Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian used his address to the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) on Tuesday to attack Israel on behalf of Iran’s terrorist clients in Hamas – an unsurprising, but perhaps slightly disappointing, tirade from an Iranian second-in-command who billed himself as a more compassionate, reformist leader.
Pezeshkian spent a few minutes touting his platform of “reform, national empathy, constructive engagement with the world, and economic development,” and promoting Shia Islam as a religion of “peace, justice, and universal tolerance,” but then began reciting Hamas propaganda about Israel’s supposedly murderous campaign in Gaza.
Pezeshkian railed against the Israelis for referring to their campaign of “genocide, the killing of children, war crimes, and state terrorism” as “legitimate self-defense.”
“They label hospitals, kindergartens, and schools as ‘legitimate military targets.’ They label the freedom-loving and brave people around the world who protest against their genocide as ‘anti-Semitic.’ They label an oppressed people, who have stood up against seven decades of occupation and humiliation, as ‘terrorists,’” he thundered.
Iran is the world’s top state sponsor of terrorism by a wide margin but, in Pezeshkian’s twisted worldview, his country merely supports “popular liberation movements.”
“We have been siding with the people across the world, who have flooded the streets in outrage against Israeli atrocities. We condemn Israeli crimes against humanity,” he said.
Like other terrorist-supporting leaders who spoke at UNGA, Pezeshkian made no mention whatsoever of the unspeakable atrocities perpetrated by Hamas against Israeli civilians – including women, children, and infants – on October 7. He studiously avoided mentioning Hamas’ use of human shields, its terror tunnels, its criminal abuse of hostages, and its penchant for putting weapons in civilian locations.
Pezeshkian painted Iran as a helpless victim of “threats, war, occupation, and sanctions.”
“Iran has never initiated a war. It has only defended itself heroically against external aggression, causing the aggressors to regret their actions,” he claimed.
Of course, Iran constantly wages aggressive war against its neighbors and the West, but it uses cutouts and proxies like the terrorist Shiite militias of Iraq, the Hezbollah terrorist organization that has laid waste to Lebanon with Tehran’s support, and the Houthi pirates of Yemen, who have conducted reckless attacks against international shipping in the Red Sea.
Pezehskian mentioned none of Iran’s vicious proxy forces in his speech, nor did he accept responsibility for arming and training them.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran seeks to safeguard its own security, not to create insecurity for others. We want peace for all, and seek no war or quarrel with anyone,” the Iranian president claimed, at roughly the same time as reports were breaking that Iran brokered a deal with Russia to supply the Houthis with more dangerous anti-ship missiles.
Pezeshkian did briefly mention Russia, but only in the context of claiming that Iran wants “lasting peace and security” for both the Russians and Ukrainians.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran opposes war and emphasizes the urgent need to end military hostilities in Ukraine. We support all peaceful solutions and believe that dialogue is the only way to resolve this crisis,” he said.
Pezeshkian criticized former U.S. President Donald Trump for withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), without mentioning the Iranian cheating that prompted Trump to withdraw.
Pezeshkian also avoided mentioning recent complaints by the the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Iran has ceased cooperating with its investigators while it races to increase its already treaty-busting stockpile of enriched uranium.
Instead, the Iranian leader blasted sanctions as inhumane, demanded the U.S. unilaterally lift all of them, and said his government is ready to “engage with JCPOA participants.”
Pezeshkian tossed in a complaint about Trump ordering the liquidation of Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Gen. Qassem Soleimani in January 2020, without mentioning that Soleimani’s entire job was to destabilize other governments in the Middle East – the very activity Pezeshkian insisted Iran never engages in – or that Soleimani was killed in Baghdad while in the midst of organizing terrorist attacks on Americans with the aid of Iraq’s Shiite militias.
The Iranian leader pitched his closing remarks as a direct statement to the American people, implicitly either pleading with them, or threatening them, not to send Trump back to the White House.
“In order to build a better future world, Iran stands prepared to foster meaningful economic, social, political, and security partnerships with global powers and its neighbors based on equal footing,” he claimed.
“The appropriate response to this message from Iran is not to impose more sanctions, but to fulfill existing obligations to remove sanctions, benefiting the Iranian people and hence laying the foundations for more constructive agreements,” he concluded.