Trump Threatens Annihilation in Iran in UN Speech and Lays Out Winner-Takes-All Vision

The podium of the United Nations was an unusual setting for the leader of a global superpower to threaten to “annihilate the Islamic republic” of Iran or to declare that, in another conflict, “to the victor belong the spoils.”

Yet that was exactly what President Trump did on Tuesday, in threatening Iran if it failed to make a deal to end a war that had stretched far longer than Mr. Trump anticipated, and justifying his claims on Venezuelan oil reserves after American forces deposed its leader.

Mr. Trump has long made clear that he has little use for the United Nations, one of the post-World War II institutions that he has dismissed as outdated and ineffective. But his speech at the annual opening of the General Assembly amounted to a pure American rejection of the concept behind the U.N.’s founding in 1945: to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.”

The global body’s charter, written largely by the United States, expressly prohibited members from threatening or using force against a country’s territorial integrity unless acting in self-defense, or with the U.N.’s authorization.

On Iran, Mr. Trump made it clear that he, and he alone, would decide whether to strike a deal with Tehran’s leaders or “annihilate the Islamic republic.”

It may have been largely a negotiating tactic. A little later in the morning, American officials quietly met with Iranians who were also in New York for the opening session, though it was unclear whether any progress was made or whether Mr. Trump himself would meet top Iranian officials.