In his keynote speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump urged the international community to isolate the Islamic Republic of Iran over its failure to comply with international law, The Times of Israel reported.
In an ambitious address in front of the full assembly, the president said, “Iran’s leaders sow chaos, death and destruction. They do not respect their neighbors or borders, or the sovereign rights of nations. Instead, they plunder the nation’s resources to enrich themselves and to spread mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond.”
He added: “The Iran deal was a windfall for Iran’s leaders. In the year since the deal has been reached, the military budget grew nearly 40%.”
Ahead of the administration’s plans to reimpose harsh sanctions against Iran on November 5, Trump hailed the emergence of a “regional strategic alliance” in the Middle East around common security concerns, such as the isolation of Iran and global counter-terrorism efforts.
“We cannot allow the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism to possess the planet’s most dangerous weapons,” Trump said, citing Iran’s “threatening Israel with annihilation” and chants of “death to America.”
The president specifically praised efforts by the Gulf states for “taking more responsibility for fighting terrorism and extremism in their own region.” Trump added: “The Gulf countries opened a new center to target terrorist financing. They are enforcing new sanctions, working with us.”
Trump spoke only briefly on Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations and defended his administration’s decision to formally recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the U.S. embassy there.
“The United States is committed to a future of peace and stability in the region, including peace between the Israelis and Palestinians,” the president said. Middle East peace, Trump argued, “is advanced, not harmed, by acknowledging the obvious facts.”
Addressing critics, who attacked the administration for cutting aid to the Palestinian leadership for their boycott of peace negotiations, Trump observed that “we will not be held hostage to old dogmas, discredited ideologies,” and blasted “so-called experts [who] have been proven wrong over the years, time and time again.”
The president also defended his administration’s decision to withdraw from several UN bodies, including UNESCO and the UN Human Rights Council. The U.S., he said, would not return to these bodies “until real reform is enacted.” The U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, has been a major driving force behind efforts to tackle anti-Israel bias in the institution’s ranks.
Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, reacted to Trump’s speech with instant approval. Danon said in a statement that “the president proves again that the U.S. is on the right side of history.”
“While standing on the side of Israel in the struggle for stability in the Middle East, the United States leads the United Nations into a new era that ends its obsession with Israel, and pushes back against the Iranian regime,” he charged.
Trump is scheduled to meet on Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will address the general assembly himself the following day.
[Photo: Fox News/YouTube]