your country. Youre right, theres a difference in the way this is being run. One side hits the other side. Nobody says, lets slow this thing down. Thats 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. Its 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 weve 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 dont 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, youve gotten us back, we got you, lets 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, lets stop. However, we do have to get off the escalatory spiral as ben indicated. Thats going to require as i suggested, he also suggested, either a Third Party Intervention or serious back channel discussions. If we dont do that, then this escalatory spiral will go out of control and well 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 wont accept attacks on our troops but we want to find a way to get off the escalatory spiral. One thing weve done in the 1980s was weve taken out some of their off shore platforms. Weve 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. Thats one possibility. Again, i dont know if these were fixed or mobile missiles. It would be hard to track them down. Theyre probably in hiding. There are a series of targets. We could choose to take targets that are less contentious and some that wouldnt 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 were going to war. Were not going to war otherwise. Arent 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 p