I want to bring in CNN military analyst Colonel Cedric Leighton, Colonel US official telling CNN that one of the targets is believed to be an army radar. You have very deep experience in Iran and in this region. How do you assess this attack?

I think it could be several things, Laura. And a radar site is a perfect area to go after because once you hit the radar site, that blinds the forces that are using that radar picture of for their activities. So it's a perfect site for the Israelis to go after. The other thing to keep in mind is we've been talking about airfields, and one of the reasons that a lot of the airports have been shut down, as nick was mentioning in his reporting, is because what Iran does is it doubles the use of their civilian airfields, civilian airports, as also being Air Force bases for the Iranian Air Force. So in the case of Isfahan, the air base is co-located with the international airport in Isfahan, and it's the home to Iran's fleet of F-14 fighters, which they had acquired during the time of the Shah. Those aircraft are, of course, quite old, antiquated. They've since been upgraded in some ways using Iranian capabilities and other capabilities, but they probably pose a very limited threat to the Israelis. The other thing to keep in mind, Laura, is that when it comes to the nuclear facilities in and around Isfahan, the one that's really important who is the Natans nuclear facility, and that is 120 kilometers or about 70 miles away from Isfahan.

So if you strike the area around Isfahan, you are not going to be striking the city of Isfahan. That is, you're not going to be striking Natans But you are telling them, as we've talked about, you are telling everybody that you could reach this area and you can, in fact, eliminate that threat or at least attack that threat if you need to do so.

Colonel Leighton, interestingly, compared to the signal that Iran sent by being able to reach Israel, they issued a warning beforehand, and the Iron Dome was able to intercept the missiles, the drones that was suggesting why some were suggesting to Prime Minister Benjamin and Yahoo to, quote, unquote, take the win. What does it say that Iran could not defend against this attack?

Well, for one thing, Iran does not have anything similar to the Iron Dome. So it's Israeli air defenses are fairly antiquated in comparison to the Israeli air defenses. They're not ineffective, but they are not as effective as the Israeli air defense system, which is highly sophisticated, one of the best in the world. So that is really why you see this difference. And of course, we'll have to wait for the battle damage assessments to come out and to get some idea of exactly what was hit and how effective the Israeli strikes were. But it seems like they were able to do this pretty pretty much with impunity. And it tells us that there are basically holes in the Iranian air defense system and that the Israelis can take advantage of them if they feel the need to do so.

Really important to get your insight. We'll continue to lean on you, Cedric Leighton, retired Air Force colonel. I want to bring in Bloomberg senior editor, Bobby Goosh, to the conversation. Bobby, we spoke earlier in the week about anticipating this exact reality. What do you think Iran will do next?

Well, Laura, a threshold now has crossed, and we're They're in unknown territory. For a long time, these two countries have been at a low-intensity war, but I feel like now the gloves have come off. Iran's response is unpredictable. We know the different weapons that it has at its disposal. We saw a demonstration of what it can do over the last weekend when it fired over 300 missiles and drones into Israeli territory. Very few of them actually managed to make it through those defenses that the colonel was talking about. But Iran showed that it has the capacity to fire a very large number of projectiles into Israeli territory. We also know that Iran has the capacity to attack Israel through its proxies in Lebanon, in Iraq, in Hamas, in the Gaza Strip, as well as from the Houthis in Yemen. We know what both sides are capable of. Until now, it's been a question of just how far each is prepared to go. But just as we were discussing earlier in the week with this escalation of risk-taking, there's always a chance that the next step up is going to be the step too far. I feel that tonight with Israel launching and successfully striking Iranian targets within Iran, we've reached that stage where we're now into an area of darkness, where things can get very grim very quickly.

And what's the danger of now meeting this particular moment of a broader escalation? Are you suggesting that there is some point of no return that would involve others in the region?

Well, that has been the fear of the Biden administration throughout, which has been why it has tried very hard for weeks now, and especially in the last 48 and 72 hours, it has tried very, very hard to restrain Iraq, beg your pardon, Israel, from responding to Iran's latest attack. Now that Israel has essentially brushed aside American concerns and gone ahead and made this attack, yes, I am concerned that we've now reached a stage where what comes next is very, very hard to predict. The The Iranians are trying to play down the attack, but it's nighttime. It's a little hard to know the extent of the damage. I'm not so sure that if the damage is indeed substantial, I'm not sure Iran will be able to conceal that for very long. There's also the question of national pride, particularly from the hardliners of the Iranian right who control that country. They will feel like they have to respond, just as the hard right in Israel felt after Friday's attack, that they had to respond. We're now in the realm of extreme positions on both sides, coming to the floor, becoming the dominant position on both sides.

Bobby Goosh, thank you so much. I want to reference and play right now what the Iranian Foreign Minister told CNN's Aaron Burnet just earlier tonight.

Our response to the Israeli regime was limited and stayed within a minimum of frameworks, whereas we could have given a much harsher response to the Israeli regime. Following that, we announced that this response is within the framework of legitimate defense according to international laws. We will not continue. However, in case the Israeli regime embarks on adventurism again and takes action against the interests of Iran, the next response from us will be immediate and at a maximum level. It will be It will be decisive.

Very daunting words. It will be immediate at a maximum level. It will be decisive. I want to bring in CNN Global Affairs analyst, Kim Dozier. Kim, the Foreign Minister, you've heard the words he's spoken that it would be immediate? How does the United States now go about managing what has obviously now been elevated to the next level?

One of the scary things that we've been talking about this evening is the fact that the Iranians are closing the airspace and closing all those different airports because they could be doing that to keep civilian aircraft safe, or they could be doing that to prepare for immediate retaliation, which is why at this point, I imagine US diplomats, Western diplomats are reaching out to anyone who has Iran's number to say, We've got to stop this now. We're going to try to hold Israel back. Friends of Iran, try to hold them back because this is something that can tumble right down that escalation ladder, as we've been talking about, and lead to something really dire and all out, back and forth between the two. And a decision by Iran to go nuclear. Iran's nuclear facilities, I mean, Israel can try to strike them, and they have struck some in the past, but they need bunker busters to hit the most sensitive parts of the sites, and only the US has that. So we could tumble into a much more conventional war that pulls in the US, and Iraq doesn't like that all this is happening from its territory or over its airspace.

So you get a lot of countries caught in between, and that's why there's power in that. That's when people will hopefully, perhaps Russia, perhaps China, step in and say, Okay, this is going too far.