Trump threatens Iran with annihilation as he signals post-election deal talks

At the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, Donald Trump delivered a speech that oscillated between existential threat and diplomatic possibility. He called on the world to enforce complete economic isolation of Iran, framing the country as a 51-year menace responsible for regional terror. Yet within the same remarks, he suggested a deal with Tehran could materialize after the US midterm elections—a contradiction that captured the administration's posture toward the Islamic Republic in the months following joint US-Israeli strikes launched in February.

Trump's language was unsparing. He described a binary choice before him: either Iran would be allowed to rebuild into a greater nation than before, or he would move to annihilate the Islamic Republic swiftly, "never giving them a chance to kill or destroy people and continents." He repeated this threat to annihilate Iran, which he has invoked dozens of times since the military campaign began. He also claimed that more oil was flowing through the Strait of Hormuz than at any point since the conflict started, and that the US Navy had recently escorted more than one billion barrels out of the waterway. When pressed on whether the war had depleted American munitions reserves—a concern voiced by allies worried about energy prices and instability—Trump denied it flatly, saying the US possessed more ordnance than it could conceivably use.

Yet Trump also signaled openness to negotiation. He stated plainly that he believed a deal would be struck after the election, asserting that Iran was waiting to see how he performed in the midterms. He then corrected himself: he was not running in those elections. He had already won his own contest in a landslide and would remain in office for two and a half more years. The implication was clear—Iran should not delay, because his political position was secure regardless of the midterm outcome.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards rejected the overture entirely. Hossein Mohebi, a spokesman for the Guards, said the United States had attempted to establish contact but been rebuffed. "Our dealings with the enemy—as long as they remain hostile—are conducted solely through arms," Mohebi said in an interview with AFP. He added that if the US acted recklessly and history repeated itself, Iran's resistance would intensify. This time, he said, Iran would not merely retaliate but adopt an offensive posture, and America would come to regret its actions, suffering greater humiliation than ever before. Diplomacy, Mohebi clarified, was the domain of Iran's foreign ministry, not the Guards. Yet even as he spoke, Tehran appeared to have relaxed its preconditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Iran signaled it was prepared to lift a blockade of the waterway within seven days, provided the US took reciprocal steps to ease pressure on the country. Previously, Iran had demanded seven onerous conditions, including an end to war on all fronts and a US commitment to cease all aggressive actions and sanctions.

Meanwhile, the regional architecture shifted around this central confrontation. The United Kingdom agreed to provide defensive air support to Saudi Arabia, offering air-to-air refueling for Saudi jets to defend energy infrastructure against Houthi fighters backed by Iran. British Prime Minister Andy Burnham framed the commitment as necessary to restore stability and ease global economic turmoil. Russia's Vladimir Putin held a phone call with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to discuss security in the Gulf and the need to keep vital waterways open. Yet Trump himself had wavered for weeks on whether to provide military assistance to Saudi Arabia against the Houthis, and as recently as Wednesday had told advisers he did not favor strikes.

Jordan's King Abdullah II and Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan used the same assembly to condemn Israeli actions in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. King Abdullah called the forced displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank a war crime and said that preventing Palestinian statehood had become firm Israeli policy. Erdoğan described Gaza as the world's largest graveyard for children and the place with the highest rate of child amputations, calling it the most inhuman concentration camp of our time. He expressed sadness that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was absent from the gathering after the United States denied entry visas to Palestinian officials for the second consecutive year. The Israeli delegation walked out during Erdoğan's speech.

The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, signed in October, remained fragile and contested. Gaza's health ministry reported that at least 1,399 people had been killed by Israeli attacks since that agreement took effect. Hamas accused Israel of violating the ceasefire and undermining a broader US plan to end the war, which included Israeli withdrawal from the strip and Hamas disarmament. Israel countered that Hamas had been the one violating the deal. In Yemen, Saudi Arabia struck a prison in the northwest, killing nine detainees according to a Houthi official. The attack came as part of ongoing operations against Houthi-controlled areas. Trump also expressed support for a diesel ban to help ease energy prices, telling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the US produced substantial diesel supplies and that restricting exports could have some effect on global gasoline prices. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Washington was examining whether such a ban was feasible given overall refining capacity.