Trump at UN: Iran was ‘the bully of the Middle East,’ but is not anymore

UNITED NATIONS — US President Donald Trump touts his decision to confront Iran in the beginning of his speech before the United Nations General Assembly.

“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. While others have talked, I have acted,” Trump says.

“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,” he asserts. “They were the bully of the Middle East, but they are the bully no more.”

He recalls having long pledged to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, while highlighting 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 says, noting that it led to his decision to strike three of Iran’s nuclear sites in June 2025.

Trump again claims the US “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program, even though Tehran still has others enrichment sites, including Pickaxe, which Trump has threatened to bomb in recent weeks. Iran also has stockpiles of highly enriched uranium that can be quickly converted into a nuclear weapon.

Trump laments that Iran refused to make a deal after the US strikes in June 2025 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 realized that,” he says, in an apparent knock at what he believes 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. If they had succeeded, that wicked regime would have been free to spread terror and death forever, knowing that any attempt to stop it would face an arsenal of nuclear annihilation,” Trump says.