CNN's Fareed Zakaria: 'Thousands' could die because of Trump's sanctions on Iran

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President Trump hits Iran with new sanctions

Reaction and analysis from the 'Special Report' All-Star panel.

CNN host Fareed Zakaria warned President Trump on Monday night that "thousands" could potentially die due to the new sanctions his administration has placed on Iran.

Following the president's last-minute decision last week to call off a military strike that he claimed would have killed about 150 people, the White House announced that Iran will face additional "hard-hitting" sanctions that will specifically target Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his associates.

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Appearing on "CNN Tonight," Zakaria struggled to answer whether President Trump did the right thing by calling off the strike because of the apparent dangers of the sanctions.

"The sanctions that are in place in Iran probably- I haven't done the calculations, but I think it's fair to say almost certainly will kill several hundred, maybe thousands of people over the next few months in terms of depriving people of medical supplies, food, nutrition," Zakaria said. "And when you do a military strike, the people you are killing will tend to be Iranian soldiers, military officers who are volunteering to take park in Iran's military struggle. The people you kill when you impose sanctions are the most vulnerable in society. These are the poorest people, the sickest people."

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He continued, "So if that's his concern, he seems almost gleeful about the idea of imposing more and more sanctions on Iran. Has he thought about the human cost of this? I don't think so."

The CNN host went on to blast the "weird, impulse-driven policy" on Iran and questioned whether there were "any grownups in the White House" for naming the wrong ayatollah in their announcement of the new sanctions.