Trump Agrees to Two-Week Ceasefire, Subject to Strait of Hormuz Opening

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Tonight though, after promising what many legal scholars pointed out would likely be a war crime, the president posted this online. It's lengthy. I want to read it to you in full. It begins. Based on conversations with Prime Minister Shabazz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Maneer of Pakistan and wherein they requested that I hold off the destructive force being sent tonight to Iran and subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the complete, immediate and safe opening of the Strait of Hormuz. I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks. This will be a double-sided ceasefire. The president goes on. The reason for doing so is that we have already met and exceeded all military objectives in a very far along with a definitive agreement concerning long-term peace with Iran and peace in the Middle East. He adds, We received a 10-point proposal from Iran and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate. Almost all the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran, but a two-week period will allow the agreement to be finalized and consummated. The president closes with, on behalf of the United States of America as president and also representing the countries of the Middle East, it is an honor to have this long-term problem close to resolution. Thank you for your attention to this matter. A short time later, a senior White House official told CNN that Israel is on board with this, answering one key question, even though just moments ago we got reports of more incoming missile fire from Iran. We'll have a live report from Tel Aviv shortly. Iran's National Security Council has also weighed in, saying in a statement that Iran has achieved a great victory and forced the United States to accept its 10-point plan. Iran's foreign minister added this online. I hereby declare on behalf of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, if attacks against Iran are halted, our powerful armed forces will cease their defensive operations. He continues, for a period of two weeks, safe passage through the strait of Hormuz will be possible via coordination with Iran's armed forces and with due consideration of technical limitations. A lot to discuss during our two-hour global war coverage tonight. First, quickly how we got to this point, the day beginning with the president making that threat that no president ever has. He made it on his social network, quoting now, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will. That was preceded by this threat yesterday. We're giving them, we're giving them till tomorrow, 8 o'clock Eastern time, and after that, they're going to have no bridges, they're going to have no power plants, stone ages, yeah? Stone ages. Well, today, that kind of language through criticism across the political spectrum, in addition to a push from Democratic lawmakers for war powers legislation or the president's removal under the 25th Amendment, there were new expressions of concern from some Republicans. I am hoping and praying that President Trump, this really is bluster. I do not want to see us start blowing up civilian infrastructure. I do not want to see that. We are not at war with the Iranian people. We are trying to liberate them. Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski said online today that the president's threat against Iran, quote, cannot be excused away as an attempt to gain leverage in negotiations. Additionally, she called the president's rhetoric, quote, an affront to the ideals our nation has sought to uphold and promote around the world for nearly 250 years. Well, there will be no follow through on the rhetoric, at least for now. However, all this has driven oil prices to record highs. The spot market price of a barrel of benchmark Brent crude settling today at $144. Gas prices, though not yet in record territory, now stand at $4.14 a gallon up $1.16 since the war began. I want to go to the latest, I'll get the latest from the CNN White House correspondent, Kristen Holmes, and CNN's senior national security correspondent, Zach Cohen. Start with Kristen. Is it clear exactly what the U.S. and Iran have agreed to as any kind of a framework for these upcoming negotiations? Because it looks like this puts Iran in control of the Strait of Hormuz certainly for the next two weeks. It does certainly look like that, and that does appear to be what at least is going to happen for these two weeks. We know that both sides are agreeing to a ceasefire. We also know, of course, that they're reopening the Strait of Hormuz, although it's unclear what the circumstances around the reopening are in terms of, is this going to cost money? Is this going to be, is there going to be a toll? We just aren't clear on exactly what they're starting from. Now, President Trump has talked about this 10-point plan, a basis for negotiation. Now, we are seeing a lot of bluster right now as both sides are taking credit for winning this. Essentially, we have a statement here that was from the Council, excuse me, this Iran's Supreme National Security Council that says that they won the war and it lays out what they believe is in 10-point plan. It does not give any kind of actual details, but just says that essentially the United States bent to Iran. When we asked the White House about this 10-point plan, they just said that this was a jumping off point. They would not give any details. And then they said that it was President Trump and the U.S. military that got Iran to back down. So it's a lot right now in this time period of everyone saying the other person is backing down. What we do know, of course, is that there is now a two-week ceasefire, that the Strait of Hormuz will be open, though we don't know the conditions, and that Israel has agreed as well to this ceasefire, which is key in all of this. But when we talk about Israel, it is important to note we don't know how long they've agreed to this. They've agreed to this one portion of a two-week ceasefire to hammer out negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, but we don't know what this looks like down the road. Yeah, and our General Rediman is reporting on concerns already from Israel about this plan. Joining us now is Zack Cohen. So what are you hearing from Pentagon officials tonight? Yeah, there's a U.S. official telling me that at least for now the U.S. military has paused strikes inside Iran. So we're seeing a tangible impact of this supposed ceasefire deal that has been agreed upon. It sounds like by both the Trump administration and the Iranian government. But digging a little deeper into this 10-point plan that the Iranians say that at least in practice that the Trump administration has agreed to, one of the conditions is really striking, and it is a demand that the United States withdraw all combat forces from all bases and points of deployment within the region. So not just in the general proximity of Iran, but in the region itself, all of the bases, including the bases that we've seen be hit by Iranian missile strikes and drone attacks over the last several weeks in retaliation to these U.S. Israeli strikes. And that comes in addition to this other demand about the Strait of Hormuz, which effectively amounts to Iran demanding that the United States formally legitimize Iran's control of the Strait going forward. And that's something that we have to remember was not the case before these joint U.S. Israeli strikes first began. Iran did not formally control the Strait of Hormuz. That was something that they did in response to the U.S. Israeli military operations. And it's something that has ultimately led us to this point and was the key motivator, it seems, for President Trump to agree to this ceasefire. He was realizing, it seems, that there was a shot clock here and an urgent need to reopen the Strait. But at what price remains to be seen? It sounds like there will be talks in the near future between Iran and the U.S. and Pakistan. But according to these 10 demands that the Iranians are putting forward, including the withdrawal of U.S. forces from all bases in the region, it will be shocking to see if the Trump administration agrees to that among the other ones. Is that coming? Appreciate it. Joining me now is former Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, who led the team and negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. Seen in his global affairs analyst, Brett McGurk, who served in senior national security posts under the last four presidents, including President Trump's first term. And seen in global affairs analysts in Iran expert, Karim Sajapur, who is currently a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Brett, first of all, what's your reaction to the president's announcement of this and the Iranians' response? I think, Anderson, there's a lot we don't know. Obviously here the guns are going silent for a time. But not surprising if you do this all in public, like what's happening, the Iranians always demand, as Wendy knows, the last whatever it is in a military exchange, the last shot in a negotiation, the last, you know, edit to the text. And they're coming in and basically saying, you just had it on screen, the Strait of Hormuz is open in coordination with their armed forces. If that is true, Anderson, that is not a return to status quo antebellum, how it should be with free passage of the Strait. And that's a hugely problematic outcome if that's what we just agreed to. I mean, that's a huge victory for Iran, because Iran was not in control officially of the Strait before this. Right. So I think the test here over the next 48, 72 hours, are ships passing freely through the Strait, clearing that backlog, or are they stopping and paying a toll to Iran, the system that they've set up? So we'll see. I mean, I'm talking a lot of people who honestly, Anderson, don't know people who are very close to this in terms of how it's going to go. I don't know that President Trump's statement suggested it'll be free passage, free, complete passage. And the Iranians put out a statement saying that you have to coordinate with their armed forces. So that's a problem. Yeah. Yeah, Karim, the statement is, say passage to the Strait of Hormuz will be quote, be possible via coordination with Iran's armed forces and with due consideration of technical limitations. It also talks about coordinating with the armed forces and this confirming a unique economic and geopolitical position for Iran. You know, Anderson, Iran wants to essentially normalize its control over the Strait of Hormuz as its Panama Canal. Which it wasn't previously. You know, Strait of Hormuz is an international waterway and they want to make it an Iranian waterway to take tolls from each ship that passes through, which is making them the most important export of oil at the moment. Because 20 percent of oil, LNG, fertilizer passes through the Strait. And they want to do that for a couple of reasons. Number one, they say that they want reassurances that they're not going to be attacked again in the future by the United States and Israel. And number two, they believe they deserve compensation for the billions of dollars in damages they've endured. I'm very skeptical that they're going to be able to get those assurances. So long as their official slogan is death to America and death to Israel and they're committed to their nuclear program, their missiles and drones and proxies, they're not going to be able to get those reassurances. So in my view that we can breathe a temporary sigh of relief, but I don't think we're anywhere near a permanent resolution to this conflict. And Wendy, this has nothing to do with, I mean, there's nothing in this about the long-term nuclear program that Iran has, which is probably number one. I mean, right now the Strait of Hormuz is the biggest issue for the United States, but the nuclear future of Iran is probably a bigger issue for the planet. Do you believe the Iranians are negotiating good faith here? Is this, I mean, have they won this round? Well, I think what you've heard from both Brett and Karim is absolutely right. Iran is in control of the Strait of Hormuz. They're also in control of their enrichment stockpile. That really hasn't been discussed at all in this two-week break. We see that we are in much worse shape and it's a much more hard-line regime now than it even was before. I'm sure Karim would agree with that. And as a result, it concerns me that now they will believe they need a nuclear weapon to act as a deterrent from future attacks by the United States, Israel, or anyone else for that matter. And if that is in fact where this goes, then indeed there will be many other people in the world who will want nuclear weapons as well. I think the really tough part here, as Brett pointed out, is we don't know how much this will hold for two weeks. And there is a wide, wide gulf, as Karim said, between where the President has said he wants to be and where this 10-point plan is. They're not even in the same universe and these negotiations are very tough. They take more than two weeks. I'm not even sure you could get a framework. And the fact that the President has said he's going to base this on the 10 points that have been laid out by Iran, most of those points are in Iran's favor. Right. When you were negotiating, how long did the negotiations for the deal you got in 2015, how long that take? It was like a year, wasn't it? Oh, it took 18 months to get there. 18 months, yeah. It was a long clock. So the idea that this is going to happen in two weeks, I mean that's just not the Iranian clock. That is not the Iranian clock. And this is a very technical negotiation. Everything from how you ensure safe passage in the Strait of Hormuz to what you're going to do about sanctions relief and what that looks like, to what the stock, what happens to that stockpile, what Iran can continue to do. Iran has said, and the Supreme National Council said again tonight, they have to hold on to their right to enrichment. They believe that is a right they have in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The United States has never believed it is a right. We only acceded to the possibility under strict monitoring and verification. There's a lot, a lot that has to be worked out here. And I think the really horrible thing about what's happened over the last few weeks is that the United States has lost its moral authority in the world. We have pushed back our alliances. This really has not only created some positives for Iran. And to be sure, we have hurt their missile program. We have hurt their facilities. We have hurt their Navy. No question about all of that. But we've also made heroes in some ways out of Russia and China who have helped Iran and now think they can do whatever they want because the United States did. Brett, do you agree with that? Because that's a really bleak look at, I mean, if that's what came out of all of this, that's bleak. Yeah, Anderson, I tend to withhold judgment until we know a little more and see. We don't really know what's happening in Iran. We don't know the strength of the system. I do think we've lost the plot though, Anderson. I mean, you and I were talking back in January about the protests by the Iranian people. And I feel like we've lost that critical... You think destroying their civilization is a... I know exactly. I mean, what we saw play out in the last 24 hours was so counterproductive to everything. And particularly, the Iranian people are protesting for their civilization, for Iranian nationalism against the Islamic Republic, the Islamic State of the Islamic Republic of Iran. And we've lost that. So, look, we have to see as the dust settles here what's happening in the Strait of Hormuz, how intact is this regime? Is the supreme leader even in control? Is he alive? We actually don't know these answers. So we'll have to see. But obviously, there are a lot of problematic elements here right now. And I think it's going to require some good diplomacy to try to pull them together. Krim, I mean, do you... Yes, huge devastation in facilities, capabilities in Iran. But is in some way the regime... Are they a worse regime than the one that was in place before, which was a suicidal fanatical regime? Is Iran stronger in some weird way than they were before? I think their ability to project power is weaker, but their holdover society right now is stronger. Over Iranian society. Over Iranian society. It's a military government, revolutionary government with all of their fingers on the trigger. And our greatest ally against the Iranian regime are the people of Iran, who for 47 years have been fighting for freedom. And they believe that Iranian civilization is being suffocated by this regime. So President Trump's threats to destroy Iranian civilization is strategic malpractice. You want to be on the side of Iranian people and Iranian civilization. Because this Cold War we've had with Iran is never going to end until we have new leaders in power in Iran, whose organizing principle is the national interests of Iran, rather than the revolutionary ideology of 1979. If, I mean, Brett, if you are a regime which has long believed the U.S. wants to destroy you and the U.S. president has said that he's willing to wipe out your civilization and bring you back to the Stone Ages, is giving up your nuclear weapon just from a purely strategic standpoint or your nuclear program, is that a wise move? No, I think as Wendy said, they will now have a strategic calculation to try to retain what they have and build it back. It will be hard to build it back. They have to rebuild the centrifuging capacity and everything else to actually do anything with that in rich uranium. But no, they're sitting on a thousand pounds of highly enriched uranium, Anderson, without any inspectors or anything. And that's a big problem. And that is, again, we can't lose the plot here. The Iranian people, as Karim just said, it's the missiles and drones, it's the nuclear, and it's obviously a support for terrorism. And we haven't necessarily here made any of that better. But I just want to withhold judgment as we go forward and see even what's just happening, what just happened tonight, we still have some open questions, a lot of open questions. I should point out that nuclear agreement that was made in 2015 through Wendy Sherman and many others, that was ripped up by the first Trump administration, which is what has ultimately led us to the position that we're in now. Wendy Sherman, Brett McGurk, Karim Sajapur, thank you. Coming up next, we'll go to Israel, which was coming under new attack just as we went to air. We'll bring you that new reporting. Also more on how this is likely to be received by the Iranian people, some of whom formed human chains around likely airstrike targets today after urging from the government there. That and more is our scene and global war coverage continue. I'm CNN tech reporter Claire Duffy. This week on the podcast, Terms of Service. I don't think I need to tell anyone that life these days is expensive. Now imagine that the cost you're charged is different from the cost your neighbor pays for the exact same product, maybe because you have different budgets or shopping habits. It's actually happening. A big shift is everyone seeing the same price tag in the store to now everyone seeing prices on their private screens and also companies having a ton of information about each of us. I'm talking to Grace Getty, a policy analyst at Consumer Reports. She has some tips on how to look out for automated pricing schemes and what we can all do about it. Listen to CNN's Terms of Service wherever you get your podcasts. This is where Aired Siren's a short time ago in Tel Aviv after Iran launched more missiles at Israel tonight. The latest just a few moments ago, people there being urged to take shelter. Among them CNN's Jeremy Diamond who joins us now. So what are you hearing from Israeli authorities about their opinion on this deal? Is it clear how the prime minister and again I'm hearing more Aired Siren so if you got to go you got to go? What are you hearing from Israeli officials? Yeah, that's right Anderson. You can see actually behind me one of those cluster munitions coming in as the Aired Sirens are now sounding here in Tel Aviv. We're going to go to shelter and you can stick with us as we move. But this is the fourth time now that we have had Aired Sirens in Israel since President Trump released that tweet announcing this ceasefire agreement between Iran and the United States. And in fact this Siren is the second one we've seen since the Pakistani Prime Minister said that the ceasefire had gone into immediate effect. So presumably if the Pakistani Prime Minister is to be believed then the ceasefire is already in effect. And what we are witnessing right now are violations of that ceasefire agreement by Iran which is continuing to rain down ballistic missile fire over Israel. Some of those including cluster munitions. And as I can tell you the reaction from Israeli officials tonight to this ceasefire agreement is that they will abide by this agreement. They will also ceasefire for the next two weeks alongside the United States as long as Iran keeps up its end of the bargain here. But Israeli officials are not pleased. I've spoke with an Israeli source tonight who said that Israel is reluctantly agreeing to this ceasefire agreement. And they are doing so because as Prime Minister Netanyahu told me several weeks ago, President Trump is the leader. Israel is the ally in this military campaign in Iran. But ultimately Israeli officials felt like they still had more to achieve in Iran. More goals to achieve militarily through strikes and also more targets that they could strike inside of Iran as well. But for the time being we understand that Israel will abide by this ceasefire. Again it is contingent on Iran doing so as well. And as we are witnessing right now and as you are witnessing by my presence in this bomb shelter, in fact we've just heard a boom going off overhead. Iran is not yet abiding by the terms of this ceasefire. Interestingly the Pakistani Prime Minister also said that this ceasefire agreement would include Lebanon which presumably would halt Israeli military operations in southern Lebanon. Israeli airstrikes in the Lebanese capital of Beirut that we've been seeing over the course of the last few weeks. And Hezbollah attacks on northern and central Israel. That is also a big, big question mark because Israeli officials their understanding was that if a ceasefire was reached with Iran they would likely intensify their operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon. This would very much change that equation. But again we haven't yet officially heard from the Israeli governments about the ceasefire agreement about this inclusion of Lebanon other than again what I'm hearing right now from an Israeli source. Alright Jeremy Diamond appreciate it. Thank you very much. I'm joined now by CNN National Security Analyst Alex Plitzis and retired U.S. Army Colonel Peter Mansour. Alex I mean you and I have been talking since before this began. Is this the outcome you expected? You know leading up to this point the comments coming back about the Pakistan led process were not great that it was not really going anywhere and then all of a sudden it started to gain traction over the last day or so where there was a real push by the Pakistani Prime Minister to get this two week ceasefire into effect if the straits would open up. There was I think some warm sentiments earlier today as I would describe it I heard from some Allied intelligence officials also heard from some White House officials it was trending in the right direction and then it finally landed about an hour before the deadline had hit. You know now in hearing Jeremy as well I think he's 100% correct but if we remember the last time as well we've also completely decimated the Iranian command and control structure so I imagine there's a chance that there could still be some sporadic missile fire coming in for a bit until all of the Iranian units are reached and told that the ceasefire is in fact in effect. Their capabilities remain I mean they're able to shoot down U.S. planes they're able to fire missiles into Israel. Yeah so what we're hearing is that the jet that was shot down the other day was brought down by a shoulder fired missile so the administration's been talking about air superiority and air dominance which is taking out the fighter jets and then the surface to air missiles that are fired with the radar dishes that people are used to seeing in the movies but there's also shoulder fired ones and the lower you fly to the ground you know that the greater the chance of that happening it's hard to get all of those. Colonel Monsour what are the odds this ceasefire holds for the full two weeks and I guess more importantly let's start a big picture if Iran has control through its armed forces over the next two weeks of the Strait of Hormuz does that then whatever happens the negotiating table essentially give Iran de facto control moving forward because that's they didn't have that before. Well absolutely I mean that's the big takeaway from this ceasefire is that for at least two weeks and presumably going into the negotiations Iran is in control of 20% of the world's oil supply and can exact tolls on shipping. It is an own goal of enormous proportions you know my PhD advisors Alamolet Williams and Murray once wrote that mistakes and tactics and operations can be corrected but mass calculations and policy and strategy live on forever and I'm afraid that's the case here with the Trump administration and it's war on Iran. So is this what you get when you go into a war without really having a plan other than Jesus is going to protect us and protect our bullets and they're going to shoot straight and we're going to kill a lot of them. It's what you get when you expect tactical and operational excellence to achieve strategic outcomes and you don't think through the second third order effects and the branches and sequels and what can happen if things go wrong. You know the administration had three major goals regime change stop Iran from supporting its proxies around Middle East and destroy its nuclear program. None of them have been achieved. It's damaged and degraded their missile and drone capacity and destroyed their Navy but yet Iran still controls the straight of hormones. So none of the strategic goals have been met and are there unlikely to be met. Alex do you agree with that. I think you know when all of the exercise have been done over the years for the straits to prep the United States. It all was predicated upon taking out the missiles the nuclear program and it didn't begin with an existential threat to the regime in terms of taking out all that the major leaders in the decapitation strike in the beginning. So Iran immediately went into a position of an existential threat response and through that they were able to hold the straits at risk and for years we've always talked about them mining the straits or the naval but now with the evolution of drone warfare over the last few years particularly. Because of the war in Ukraine they were able to do so without actually physically closing the straits they're open. I mean essentially this is move from a fight over Iran's nuclear program and the regime to concern over the strait of hormones and getting oil through. I mean that's what the administration's interest has shifted. We're not hearing them talk about concern over the nuclear capabilities of Iran anymore. It's all about opening up the strait. It began with a statement that they were two weeks away from getting a weapon. In reality it was about two weeks away if they had the enrichment technology from getting that 440 kilograms of highly enriched uranium from 60 to 90 percent just enough fuel for about 11 weapons but then you still have to build a bomb and that takes a good bit of time afterwards. So if you pivot away from that to the other strategic threats there was a clear plan years of intelligence about 16,000 targets for the missiles, the drones, the industrial base, the navy, etc. Central command has been working through off of an air-tasking order and you know there's about 3,000 or so targets left. They're not completely done. They wanted to be done with it so they don't have to go back. But then there was mission creep. The straits was not the original military objective. And then a transition to protestors isn't a military objective. It's a political one. The military can set the conditions for it. But with a million men at arms you can bomb every headquarters in the entire country and unless you get every AK-47 you have an unarmed population and unless the security forces fall it's difficult for them to take over. And Colonel, it does seem now that the U.S. is dealing with an Iranian regime which the President says is regime, there has been regime change because there's a lot of dead leaders and who have been replaced by new ones. There's a lot of reporting that the new ones may be more hard-line, more extreme, have less reason to feel like they need to be moderate in any capacity. Do you think Iran now is a greater threat to the U.S.? Obviously they've been severely, their capabilities have been degraded for how long we don't know. But in terms of the actual regime, the threat does it remain to you? In the near term the regime has been severely degraded. There's no doubt about that. But in the long term now if this ceasefire holds and ends up in some sort of negotiated settlement that regime is going to be more hard-line than what they replaced. And if they weren't working towards achieving a nuclear weapon before this, they certainly are now. They understand that their only way to survive will be to go the way of North Korea. And even if they become an international pariah, if they have nuclear weapons they'll be left alone. And that's where we're headed. Colonel Munster, I appreciate your time. Alex Pletsis as well. Come have a next-scene and political analyst, Maggie Haberman's remarkable New York Times reporting on how the president decided to go to war in the first place and who counseled against it. Also the view from inside Iran is the fighting winds down, perhaps for good, perhaps only for now. Crude future is right now down around 15 percent before the president announced the two-week truce with Iran. Air strikes earlier in the day reportedly killed at least 20 people there. There are new details on how the president made the decision to go to war more than a month ago. Times reports that Israel's prime minister told the president that a joint campaign could destroy Iran's military, bring down the regime, spark a popular uprising. U.S. intelligence officials cast doubt about that. The report is drawn from the upcoming book, Regime Change, inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, and Maggie joins us tonight. I want to get to your reporting in a moment. What more can you tell us about President Trump's decision to agree to this two-week ceasefire? There's a lot we still don't know, Anderson, and candidly, I'm not sure exactly what is happening. The number of people I've talked to around the president who aren't entirely sure either is not small. At the moment, it appears that we have passed his 8 p.m. deadline for what he said this morning was that a civilization was going to end or be wiped out or whatever he said. And he's put a two-week pause on it. Pakistan intermediaries appear to be backing that up. Obviously, if the goal is to not be engaged in a deeper military conflict, that is something that the White House would be happy about. But what it means for a few weeks from now remains to be seen. What it means in terms of whether Iran remains in control of the Strait of Hormuz remains to be seen. What it still means in terms of either their nuclear enrichment capabilities or sanctions on Iran's economy, which have been really harming Iran's economy and impacting their behavior to some extent, is still an open question. So where we will be in a few weeks, I don't know. You and your co-author, Jonathan Swan, have an excerpt from your new book, Regime Change, Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, in The New York Times today. It's fascinating. You describe in it a situation or a meeting where Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu gave a detailed pitch for going to war with Iran. Do you think the public fully grasps just how influential Netanyahu was in President Trump's decision to attack Iran? What have you learned? So our reporting, Anderson, for the book, and this is our first excerpt from it. The book comes out in June, but it relates to how this particular lead-up period. And I think it's important to underscore, and again, we write about this today. Jonathan and I do, that the President and Bebe Netanyahu have actually been much more aligned in certain ways over a very long period of time than certainly a lot of the President's base of supporters want to see. And then some of his own advisors either recognize or want to admit. And if you look back at his first term, President Trump's term, the strike on General Soleimani was something that a lot of people opposed around him. He really didn't have any hesitation about doing it and just did it. There were some people who were thrilled that he did it. It had repercussions, right? I mean, Iran has been looking to go after him in one way or another ever since, and it has escalated tensions there. But it shouldn't really be a surprise if you look at the decade-long relationship. When Bebe Netanyahu came to this situation room meeting with the President and the President's senior advisors on February 11th, it's pretty extraordinary, Anderson, because it is clearly unusual for a foreign leader to be in this kind of an in-person meeting in this situation room. It certainly speaks to the magnitude of it. But Netanyahu was laying out a number of different ways in which they believed this could go, that a war could go. And it would involve taking out ballistic missile capacity. It would involve Iran not attacking its neighbors so aggressively. It would involve Iran not choking off, minimal likelihood of choking off the Strait of Hormuz. And then there was the possibility of regime change, the change that it could happen. He played a video of possible options for who could take over if there was some change or disruption to the clerical leadership in Iran, although most of the Americans didn't really favor the people that he was talking about or some of the people he was talking about. He didn't suggest this all as if this, then this is the absolute outcome. But certainly President Trump was impressed by what he heard. He didn't completely say yes right there, but he did say sounds good to me or something that effect to the Prime Minister. And it was clear that that was a likely green light. It was clear to the President's advisors that he was impressed with what they saw. The next day there was an overnight assessment that was done by U.S. intelligence officials. There were aspects of what Netanyahu described that could be done, but the regime change scenarios were described by the CIA director as farcical and by the Secretary of State Marco Rubio as bullshit. And so that is where it becomes a conflation of a lot of different points. Most notably was that J.D. Vance was the most adamant voice against doing this in the President's circle and repeatedly said this in front of his colleagues to the President. Fascinating. Maggie Hibbrandt, thanks very much. Showed to me now is Democratic Congressman Dan Goldman, a member of the Homeland Security and Judiciary Committees. What's your reaction to this ceasefire? Well, I'm not surprised. Not surprised that the President did not follow through on his threat? Yes, exactly. I think Donald Trump has one speed, which is threat, threat, ratchet up, ratchet up, ratchet up the threat. And he was desperately looking for an off ramp here, recognizing that, as I think, certainly he was advised, that his threats were absolutely outrageous and unhinged and really separate from the potential war crimes he was talking about, counterproductive to the ultimate objective, which is to support the Iranian people. Not wipe out their civilization? Not wipe them out. And he's actually moving them closer to the regime. But what concerns me is that this deal seems to be predicated on this 10-point plan that Iran presented. I don't know exactly what's in it, but Iranian media is reporting 10 points that their National Council released that is incredibly favorable. It's essentially, according to their 10 points and what the Council says about it, its armed forces of Iran control the Strait of Hormuz for the next two weeks and by implication from then on. And there's no threat, no attack on Iran. They have the absolute right for nuclear enrichment. All troops, all US troops out of the entire region. All US troops that essentially this is over. They control the Strait of Hormuz and they can build their nuclear. President Trump has said, or his administration has indicated that this is a good, that they've looked at the 10-point plan and it's a basis for negotiations. So that is quintessential Donald Trump double-speak to get out of a jam that he created. And the reason why his threats are not going to work is that this regime does not care about the Iranian people. In January, they murdered tens of thousands of their own people. So his threats to destroy infrastructure or destroy the Iranian people are actually helpful to the regime. They say, great, go ahead. You'll be the enemy. We're not the enemy then. We'll have more control over them. And Donald Trump is not somebody as a draft dodger and who has no military experience clearly does not understand how military strategy and diplomacy works with a regime like Iran. And we are much worse off, I think, today than we were before this started. It is incredible that the US may be facing a situation where Iran actually gains full control of who goes, of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran means they controlled the access, which they did not previously had. And in the process, the US has alienated pretty much all of our allies by doing this without any real notification, any real coordination, and without the ability to really sustain this without a lot of more allied support. And the oil sanctions are supposed to come off. That is a very, very devastating weapon that we have supported in Congress. I have supported as a diplomatic solution to pressure Iran to stop their genocidal terrorist activity and development of a nuclear bomb. And so this is incredibly favorable to Iran. And also, as you mentioned, we do not have that it's not only a moral superiority. We are not the leader of the democratic world anymore. We asked our allies to come in and support us, and they said no. Meanwhile, China and Russia are coming to the defense of Iran, and they are emboldened now, recognizing the United States is far less powerful overall. Our military is incredible and can execute these operations, but that's not power. And that is not a democratic leader of the free world wielding influence and power. And right now, I'm very concerned that the Iranian regime is fortified, and they have the upper hand right now in these negotiations because Donald Trump overplayed his hand, and way too far is completely erratic, reckless, unstrategic, and is really causing serious harm. And it's part of the reason why I and many others have called on JD Vance and the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment, because he is not capable of being the person in charge of our military. And what we are doing on an international stage, he is step by step destroying our stature in the world and our ability to promote our values. Congressman Goldman, I appreciate your time. Thank you very much. Coming up inside Iran today, urged by the Iranian regime, thousands of people form human chains to guard against attacks on bridges and power plants. Up next, a former political prisoner explains the impact of President Trump's stone age threats to destroy Iran's civilization. This is your latest idea. It's unique. It's game-changing. It's huge. But you can go even bigger with AI-powered PDF spaces in Akravat Studio, turning your files and links into actionable insights and content, plus share projects and collaborate seamlessly while keeping everything private and secure. So your excellent idea stays yours. Do that with Akravat. Learn more and try it out on adobe.com. The relationship between the FBI Director and the President has always been complicated. Unravel the complex dynamic in the CNN Original Series. Standoff the FBI, power and paranoia. Now streaming on the CNN app. Here's more ceasefire news. Just in out of Iran, a statement read on state-run media instructing all military units to follow the Supreme Leader's order and stop firing. I'm joined now by Kian Taj Baksh, an Iranian-American scholar and former political prisoner who was held in Iran from July 2009 to January 2016, released as part of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. What do you think of this ceasefire? Well, I have to say, first of all, for most ordinary Iranians, this would be great news. I mean, people from inside Iran called us immediately. They were very happy because, of course, they want this war to stop. They want any kind of destruction happening. But as I've been looking at the announcement by the Iranian government, I'm very skeptical that this will be sustainable. Because of the 10-point plan. Well, yes, because of the 10-point plan. And in fact, the demands on it are so maximalist, and it's so far apart from what the United States has put forward in its 15-point plan that it's very, very hard to see how they would even begin to close that gap. I mean, part of the, from what I've heard of the 10-point plan, they're talking about U.S. pullout of all military bases in the region, which there are many, that Iran's armed forces would have control over the Strait of Hormuz, which is not the situation that existed prior to the opening of conflict. There's really nothing about Iran's, giving up Iran's nuclear program, all of which were key points to before the start of this. Exactly. In fact, the only documentation we've seen is a single tweet from the foreign minister. But it actually, there is an announcement from the spokesperson of the National Security Council, the Supreme National Security Council. And that is very much more extensive, by the way. And it actually says that the only justification we have for negotiating with the Americans is that we have compelled their total defeat. And that the only reason we've agreed to this is that we have been told by the ambassador of Pakistan, or the government of Pakistan. Who's the intermediary? The intermediary, that the United States has accepted, in principle, all of our demands. These demands include a complete acceptance of enrichment inside Iran. And so, as you say, it just seems to me, it's just so far apart. Because what President Trump has said in his statement is that these are the bases, you know, we've looked at the 10-point plan, and it's the basis, it seems like a good basis of negotiation. Yeah, it's just, it's not convincing. I mean, at this point, I think it's probably the case that President Trump is feeling great stressed because of what's happened, the, you know, the tactic, what I consider actually tactical failures, not strategic failures. It is interesting, though, to me that this has changed from, you know, initially there was a talk of some regime change, but there was also talk, you know, it was about Iran's nuclear capabilities. Do now, it seems like issue number one for the United States is the Strait of Hormuz. Well, it is now because I think that the administration feels that they have degraded the nuclear facilities so much that it's under rubble that they can put it off for a while. But I think the issue is generally that they have become, you know, it seems that the original war aims that the United States was pursuing have somehow got lost, or at least they've been lost in this ceasefire announcement because the 15-point plan that the U.S. put forward does include all those things. And what the Iranians are feeling probably are they're emboldened because they have a control of the Straits of Hormuz. And I don't see any way that they're going to be able to close the gap. Keon, thank you. I really appreciate it. Up next, more on this critical moment, the U.S. and Iran reaching a two-week-long ceasefire as we've been talking about. We'll get a live report from the White House as our scene in global war coverage continues through the next hour. At EDF, we don't just encourage you to use less electricity. We actually reward you for it. That's why when you use less during peak times on weekdays, we give you free electricity on Sundays. How you use it is up to you. EDF, change is in our power. A little past 9 p.m. here in New York, it has been just about two and a half hours since the president announced a ceasefire with Iran. He did it on social media, quoting from the president, subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the complete, immediate, and safe opening of the Straits of Hormuz. I agreed to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks. This will be a double-sided ceasefire. He added, quote, the reason for doing so is that we have already met and exceeded all military objectives and are very far along with a definitive agreement concerning long-term peace with Iran and peace in the Middle East. We received a 10-point proposal from Iran and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate. For its part, Iran's foreign minister said in a statement, quote, I hereby declare on behalf of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, if attacks against Iran are halted, our powerful armed forces will cease their defensive operations. He continued, for a period of two weeks, safe passage through the Straits of Hormuz will be possible via coordination with Iran's armed forces and with due consideration of technical limitations. Now, that said, Israel has been dealing with several new waves of missile fire from Iran, according to our Jeremy Diamond, who's in Tel Aviv and had to take shelter during our last hour. The Netanyahu government has reluctantly agreed to the truce. In the last few minutes, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates also reporting incoming fire. Bahrain's Interior Ministry is sounding air raid sirens and telling people to take shelter. I want to start this hour with CNN's Chief National Security Analyst, Jim Shudeau, in Tel Aviv. What are you hearing from Israeli officials on the status of this proposed two-week ceasefire? Well, Anderson, we have a ceasefire announcement. We don't yet have a ceasefire because since the announcement, we've seen, as you said, three waves of Iranian missile attacks here just a few minutes ago. Looking up at the skies over Tel Aviv, I saw one of the interceptions here in the central part of the city. So Iran is still firing missiles at Israel and, as you note, at its Gulf neighbors as well. Whether those are the last salvos before the guns fall silent or a sign that there are still details to be worked out, we don't know. But we do know that when we look at the initial demands and goals of this war, that there's a great deal of distance between that 10-point proposal that the president says will be the basis of negotiations and what America's goals were going in here. Because the 10 points includes things like complete sanctions relief for Iran, but also Iran continuing to exercise ultimate control over the Strait of Hormuz, which is something that would be an enormous concession for the president to make. Israeli officials have been telling us consistently since the start of this war that they would not consider a victory without two things. One, regime change, and no one in this country believes, despite the president's claims, that there is regime change. They see quite the same leadership in place in Iran. But also, Israel has long demanded and still wants effective restrictions, really an ending of Iran's nuclear program, including controlling those hundreds of kilograms of highly enriched uranium. That hasn't happened either. And while the president will say that he has met all of America's goals, frankly the president's list of goals has changed throughout as well. At one point included regime change. That hasn't happened as well as control of the nuclear program. So you have big gaps between the U.S. and its main ally Israel, but also gaps between what the president said he wanted to achieve and what's been achieved today. Yeah, Jim Shudow, thanks for telling me. You've joined me now. I've seen your White House correspondent, Kristen Holmes. So is the White House offering many specifics at this hour, either about the ceasefire or the upcoming negotiations? They're not giving that many specifics, but here's what we do know from a White House official that there are preparations being made for potential in-person meetings between Iranian and U.S. officials. Now, we have been told that this is likely to happen in Islamabad with those Pakistani negotiators present. It would include Secretary of State Marco Rubio as well as Vice President JD Vance. And then of course, Special Envoy Steve Wittkopf and Jared Kushner, who have been doing a bulk of the negotiating. Of course, the question now is how does this work with JD Vance's travel? He's currently in Hungary. Will he take a stop in Pakistan? There's obviously always security concerns as well. But preparations are being made for potential talks. Nothing right now is solid. And we got a statement from the press secretary reiterating that, that nothing is final until President Trump says that it's final. But that is something that is currently in the works. Now, in terms of the deal and what's going to be negotiated, we have asked repeatedly for that 10-point plan for any kind of details on what it includes. We have not gotten that from the White House, only them doubling down on what President Trump said that this was going to serve as the basis of negotiation. They also said that it was President Trump and the military that got Iran to bend. We of course have been hearing from Iranian officials saying that the U.S. has bent in this case. But what we do know, of course, is that President Trump did not bomb civilian infrastructure today, barely, you know, meeting that deadline or signing off on the ceasefire roughly two hours before that deadline that he had set. Yeah. Kristen Holmes, thanks very much. Showing me now for more on President Trump's ceasefire announcement is Democratic House Leader Akeem Jeffries. Leader Jeffries, your reaction to what we know about this ceasefire tonight. Well, a two-week ceasefire is insufficient. We need a permanent end to Donald Trump's reckless war of choice, which is why House Democrats have demanded that Speaker Mike Johnson immediately reconvene the House back into session so we can move a war powers resolution that will end this conflict permanently. That seems unlikely to happen. What do you actually think is going to happen in this two-week period? What do you need to, assuming that doesn't happen, what do you need to see happen or want to see happen in this two-week period? No, when it doesn't happen this week, we'll go back in the session next week and we will present a war powers resolution as soon as it becomes available to us to do so as a matter of privilege on the House floor. All we need are a handful of Republicans to join us. The American people strongly oppose this reckless war of choice and know that we should not be spending billions of dollars to drop bombs in Iran while Republicans and Donald Trump are unwilling to spend a dime to actually make life more affordable for the American people, including but not limited to by extending the Affordable Care Act tax credits. It's unbelievable in terms of the priorities, and yet we've seen this president's behavior unhinged, unpresidential, unconscionable, including the messages that he's communicated to the American people over the last few days. Is there a scenario where the Iranian regime gains control? I mean, they have control now of the Strait of Hormuz. According to this ceasefire, if it holds, it seems like for this two weeks they will have control of it as well, and very well possibly beyond that. If Iran gains full control over passage through the Strait of Hormuz, is that an acceptable outcome to you? Well, it would be an extraordinary outcome, but not surprising given the fact that what we've seen from Donald Trump is that he's plunged America into this war that now involves more than a dozen countries without any plan, any objective, and any exit strategy in terms of how actually this conflict improves the national security of the American people. What we do know is that as a result of Donald Trump's reckless war of choice, life has become more dangerous for the American people, and life has become more expensive. As a result of gas prices skyrocketing across the country, further exacerbating an affordability crisis that are crushing everyday Americans, middle class Americans, and working class Americans throughout the land. Do you think the President of the United States looks weak for having now five deadlines that he has made this last one saying that he would kill Iran's entire civilization, and then not following through on that? I think the President has consistently weakened America's standing throughout the world as the leader of the free world. In fact, he often confuses friend from fall. We've seen him do this as it relates to how he's engaged with Ukraine and continuing to play footsy with Vladimir Putin and Russia who are sworn enemies of the United States of America. He never treats them in that fashion. In terms of the outcome of the situation, which has already been very costly and deadly, more than a dozen brave patriotic Americans have lost their lives, men and women in uniform, and hundreds have been seriously injured. And the question is, to what end? Leader Jeffrey, I appreciate your time. Thank you. Coming up next, a live report from the Gulf on how the ceasefire is taking hold. Also, CNN's Fried Zakaria on the bigger picture, what this may mean around the region, and what the President's threat to destroy Iran's civilization actually says to the rest of the world. Those are air raid sirens in Israel tonight. CNN's Jeremy Diamond has new reporting from there. He joins us shortly. Jeremy, what are you learning? Well, Anderson, an Israeli military spokesperson is telling me that Israel is still conducting airstrikes inside of Iran. And this is coming as we are continuing to see wave after wave of Iranian ballistic missile fire. The picture from this region right now, Anderson, is one of confusion and one of continued strikes in all directions, despite the fact that it has now been more than an hour since the Pakistani Prime Minister announced on Twitter that there is a ceasefire that has taken effect immediately. He said that over an hour ago. And since then, we've seen several rounds of Iranian ballistic missiles, several of which have made impact in the form of cluster munitions here in central Israel, as well as in southern Israel. And again, now the news from an Israeli military spokesperson telling me that Israel is still conducting strikes. In addition to that, we know that Iran is also still striking countries in the Gulf as well. And so the early hours of what is supposed to be a ceasefire here are already proving extraordinarily shaky. This comes as an Israeli source told me earlier that Israel is concerned about the terms of the ceasefire agreement. They were insisting that Israel would abide by this ceasefire agreement following President Trump's lead. But as of now, Israel is still conducting strikes. The other question mark, what this means for Lebanon, because the Pakistani Prime Minister said that Lebanon was also supposed to be included in this ceasefire. Israeli military officials had long been planning for an escalation on the Lebanese front after a ceasefire with Iran. But that is not what this ceasefire agreement says, at least according to the Pakistani mediator. So a lot of questions, Anderson, in the early hours of what is supposed to be this ceasefire. And again, we are continuing to see strikes across the region. All right. Jeremy Diamond, thanks very much. And what is a long night for people in Tel Aviv and the region? I want to turn now to Fried Zakaria, who is joining me here in the newsroom. Are you optimistic about what's happened in the last hour? Well, I'm optimistic in the sense that it's a lot better than what Donald Trump was threatening to wipe out civil society. So the Iranian civilization, any of those kind of broad-based expansions of the escalations. But the negotiations here have been a kind of almost a casebook in how not to negotiate. So it's not surprising that the ceasefire is fragile. You have no actual negotiation going on between the two parties. You have no real trust built up between them. The last two negotiations the United States was in with Iran. It essentially started bombing Iran in the middle of those negotiations. So it's not surprising that even though there does seem to be some kind of an agreement, it's very fragile and it's probably going to take a while to work out. I mean, the president indicating tonight that this is kind of well along on things that possibly could be agreed on. It seems like the 10-point plan that Iran has talked about implies Iran control over the Strait of Hormuz, not just in this two-week period. But afterward, this conflict has shifted from concern of Iran's nuclear program to let's get the Strait of Hormuz open and you don't hear a lot about Iran's nuclear program now. So you've had the nail on the head. This is a single biggest strategic shift that's taken place and strategic loss for the United States and its allies. What this war has done is handed Iran a weapon that is far more usable than nuclear weapons, which is the Strait of Hormuz choking off global oil supplies, essentially disrupting the global economy. And what they have realized is they have this weapon. They can use it. They can turn it on and off without will. And anything that institutionalized it means that at this point the United States and its Gulf allies are in a sense hostage to Iranian good graces in order to get their product out. So could there be a deal in which Iran remains in control of the Strait of Hormuz? It seems like Iran will be very reluctant to give up that power and that authority. And just to give you a sense of what a big loss this is, Anderson, the United States' first military actions in 1799 were about freedom of navigation, the so-called quasi-war with France. War with the Barbary pirates. That was all about freedom of navigation. Since then the United States has fought for and tried to maintain the principle of freedom of navigation. As the global superpower, that has been absolute, you know, we had in 1979, the legislation passed, the Freedom of Navigation Program. That is what has been given up here. The idea that Iran can control one of the key choke points of the world economy is, you know, flies in the face of the whole basic responsibility the U.S. had. And as you say, this was not an issue for 47 years of tension with the U.S. and Iran. Iran never closed the Strait of Hormuz. So the United States and Israel have somehow handed Iran a weapon at the end of this that they never had. And as you said, the nuclear program is not even in the 10 points. So if Iran remains, you know, building a nuclear program or the capabilities to have a nuclear device and then gets control of the Strait of Hormuz, they would end up in a better situation than they were before this. What? So they have then the nuclear stockpile, which they have, they have this maritime position of power. But remember, they're also proposing in Iran's parliament has passed legislation to this effect to charge $2 million per ship. So the number of ships that normally cross the Strait of Hormuz is about 100. You do the math and J.P. Morgan has done the math. That is $90 billion of additional revenue for Iran on top of about 50 to 60 billion in oil revenue. It's a lot of ballistic missiles. All of a sudden Iran is, I mean, after Saudi Arabia, the richest country in the Middle East. And so you've taken in Iran that was weak, contained, its nuclear program shattered, and you've given it control of the Strait in Hormuz new revenue flows and the nuclear stockpile. It's a very strange outcome. So much for the order of the deal. Fritz Ikaria, thanks very much. Coming up next, the domestic political dimension as our scene on global war coverage continues. With tonight's ceasefire with Iran barely three hours old, there have been at least two statements we've now seen from Tehran on it. President Trump tonight is disputing one of them. Even as Matthew Chance has new reporting that sheds light on the one the president is complaining about, he joins us now from Doha, Qatar. Matthew. That's right, Anderson. There are a couple of statements. There's a very short one from the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Foreign Minister, basically saying, you know, look, we're going to observe a ceasefire and open the Strait of Hormuz on the basis that there will be negotiations with the United States. And our 10-point plan, that Iranian 10-point plan, will be accepted as the basis for those negotiations, but it doesn't go any further than that. The second document, the one apparently President Trump seems to be objecting to, is the one that's been sent to us by the Supreme National Security Council of Iran. That's Iran's highest military body. And that's a lot more aggressive and it goes into a lot more detail about what that 10-point plan to end the war from Iran actually involves. And it includes things like this regulating passage through the Strait of Hormuz in coordination with Iran. So basically making sure that Iran still can exercise control over that strategic waterway, through which 20% of the world's oil passes, to end the war against the axis of resistance. So that's a reference to Iran's proxies, perhaps Israel stopping its attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon, but also other proxies in the region as well. The third point it mentions is the withdrawal of US combat forces from bases across the Middle East region. That's obviously a big ask, unlikely to be accepted, but nevertheless it is one of the points in that 10-point Iranian plan, according to this Supreme National Security Council document that was sent to us by the way by the Iranian Foreign Ministry. The fourth point that I identified here, a compensation payment that Iran is demanding. That's war reparations for the damage that have been incurred throughout this five or six week US and Israeli military campaign, which has caused massive destruction, I expect. And finally the lifting of sanctions, all sanctions and the unfreezing of assets. That would obviously be a major boon for the Iranians. The document also goes on to talk about how negotiations to find a final agreement, a final end to the conflict, the cessation of hostilities, will be carried out in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan over the next 15 days and they'll start on Friday. So again, a much more detailed document from that supreme military body in Iran compared to what we saw from the foreign minister that just sort of spelt out the roar, the bare bones of a ceasefire agreement. So Matthew, I just want to be clear, you got that more detailed statement that was actually sent to you by the Foreign Ministry of Iran? Yeah, it had already appeared on state news agencies in Iran, like the Fahr's news agency and the semi-official Tasmin news agency as well. When President Trump posted on Truth Social that he objected to that report, to that document, he said it was fake, I followed up with the Iranian Foreign Ministry and said, look, do you have this document that you can send to me? And they sent me the document themselves, which was exactly the same as the document we originally had. And so look, I think we're pretty confident, very confident that this document is authentic. So the foreign ministry, would they be involved in the negotiations or any negotiations that take place between the US, Pakistan, and Iran? I expect so. I mean, the foreign minister, Aranjee, has been one of the sort of more sort of outwardly facing officials in what's left of the Islamic regime. Remember, a lot of his counterparts, sorry, a lot of his associates have been killed, assassinated in US and Israeli strikes over the past several weeks. I don't know for sure what the makeup is going to be of the Iranian negotiating team, but there's every possibility that the Iranian foreign minister is going to be part of that. Matthew Chance, I appreciate your reporting from Doha tonight. Thank you. Joining us now, two senior political commentators, Rahm Emanuel and David Urban. David, if Iran is still going to control the strait or is going to control the strait of Hormuz moving forward, what was the White House's big win or was there a White House win in this ceasefire? Yeah, Anderson, I don't think that's the likely outcome of any negotiations. You heard that they said they will open the straits to Hormuz to begin these negotiations. I'm not sure. You asked the important question there. Will the foreign minister be at the negotiating table? Who will be at the negotiating table? Who speaks for the Islamic Republic at this point in time? Who's going to have enough credibility to carry these things forward? Who's going to be able to enforce anything? I think Pakistan is leaning in here because they share a long border, then they see what might happen. Those questions are all to be determined. I think what's important is oil starts flowing through the straits. People sit down and start negotiating. There is an off-ramp in place. However, if you think any of those things that were just mentioned, reparations, the long list of just ludicrous requirements that they have for a ceasefire, they're going to stick, I think that's a non-enity. I will leave it to Ambassador Emanuel to share some of the diplomatic skills, but I don't think that's a great starting point. Ram, negotiations that led to the Iran nuclear deal back in 2015 took 18 months, according to Wendy Sherman, who was just on in the last hour. Do you think anything can be accomplished with Iran in two weeks that deals with Iran's nuclear program and the Strait of Hormuz and whatever else either party wants to have on the table? Not even if you were drinking Red Bull all day, can you do it in two weeks? Impossible. I think, look, we started this to grade Iran's nuclear capacity and they found Anderson, they have a nuclear option, is closing the Strait of Hormuz. And I think what the United States should do is announce very clearly a three-point program, short-term, medium-term, and long-term. First, all boats go out or no boats go out. That's our policy on the Strait of Hormuz. Medium term, we're going to set up with the International Maritime Association associated with the UN. They can do a commission, a fee that goes to both Gulf countries and Iran equally in building up what happened when it destroyed the war. And then long-term, use the Abraham Accords to rebuild pipelines out of the Gulf countries into the Red Sea, away from the Strait of Hormuz, so Iran never has this veto power over the world economy. I think that's a short-term, medium-term, and long-term. And it doubles down on the United States and its allies. It is going nowhere. Remember the number one goal since the 1979 Iranian Revolution is that America will be expelled from the Gulf. By using the Abraham Accords, which we're an author of as the principal financing for the Gulf countries out of the Strait of Hormuz to the Red Sea, like Saudi Arabia has, that doubles down on America's presence. I don't think the idea that Iran's going to, you know, everybody's going for political points here. I think there were at a sad point, and I'll close on this, Anderson, is that nobody really trusts the president of the United States' word about what he said he won or didn't or what the goal is. That's a degradation of the realm of the United States, that when we gave our word, we upheld our word, and it was entrusted. That's one of the consequences and one of the casualties of this last six weeks. David, I want to ask you about another, what some people have called the degradation as well, which you're a decorated military veteran, you graduate of West Point. When the commander-in-chief threatens to kill a country's entire civilization and bring it back to the Stone Age, have you ever heard a military leader or an American president use that kind of language or even think in those terms? Yeah, you know, Anderson, I'm not quite sure the president was thinking, was tweeting it out, because what we started out as here is, you know, the Persian people are great, you know, honorable people, great country. We wanted to support the uprising, the overthrow of the Islamic regime, support the people of Iran. You know, the Persian is a great history, it's a great long history. And so the president's words in that truth social post and his stated goals at the outset of this just don't really match up. So I was very confused by it. No, I don't think you're winning hearts and minds. You're not going to have the people, you know, kind of rise up against their theocratic regime by saying we want to destroy the entire civilization. Persian civilization and Persian people are very proud people. And to do that, I think it's counterproductive. So Anderson, look, a commander, the presidency comes with a lot of roles, a moral voice, you know, executive, but the most important role is commander in chief. That's the most solemn, most responsible thing a president does is the role of commander in chief. Franklin Delano Roosevelt called America the arsenal of democracy. Lincoln, towards the end of the war and his second inaugural, said malice towards none. This was an abandonment of the responsibility, a degradation of the most important role the president plays, which is commander in chief. He did not define for the troops why we're there. He did not define what victory looks like and he did not define how we will walk out of there with our heads high. That is an abdication of the responsibility, the most solemn responsibility, spending many hours in the situation room that a commander in chief owes the men and women who are executing America's national security interests. This was not just a bad tweet. It is nowhere close and doesn't measure up to an arsenal of democracy that gave America the whole country its purpose in World War II. Just real quickly, I will say I wish the president would have started out with a speech he gave the other night, talked about, you know, as Ram said, given a much more limited objective, we're going to go in there, we're going to quote unquote mow the lawn, we're going to keep these folks from having nuclear weapons for a long time, delivery systems for a long time. We're going to get in, we're going to get out, we're going to do some more damage than we did before. I think if we laid that out at the beginning, the outset would be a lot better off than we are today. Anderson, one last thing I know you're trying to go is out very quick. Ukraine and Iran showed that without navies you can control waterways. I would say right now the United States has a policy to fight two wars simultaneously. We're going to have to change that and alter it to be able to fight a conventional war and an unconventional war simultaneously. What we're entering is a new phase and America is not ready for this next phase. Two countries, no navy, controls waterways. Yeah, Ron Emanuel, thank you David Urban as well. Coming up next, one of our senior military analysts joins us, talk about where this ceasefire leaves each side and a world away, literally. Some incredible photos of the moon as Artemis II makes its way back to Earth. We'll show you pictures of the moon you've never seen before. Back from the newsroom, we've seen as global war coverage in the state of tonight's ceasefire. We're joined by retired Air Force colonel, Seteh Ghaledin, Karim Shahjapur and Brett McGurk. So, Colonel Aden, we haven't heard from you. You see this as a strategic victory so far for Iran? I do actually, Anderson. One of the things that's really important is what happens with the Strait of Formus and in the statements that we've seen so far, we have everything that indicates that Iran seems to think it's exercising or going to exercise control over the Strait. That's a problem. They didn't have that before. Which is, I think a lot of people kind of maybe assumed they had control before it. They did not have control of the Strait of Formus before. That's correct. They did not have control of the Strait of Formus. It was considered an international waterway. They would monitor it and they would every now and then create some mischief in that area but it was nothing like what apparently is going to be happening now with the possibility of them collecting toll, doing things like that. So it's a problem and that could very well impact not only the oil price but also the entire economic situation, all the economies of the Gulf states along the other side of the world. Yeah. I mean, if they're collecting two million per ship, which I think is what they're talking about, I mean, that's an incredible amount of money. Incredible amount of money, Anderson. And you know, there's a famous quote about revolutions, that they're not judged by what they destroy but the political order that they build. And that applies to wars as well because President Trump only wants to talk about this war with measuring what he's destroyed in Iran. But I think how history will judge this war is what is the political order that he's left behind? As of right now, the political order is Iran controlling the Strait of Formus. More brutal, entrenched Iranian regime, unaccounted nuclear material. It's able to continue to build its drones and missiles. It's going to continue to support its proxies. So this could be different a year or two from now. But as of right now, history is not going to judge this war well. The president has said, though, Kareem, there has been regime change. He's trying to redefine what the term regime change actually means. There are new people, new human beings in the positions that they weren't currently at, formerly in. Are they more hardline, more extreme, more have their backs to the wall than the previous regime? You know, the new leaders in Iran share the same ideology. And that ideology, they call themselves principles because they're loyal to the principles of the 1979 revolution. And the chief principles of 1979 are death to America and death to Israel. And so they're going to continue to have that as part of their identity. And President Trump hoped that he was going to change the U.S.-Iran relationship. It's unfortunately not going to happen. Brett, what are you looking for over the next even 24 hours? Obviously, this thing is very fragile. I'm looking, Anderson, for not what is said, especially out of Iran or even out of the White House, but what happens on the ground and in the waterways? Are ships moving through the strait of Formus or not? I mean, that is really the big test. If they are moving with a toll paid to Iran, that's a huge problem. If they're moving freely, as President Trump's statements seem to say, that's good. That's where we want to be. Right now, we don't know. We'll see. That is really what matters. I think the stuff come out of Iran tonight, Anderson, is like this maximalist 10-point plan that is like farcical on its face. And yet Trump's statement said he accepted it as a basis of negotiations. I don't know how to make sense of that because there's no way. I think the United States could ever contemplate what is in that 10-point plan. And the Iranians are also declaring that they basically, the U.S. has accepted that. I'm quite certain that's not true. So we don't know. This is classic negotiating with Iran, particularly in the open. You get so much posturing, so much boastfulness. And then what's really happening, it's unclear. So on the bottom line, first of all, do the missiles stop? Right now, we have missiles being launched from Iran. Right now, the ceasefire is not fully in effect, or at least not being implemented effectively. And what's happening with those ships? I mean, that's really what we'll have to watch over the next 24, 48 hours. And Colonel, does Iran, I mean, over this next two weeks, is that an opportunity for Iran to regroup? Obviously, I mean, I guess, will the U.S., will Israel still be overflying, getting satellite imagery, seeing who's moving around, where things are going? Yeah, you're actually raising a really interesting point, because often in agreements like this, there is some kind of verification process. We don't know that there's going to be a verification process. That's a critical element that actually should be part of an agreement, or at least some permanent agreement, so that the Israelis, the Americans, can see what Iran is doing and vice versa. That would be a typical agreement in a case like this. And when you look at those kinds of elements, it's going to, I think, really be a key to see how much really changes in terms of the military posture, because I think the Iranians are going to try to regroup, and they're going to position themselves in a way that they can survive. They may move some missiles around, that they get ready to launch. They may not launch them, but they might be trying to be ready to do that. And, of course, the Israelis would want to see whether or not those missiles are targeting Israel, for example, and the same for the Gulf states. They'd also want to know if missiles were targeting them. So it really remains to be seen. I think one other thing that's also critically important, we're expecting the Iranians to respond and basically exercise command over their elements. But if the command and control system has been destroyed, or at least limited in its effectiveness by the American and the Israeli airstrikes, we have to be prepared for there to be some units that don't get the word or are just firing on their own, because that's the last order that they had. The idea, Karim, that negotiation is going to take place over a two-week period. It just seems, again, from past negotiations with Iran, these things drag on and on. It just seems like a nightmare negotiation process. There is zero chance we're going to reach a resolution in a two-week period, in part because Iran's most senior leaders have been killed. And those that are remaining, it's difficult for them to convene. Two of them probably have the power or legitimacy to sign off on major decisions. And at the moment when I observe this Iranian regime, I see that they have an accelerator. They're able to escalate. I don't see anyone who's able to really pump the brakes. Brett, why would Iran want to do this quickly? I mean, if you've studied President Trump at all, the oil prices, the concern about the has now become the dominant issue for him, overshadowing, it seems, even the nuclear program, that's the weapon that they can continue to use moving forward. Yeah, Anderson, I've been thinking about reflecting on what we've talked about a lot here over the last six weeks or so. And kind of the first principles, we've talked about Karl von Klosswitz, and he said something, there's rarely finality in war. Very rarely do you have an unconditional surrender, World War II. War's shift advantage. Here, Iran, for the last 47 years, has basically been in a state of war with the United States. We've been in hot wars, cold wars, but there's been a state of war. And what just happened is going to shift advantage. And if you took a snapshot right now, because of what you just said, Anderson, that economic control that Iran has now asserted effectively, it may shift advantage in their direction, perhaps decidedly. But I wouldn't draw that conclusion yet. We have to see. And we don't know how much damage has been done in Iran and how intact this system really is. And we know the popular demands for change in Iran are still there. So again, this has been going on for 47 years. It's going to go on for some time. But I think that kind of, not final, it shifts advantage. Who has the advantage tilted towards tonight, I'd have to say, Iran, if they're in control of that straight. Reverend Gerr, Karim Sajapur, Colonel Layton, thank you very much. Up next, a change of subject, a thankful change of subject, maybe the kind of travel photos that most of us will never get to take incredible photographs, never before seen of the moon. We're going to show them to you coming up. Well, some incredible images to show you. The Artemis II astronaut are heading home after their record-breaking lunar flyby. They took these incredible photos of Earth, the moon surface as well. They made history today with a ship-to-ship call with the International Space Station about 230,000 miles away. CNN's Ed Lavender is a bit closer than that. He's at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Ed, the pictures, I just want to keep showing them. I've been looking at them all day. They are so amazing. Yeah, one of those pictures is already the wallpaper on my laptop here at work. It has been stunning. More than 50 gigs of data being transmitted back from the capsule here to the Johnson Space Center. They are still going through the process of going through the thousands and thousands of just the photo images. That doesn't take into account all of the audio files that were recorded that we haven't had a chance to hear yet, Anderson, from the astronauts as they were doing the lunar flyby. All of those details and descriptions of what they saw, the scientists here are very eager to dig into because it really is an unprecedented look at the surface of the moon. So much to learn, they say, from all of that. But this mission continues, Anderson. Over the next 24 hours, you're going to see the Artemis II crew going through more tests and more demonstrations inside the capsule. One of those includes the radiation deployment system that helps protect them from radiation if there's some sort of solar event there that becomes rather treacherous. And there's also some manual piloting work that they will continue. And then they really prepare for that final day where they have to reconfigure that cabin, put the seats back in so they can get ready to return to Earth. It's just incredible. Ed Levin, thanks for joining me now as space journalist, Kristin Fisher. Kristin, what went through your mind when you first saw some of these new images of the moon? Let's keep putting them up. I thought that these are the images that I have been waiting to see my entire life. This is a mission that I have been wanting to see happen my entire life. And what we've been seeing over the last few days, this crew, the Artemis II crew, they were supposed to deliver on essentially recreating Apollo 8's famous Earthrise image. I mean, no small feat, no pressure, right, Anderson? For them to do that and give us Earth set. I mean, it has been such a joy to watch this. Yeah, we're seeing the Earth behind. It's so awesome. They've taken, I think I would say, 10,000 photos during that flyby. What are scientists looking for when they go through these images? Well, a big part of this mission, Anderson, I mean, think about Artemis II as really just the beginning of the entire Artemis program, you know? The goal here is to build a base, a permanent human base on the surface of the moon. And so these images are essentially helping them scout out good spots, you know? And it's not just the Artemis II mission that's doing that. You've got robotic rovers and spacecrafts that are kind of serving as scouts for these future Artemis missions that are going to build a base. That's the goal here. And they're going to be returning to Earth. Can you talk about this heat shield? Can you talk about that, the importance of the heat shield as they return to Earth? I mean, the heat shield, we all remember the tragic Columbia disaster, right, Anderson? I mean, what happened there? The reason that those astronauts tragically lost their lives was because their heat shield on the space shuttle did not work. It did not withstand the temperatures on reentry. And so that's what's at stake here. This heat shield on the Orion spacecraft has to withstand incredibly high temperatures to keep these astronauts safe on reentry. And so, yes, this mission so far has been an unbelievable success. But what's the next 48 hours that splashed down on Friday is really one final critical test. What is the timeline for future Artemis missions? We've got Artemis III coming up in 2027. That's going to be a rendezvous just in low Earth orbit between the Orion spacecraft and one or both of the human landing systems, either SpaceX's Starship or Blue Origin's Blue Moon. And then Artemis IV in 2028, that will be the big one. That will be the first lunar landing. But they're going to start putting the very basic components of the base on the surface of the moon with robotic and uncrewed spacecrafts as early as next year with the goal of making it fully operational by the early 2030s. So this really is a whole new era, Anderson. And this mission has, for the first time, really made me feel and believe we're finally not going to be a species that's trapped in low Earth orbit like we have been for the last half century. Yeah. It's just incredible. And especially on a day in which there's so much horror going on here on planet Earth, it is just wonderful to take a few moments to look at these incredible images and see ourselves from such a distance. Chris and Fisher, thanks so much. That's it for us. The news continues. Turn things over to Newsnight with Abby Fila. I'm Eva Longoria, and I'm setting out to really experience France to savor its world-celebrated cuisine and explore the country's rich history. Eva Longoria, Searching for France, premieres April 12th on CNN and next day on the CNN app.