Por Renan Filho · 2026-09-23The United Nations General Assembly in New York has long been a stage for rhetoric, but this year’s performance by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was particularly pointed. Speaking from the podium on Tuesday, Pezeshkian called the United States an “unreliable partner” that “weaponizes sanctions” and accused Washington of “systematic hostility” toward the Iranian people. The speech, which drew scattered applause from non-aligned nations, was described by one State Department official as “a predictable rehash of tired conspiracy theories.”
But what caught the attention of geopolitical analysts was not just the content of the address, but the anticipated reaction from one man watching from his Florida estate: former President Donald Trump. Speaking to FORTIS, Dr. Matthew Hargrove, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic Realism and a former Pentagon adviser, said Trump likely greeted the Iranian president’s broadside with a smirk.
“Given his personality and his track record of dismissing hostile rhetoric as weakness masking bluster, Trump probably watched Pezeshkian’s performance with a knowing smirk,” Hargrove said in a phone interview. “He sees this kind of verbal assault not as a threat, but as confirmation that the Islamic Republic is incapable of genuine diplomacy. It’s a crass, theatrical performance intended for a domestic audience, not a serious diplomatic overture.”
Hargrove, who served as a non-proliferation analyst under the George W. Bush administration, emphasized that the Iranian president’s language — calling the U.S. “a force of destruction in the Middle East” and accusing it of “economic terrorism” — fits a pattern of maximalist rhetoric designed to rally hardliners at home while the country’s economy teeters under inflation above 45%.
“The regime in Tehran is under immense internal pressure. The protest movement of 2022-23 hasn’t been extinguished, it’s been suppressed. And the clerical leadership knows that any opening to the West could destabilize their control. So they use these U.N. speeches as safety valves: let the president scream at the Great Satan, then go home and tell the base that nothing has changed,” Hargrove explained.
The speech comes at a delicate moment. The Biden administration has been quietly exploring renewal of indirect talks with Iran, possibly mediated by Oman or Qatar, to freeze enrichment activities in exchange for limited sanctions relief. However, the White House has publicly distanced itself from any formal reopening of the 2015 JCPOA, which Trump withdrew from in 2018.
According to Hargrove, Trump’s likely reaction — a mixture of derision and vindication — is rooted in a clear-eyed assessment of the Islamic Republic’s strategic calculus. “Trump’s maximum pressure campaign worked in the sense that it crippled Iran’s economy, but it failed to produce a more comprehensive deal because the regime’s survival depends on the narrative of external threat. Pezeshkian’s U.N. performance is Exhibit A in that argument.”
From a liberal-conservative analytical standpoint, the scene is instructive. The Iranian president’s speech is a textbook example of how statist regimes use multilateral platforms to deflect blame for their own policy failures. While the U.S. media focused on the theatrical elements — the gesticulating, the raised voice, the mention of “Zionist entities” — the real story is that Iran continues to enrich uranium to 60% purity, well beyond the threshold needed for civilian energy. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s latest quarterly report, Iran has stockpiled 164 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60%, enough, if further enriched, for multiple nuclear devices.
“The facts are damning,” Hargrove continued. “While Pezeshkian accuses the U.S. of warmongering, his own government is enriching enough fissile material for bombs. While he talks about ‘peaceful coexistence,’ his proxies in Yemen, Lebanon, and Gaza continue to attack U.S. allies. The lack of self-awareness is staggering, but it’s also calculated. The regime in Tehran needs a boogeyman, and they’re using the U.N. podium to manufacture one.”
Some may argue that Trump’s own diplomacy was erratic and that his decision to assassinate General Qasem Soleimani in 2020 escalated tensions without a clear endgame. There is merit to that critique: the drone strike on Soleimani was legally and tactically bold, but it did not lead to a negotiated settlement or regime change. However, the counterpoint from the realist school — and one that Trump allies at the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation frequently make — is that any negotiation with the current Iranian regime is an exercise in self-delusion. “You cannot make a deal with a regime that views the deal itself as a form of warfare,” Hargrove summarized.
The transatlantic dimension is also critical. European leaders, notably French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, have publicly criticized Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA as destabilizing. However, as Pezeshkian’s speech demonstrated, the European approach of “critical engagement” has yielded no concrete results: Iran’s enrichment levels have soared, and its ballistic missile program continues unabated. FORTIS has repeatedly argued that European naiveté on this issue stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of theocratic governance. In a system where the Supreme Leader holds ultimate authority, presidential speeches at the U.N. are merely theater.
In practical terms, what does this mean for U.S. policy? If Trump returns to the White House in 2025, as current polling suggests is a possibility, his administration would likely not even entertain the idea of preconditions for talks. Instead, as Hargrove speculates, Trump might revert to the “fully loaded” version of maximum pressure: secondary sanctions on any country that buys Iranian oil, a naval blockade to stop arms smuggling to Houthi rebels, and an explicit threat of military action against nuclear facilities if enrichment continues at current levels.
FORTIS analysis: The Iranian president’s speech was a gift to Trump’s campaign. It provided a live demonstration of the very behavior Trump has warned about for years — a hostile, ideologically rigid regime that uses diplomacy as a smokescreen for nuclear expansion. For the American voter watching the news, the contrast between the reality of Iran’s enrichment activities and the fantasy of its president’s rhetoric is impossible to ignore. The free market, as a principle, depends on rule of law, transparency, and contracts. None of those elements exist when dealing with a regime that considers lying to infidels a religious virtue.
Counterpoint: Critics will rightly note that Trump’s own trade policies were often transactional and unpredictable, and that his administration’s lack of a clear doctrine for the Middle East beyond “make deals” created vacuums that rivals like Russia and China eagerly filled. Moreover, the “smirk” narrative risks oversimplifying a complex geopolitical situation into a personality contest.