This is a

is CBS I in the world. I'm John Bachelor.

Damascus. New York Times reporting

is the bombing of an Iranian embassy building in Damascus which killed senior Iranian military and intelligence officials is a major escalation of what has long been a simmering undeclared war between Israel and Iran.

I welcome Jonathan Schanser of the Foundation for the Defense of democracies,

who does a briefing two or three times a week or when needed in the morning I highly

recommend it's also a podcast afterwards a briefing about the world but especially

about the two wars in Eurasia and right now we're concentrating on the war that has been in front of us

since October 7th but is not talked about in Washington that is the war between Jerusalem and Tehran. Jonathan, a very good day to you.

Zah he is the man's name. He is said to have been commander for the IRDC for Syria and Lebanon, the whole region, but that means including

the Damascus regime of Assad, the Hezbollah firing rockets routinely into North Israel, Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and so many more

surrogates for the Iranian regime. This strike on Saheli, is this a demonstration that the war now widens that Israel is no longer

going to maintain its rules of engagement to Hezbollah along the border and Hamas in Gaza, but Iran is now in the target.

Good evening to you.

Good evening, John.

This is an escalation.

There is no question about it.

Mohammed Raza Zahidi is the most senior Iranian official

to be killed during this war since October 7th.

As you noted, he was a top commander of the Kutz Force which is the

terrorist arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps also known as the IRGC and his area of operation was Lebanon in Syria. So certainly he was in

charge of roughly a dozen or so Shiite militias including those that were firing rockets

...