Trump: 'Do I Want to Go In and Annihilate Them?' Decision Awaits UN Week
The American president framed the war’s next phase as a personal choice: “I have a big decision coming up. Do I want to go in and annihilate them or do I not?… Anything could happen with me.” He will meet the leaders of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday before deciding, and has ordered current force levels held to year-end. Visas were approved for Iran’s president and foreign minister to attend the same gathering.
The choreography says more than the menace: granting visas to President Pezeshkian’s delegation while musing about annihilation puts both the war’s escalation and its off-ramp in the same Manhattan building next week — the nearest thing to a summit this conflict has produced since June’s interim deal collapsed. The Gulf consultation is the constraint that matters: the six leaders being summoned are the ones whose territory hosts American bases, whose tankers burn, and whose unanimous preference is de-escalation — their answer to “annihilate” is a fixed no. The IRGC’s overnight strike on the tanker Trend for “illegal passage” shows Tehran negotiating in its own currency meanwhile. Watch Tuesday’s Gulf meeting — and whether any American-Iranian contact, however indirect, occurs inside the UN.