At the U.N., Trump Weighs Striking Iran as His Envoys Meet Its Officials

President Trump used his address to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday to defend his foreign policy and to say he is weighing whether to escalate the war with Iran, even as U.S. envoys met Iranian officials on the sidelines of the gathering. “Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly,” he asked in a passage about a “big decision” he has to make, according to CBS News. He predicted that Iran’s leaders would make a deal after the U.S. midterm elections, the network reported.

Mr. Trump said the war is about preventing Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Speaking to reporters at the U.N., he said U.S. officials held a “very good” three-hour meeting with Iranian leaders, according to Al Jazeera. He said envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner took part, and that another meeting would happen “in the very near future.” Al Jazeera did not report the names of the Iranian participants or any Iranian account of the talks. Mr. Trump described Iran as facing a choice between “potential greatness or obliteration,” and suggested a deal could come after the November elections because Iran is “waiting to see” how his party performs.

He dismissed reports that the war has strained U.S. weapons stocks. “We have more munitions than we could ever possibly even think of using,” he said, CBS News reported, even though the Pentagon’s inspector general has said the war caused “strategic inventory shortfalls.” CBS News noted that the Iran war will reach seven months next week.

The president also cast his record as one of action. He said he was deploying American power to solve “decades of intractable challenges” and that “while others have talked, I have acted,” CBS News reported. He touted the U.S. intervention in Venezuela and purchases of billions of barrels of Venezuelan oil, and called Greenland the “northern frontier of North America” as he signed a security agreement with Greenland and Denmark that lets the United States add “defense areas,” according to CBS News.

On technology, he said he would try to rebrand artificial intelligence as “superintelligence,” or “SI,” and that he would not “stifle growth” in a technology he described as bigger than the industrial revolution. He also mocked critics who had predicted that global warming would kill everyone within 12 years, and compared them with critics of AI, CBS News reported.

The speech came amid a busy diplomatic schedule. Mr. Trump met French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday and was due to see U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, Gulf leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, CBS News reported, and he was expected to hold a pull-aside with Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodriguez. Chinese President Xi Jinping is due at the White House on Thursday. The president is also pursuing a Gaza peace plan and has struggled to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the network added.

Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher called the Iran meeting a “weird juxtaposition” with the threats in Mr. Trump’s speech. Neither outlet reported a response from Tehran on Tuesday.