Donald Trump addresses UN General Assembly

(Times of Israel) US President Donald Trump told the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday that he has a “big decision to make” regarding the future of the ongoing conflict against Iran, but suggested that diplomacy would be the way forward and that a deal could be inked in the coming months.

Much of the US president’s speech was focused on the war, while also touching on issues including the Gaza ceasefire and the International Criminal Court, which his administration has hit with a pressure campaign.

Senior members of the Iranian delegation boycotted Trump’s address. A single lower-level diplomat remained in the plenum.

He opened his speech by touting his decision to confront Iran, “the bully of the Middle East.”

“As president of the most extraordinary nation in history, I have no interest in leaving dangers to grow for another day. I do not believe in letting problems fester; they only become harder to solve,” Trump said. “While others have talked, I have acted. There is no better example of a danger that is allowed to gather strength at the world’s peril than the number one sponsor of terror, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

“They are the bully no more,” he added.

Trump told the UN that he has “a big decision to make” regarding what comes next – a diplomatic solution or fresh fighting.

“Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before?” he asked rhetorically. “Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?”

The US President recalled having long pledged to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and reiterated his commitment to that goal, but noted that he still offered to negotiate a diplomatic solution to the problem upon taking office last year.

“They absolutely refused. That was a big mistake,” he said, adding that the response led to his decision to strike three of Iran’s nuclear sites in June 2025, during Israel’s previous, 12-day war with Tehran.

Those strikes, he claimed, “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program, even though Tehran still has other enrichment sites and a stockpile of highly enriched uranium that can be used in a nuclear weapon.

Trump lamented that Iran refused to make a deal after the June strikes and instead began building a “vast missile and drone stockpile that threatened the security of every American service member in the region and everyone else in the region.”

“They also made a missile that was capable of hitting Europe, and they were very proud of it. I hope the Europeans realised that,” he said, in an apparent knock at what he has claimed has been Europe’s insufficient response to Iranian aggression.

“Iran’s goal was to complete their mad dash to a nuclear bomb from behind this conventional ballistic missile shield,” Trump said, adding that if it had succeeded, Tehran “would have been free to spread terror and death forever”.

Trump sought to tie the US’s campaign against the Islamic Republic to both the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack in southern Israel and to the September 11, 2001, attacks in the US.

“In two weeks, we will mark the third anniversary of the October 7 attack in Israel, [where] terrorists funded by Iran tortured, mutilated and killed 1200 very innocent civilians, including dozens of Americans and many babies – tiny, beautiful babies.

“Iran’s supreme leader celebrated that massacre and called it a service to humanity,” he said.

“After giving Iran every chance for a deal, I took action to ensure that neither the United States nor any nation [represented] in this hall would ever have to face such a nightmare,” Trump said, referring to the launch of Operation Epic Fury against Iran in February.

He made no mention of Israel’s role in the war.

Trump repeated his claim that the US had succeeded in destroying Iran’s navy, its air force, its radar, its anti-aircraft equipment and said that Tehran’s “missiles and drone manufacturing capacity is almost gone” – an acknowledgment that Washington has fallen short of what many of its officials claimed was a key war aim.

Trump also dedicated a portion of his General Assembly address to the ceasefire and hostage deal brokered by the US between Israel and Hamas in October 2025, and the establishment of the Board of Peace, which is tasked with overseeing the postwar rebuild of the Strip.

He, again, made no mention of Israel in this portion of his speech, meaning that throughout his 38-minute address, he mentioned Israel just once. He did not mention Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at all.