‘Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival?’
President Donald Trump used his speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday morning to once again threaten Iran with annihilation if the regime doesn’t agree to abandon their nuclear ambitions and open up commercial traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to step up military operations in Iran in response to Tehran’s refusal to accept U.S. peace terms. Most of those threats have been leveled on social media; on Tuesday, Trump openly threatened a U.N. member country at the organization’s headquarters in Manhattan. One member of Iran’s delegation looked on as Trump floated the possibility of destroying his country.
“Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before — maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world — or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?” he said.
He added, “Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?”
Several shaky ceasefires have been brokered and unraveled since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on the country on February 28. In mid-June, the U.S. and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding, with the U.S. promising to lift sanctions against Iran, and Iran promising not to develop a nuclear weapon.
The agreement lasted less than two weeks. Iran resumed striking commercial tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, and on June 26, the U.S. resumed missile strikes. The continued fighting has driven up energy costs. Through the course of the more than six-month war, American gas prices have risen nearly 50 percent, and diesel prices have risen about 70 percent. In an effort to bring prices down, Trump ordered U.S. forces to block Iranian ports and protect commercial vessels passing through the strait. In a typical year, about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supplies moves through the Strait of Hormuz.
However, even with U.S. forces present, Iranian strikes on international vessels have continued this week. On Monday, the British military reported that a tanker was struck as it entered the strait, injuring two crew members.
Tensions have made their way into the diplomatic arena. Ahead of the U.N. assembly in New York, Iranian state media reported that the U.S. State Department denied visas for several members of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s delegation. While the core Iranian delegation, including Pezeshkian, was permitted to attend, only one member of the delegation was present while Trump spoke.
Threats of escalating U.S.-led destruction have also accompanied the ceasefires’ deterioration.
In April, Trump posted to Truth Social, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
Months later in July, Trump posted again, saying the U.S. had 1,000 missiles “locked and loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran.” If Iran assassinated the sitting president, Trump wrote, the U.S. military would “completely decimate and destroy all areas of Iran.”
During his U.N. address, Trump predicted that his administration will finally reach a deal with Iran after the midterm elections in November and suggested that the regime was waiting on the election results to evaluate his domestic political standing before agreeing to a deal.
“I believe we’ll make a deal right after the election because it doesn’t make sense for them not to,” Trump said. “They’re waiting to see how I do in the midterm election.”
In making the case for his decision to attack Iran, Trump reminded the assembled delegates that Iran has used its considerable resources to destabilize the Middle East through savage terror attacks.
“In America, we just marked the 25th anniversary of the worst terror attack in history, September 11, which killed 3,000 people just a few miles from here. … In two weeks, we will mark the third anniversary of the October 7th attack in Israel, where terrorists funded by Iran tortured, mutilated, and killed 1,200 very innocent civilians, including dozens of Americans and many babies,” Trump said.
He continued, “For 51 years, the fanatical Iranian regime has ruled by bloodshed and mass murder, spreading death and carnage and chaos across the entire Middle East and beyond. They were the bully of the Middle East, but they are the bully no more. … I will never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”