Iran Conflict: Protesters Withdraw from Baghdad Embassy; North Korea May Resume Nuclear Weapons Testing; Another Big Haul for Buttigieg
LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: Twin foreign crises for the U.S. -- a new stare-down with Iran and new weapons threat from North Korea. Are they sensing vulnerability at the White House?</s>CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: The race for 2020 finally being waged in 2020. Pete Buttigieg with an early reminder he is a fundraising force, only he's not the only one.</s>JARRETT: And a state of emergency in southeast Australia. The death toll is climbing from ranging wildfires, and the forecast is only getting worse. CNN is live this morning in Baghdad, Hong Kong, Australia and Jerusalem. Good morning and welcome to EARLY START. I'm Laura Jarrett.</s>ROMANS: And I'm Christine Romans. It is Thursday, January 2nd. It is 5:00 a.m. in the East, and 32 days to the Iowa caucuses. But we begin here -- the U.S. and Iran appear to be stepping back from the brink of confrontation, after days of violent protests by Iran- backed demonstrators at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. But this could be the start of a longer protest campaign. Thousands of angry supporters of an Iran-backed militia tried to storm the embassy. They were protesting deadly U.S. airstrikes launched in response to a death of a U.S. contractor in a rocket attack.</s>JARRETT: The protesters managed to do some serious damage inside the embassy. Some rooms left totally charred there. Iraqi security forces have regained control of the area. But a spokesman for the militia group that organized the demonstration says America should have received the message. And the embassy protests were only a first step. The embassy now says all public consular services are suspended until further notice. Senior international correspondent Arwa Damon is live for us in Baghdad. Arwa, what can you tell us?</s>ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. Well, those rooms that were torched are not exactly fully inside the embassy compound. They're where you go in to get your initial security screening and your badge. But the fact that this group of people were able to just march straight through multiple checkpoints, into what is still a very restricted zone in many ways goes to the very core of multiple complex dynamics that are unfolding here. You have, despite the fact that the situation outside of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad is over for the time being, the broader proxy battle that is playing out between Washington and Tehran, mostly within Iraq, that is far from being resolve. The key group in all of this, which is the one that was targeted by the U.S. on Sunday, Kataib Hezbollah, is still demanding that the Americans leave Iraq, saying that they delivered their message and now, they're going to leave it up to the Iraqi government. But their patience is not necessarily open-ended. You have rhetoric being tossed back-and-forth between the U.S. president, the Iranian leadership, each side threatening the other. A lot of bluster, perhaps, but as we know, this bluster can turn very violent very quickly. And there are grave concerns over the situation potentially escalating. And within Iraq and in and of itself, there are numerous fracture points that can be exploited by the Iranians, especially given the number of groups they have here who they support and fund and train and just how far their tentacles reach, not just through Iraq, but all the way through Syria and other areas.</s>JARRETT: Clearly, still, a very tense situation there. Thank you so much for that report, Arwa. And we should note that the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has postponed a planned trip to Ukraine that was supposed to start tomorrow to deal with the developments in Baghdad.</s>ROMANS: Another potential international crisis developing in North Korea. Kim Jong-un declaring his country should not longer feel bound by a self-imposed halt on nuclear weapons development, and the world will witness a new strategic weapon in the near future. President Trump trying to remain optimistic, but listen to Joseph Yun, Trump's former special representative for North Korea.</s>JOSEPH YUN, FORMER U.S. SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE FOR NORTH KOREA POLICY: Kim is definitely, definitely playing Trump. President Trump saying that Kim signed the deal for denuclearization. Well, not so far.</s>ROMANS: Let's get the latest from CNN's David Culver in Hong Kong -- David.</s>DAVID CULVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Christine, a new year, but we are back to this old and what is alarming rhetoric. Kim Jong-un's remarks to his top officials, they reflect this angry and perhaps even more concerning, a desperate tone. He is essentially saying that because the U.S. will not bend on easing sanctions, North Korea, now leaving open the possibility, they could resume nuclear and long-range missile testing. So, this comes after two years of what we saw summitry and diplomacy, what was a glimmer of hope in establishing that denuclearized Korean peninsula, all of that has now reversed course, it seems. And yet, despite these increased tensions, President Trump trying to convey that he and Kim have a good relationship, saying this week that he thinks Kim is a man of his word. Maybe there's something we're not seeing because the words and recent actions out of North Korea, in particular, satellite images, showing movement in and around past ICBM test sites, well, they suggest that Kim does not feel the same way. In his remarks to top officials, Kim reiterated over and over, how sanctions are crushing them. They are struggling. And that's where the desperation comes in, because he said if the U.S. abuses the dialogue between the two countries, that they will pay for the pains of the North Korean people. Now, it is true that North Korea and Kim often put out the dramatic wordings, just to see how the world, especially the U.S., will react. But given this increased pressure that North Korea is feeling with sanctions, Christine, the concern is that they're going to be motivated to act drastically.</s>ROMANS: All right. David Culver for us in Hong Kong -- thanks, David.</s>JARRETT: Well, with the 2020 Democrats racing towards the Iowa caucuses, now just a month away, Pete Buttigieg remains a fund-raising force. His campaign revealing it saying it raised $24.7 million during the fourth quarter of 2019. The year end haul for him tops the $19.2 million the former South Bend mayor raised in the third quarter, and just about matches the $24.8 million he raked in during 2019's second quarter. The numbers further cementing Buttigieg's position as one of the top fundraisers in the Democratic field. Meantime, Senator Bernie Sanders campaign says it's reached 5 million individual donors. We expect more details from the Sanders camp later today on these numbers.</s>ROMANS: All right. Six minutes past the hour. The pope is apologizing for slapping a woman's hand away on New Year's Eve.