RPT: Iran Willing To Attack On U.S. Soil
SAMBOLIN: Welcome back. There are new fears this morning about Iran. Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, told Congress Iranian leaders are considering attacks on U.S. soil.</s>BANFIELD: In fact, he even went as far as to say that there is some evidence of this. In fact, the Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador should serve as a red flag. Our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr joins us live now. Barbara, I hear a lot of this all the time. There's lots of saber rattling that goes on in Iran. So, is this just putting into words the intuitively obvious?</s>BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Perhaps. We don't really know. Of course, U.S. intelligence community doesn't have a lot of sources on the ground in Iran. Not always sure what the Iranian regime is up to. What General Clapper is saying is that potential attack against the Saudi ambassador is a warning signal. The U.S. intelligence community now assesses that Iran is more likely to believe -- could carry out an attack in the United States or against U.S. interests abroad if they feel that their regime is threatened, if they feel backed into a corner. That, right now, is really, they say, what is driving the Iranian government regime survival. They're very stressed about the sanctions, about the economic impacts in their own country, and the continued pressure against their potential nuclear weapons program.</s>BANFIELD: Barbara, I just have to jump in with the fact that this is an election year. And I remember President Bush taking it on the chin regularly for things like this, for things that were frightening. And I'm just wondering if there were any critics who are suggesting this could be just sort of timing out an announcement of something that maybe didn't need to be made.</s>STARR: Well, this happened yesterday at a hearing before the Senate intelligence community. Their annual hearing on, you know, the assessment of what's going on around the world by the U.S. intelligence community. So, this was pretty much something that was set by Congress. You are seeing a lot of Iranian rhetoric out of the administration. That's for sure. You're seeing it from the European allies. There's really that full-court press on right now to get them to back away from any decision to pursue nuclear weapons. I think that's really what this is all about.</s>BANFIELD: And do we know if these -- the saber rattling, as I like to call it, is coming from the religious leaders like Hammani (ph) or from the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is prone to say all sorts of things?</s>STARR: Ah, well, that is the big dilemma. Once again, to figure out what is going on inside Iran, we know that there's been a power struggle between those two Iranian factions for months now, and that is part of what is the concern is, instability inside Iran. As those two factions fight against each other and they worry about the total regime survival, what's the impact? You know, who decides what the next plot may be. That's what the U.S. is trying to figure out.</s>BANFIELD: All right. Barbara, thanks for all of that. Appreciate that at this early hour. Barbara Starr live for us at the Pentagon. And that is</s>EARLY START. SAMBOLIN: I'm Zoraida Sambolin along with Ashleigh Banfield. "Starting Point" with Soledad O'Brien headed your way next. Good morning.