‘Very Difficult to Pull Back from the Brink’: CNN’s Clarissa Ward Delivers Sobering On-the-Ground Report from Middle East

CNN’s Clarissa Ward reported from Erbil, Iraq on Sunday about the tenuous state of the Middle East now that the U.S. and Israel are actively trading missile fire with Iran.

President Donald Trump announced the joint operation early Saturday morning, later posting on social media that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, had been killed.

“This is a truly historic moment, Dana,” Ward told Dana Bash on a special edition of CNN’s Inside Politics.

“The entire region is now on a knife’s edge with no off-ramp in sight and many more questions than there are answers,” Ward said. “At this stage, we don’t have a good picture of who is now in charge in Iran. What will Iran’s next move be? Is there any possibility to now de-escalate this situation?”

Ward continued:

I’ve been talking to sources throughout the region — they are very concerned that this is rapidly getting to a place where it will be very difficult to pull back from the brink. And I think you can see some of the kind of mixed emotions when you just look at the very few pictures, Dana, that we’re able to see coming out of Iran. On the one hand, you have people celebrating on the streets of Tehran at the news that the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has been killed. On the other hand, you have deep-seated anxiety and fear. What will come next? Will there be chaos? Will there another protest movement? How will that be organized? How will we find the courage to go back out onto the streets when the regime that clamped down on us so horrifically and so brutally in January is still effectively in place?

Both U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Iranian people via video addresses that now is the time to force regime change and take over the Iranian government.

Ward said that where she’s stationed in Iraq, there have been “pretty much regular missile strikes, rocket strikes, drone attacks — coming not just from Iran, but from Iran-backed militias in Iraq.”

Ward said people there are trying to “brave the storm with no real concept…of where this thing is going.”

On Saturday, Trump promised, “The heavy and pinpoint bombing … will continue, uninterrupted throughout the week or, as long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!”

Watch the clip above via CNN.

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