Trump tells UN he gave Iran ‘every chance for a deal’ before launching strikes

UNITED NATIONS — In making his case against Iran during his address to the United Nations General Assembly, US President Donald Trump recalls that its slain supreme leader Ali Khamenei called Hamas’s October 7 onslaught against Israel a “service to humanity.”

“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. It’s an unbelievably terrible time. 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 1,200 very innocent civilians, including dozens of Americans and many babies — tiny, beautiful babies,” Trump laments.

“Iran’s supreme leader celebrated that massacre and called it a service to humanity,” he continues. “The same regime slaughtered over 72,000 citizens this year. Recently, 10,000 were killed for protesting. Just imagine such a vile regime were ever empowered to carry out large-scale terror attacks from behind a nuclear shield.”

“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 says, referring to the launch of Operation Epic Fury against Iran in February.

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

Trump repeats that the US succeeded in destroying Iran’s navy, its air force, its radar, its anti-aircraft equipment and says 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.

Still, Trump touts the devastation to Iran’s economy, which is plagued by ever-rising inflation.

He also laments Tehran’s decision to continue targeting ships in the Strait of Hormuz after a ceasefire was briefly reached in June and thanks the UN Security Council for passing a resolution condemning those actions.

Despite Iran’s efforts to hamper commercial shipping, the US is still managing to escort ships out of the Strait of Hormuz on a daily basis, Trump says.