Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian spoke at the UN General Assembly on September 23. It was a potentially momentous occasion. Nearby, according to reports, Iranian mediators headed by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi were in a meeting room and sending someone back and forth to speak to an American delegation.
Pezeshkian was aware that this was a chance to stand on the world stage and make Iran’s position clear. Channeling a well-known line from the series Game of Thrones, he said Iran would not “bend the knee.” It’s not clear whether he is a fan of the show and borrowed the phrase or whether it is a Persian saying.
Iran’s president knows that the US-Iran war is not popular in the United States. It is not popular in Iran either. While he is aware that Parliament Speaker Mohammed Baqer Ghalibaf has supported talks with the US, he also knows that there are others in the Iranian leadership who want war.
While the United Nations is relatively friendly territory for Iran, Pezeshkian was also entering a lions’ den because – similar to the Irish commander Michael Collins entering into talks with the United Kingdom in 1921 – he risked becoming the fall guy back home.
Pezeshkian's told the UN General Assembly US President Trump is 'a bully'
Pezeshkian said, “It must be understood by President Trump and those who seek to bully us that we are ready for dialogue and diplomacy and negotiations but without the language of force.”
His speech was interpreted by commentators as demonstrating defiance. The Guardian noted that “Masoud Pezeshkian turned the tables on Donald Trump, describing the US as the true bully and terrorist in the Middle East while insisting that Iran had always shown a commitment to the negotiating table.”
US President Donald Trump used bellicose language as he stood at the UN podium, threatening that Iran could be annihilated if it didn’t make a deal.
“The resistance of the Iranian people will only increase in the face of sanctions, increased pressure, increased bullying,” Pezeshkian countered. “It cannot be the case that everyone benefits from the Strait of Hormuz while we are denied access.”
“The US president described us as terrorists. We have been the victims of terrorism,” he said, as reported by the BBC and The Guardian.
The Iranian president held up a photo of the regime’s former supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, who was killed on February 28, along with photos of children killed during the war as the result of a strike on a primary school in Minab and a sports complex in Lamerd. “Our innocent people have been the targets of cowardly attacks and aggressions imposed on our country. And we defended ourselves with utmost strength,” he said.
Online, he faced pushback from Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) members in Iran, while his supporters depicted him as holding up a shield and being shot in the back with arrows. He was considered to be defending Iran while being attacked at home.
Pezeshkian is not the first one to be put in this position. As noted, the Irish leader Collins was also attacked for defending his country and bringing home an agreement. He was subsequently killed in the Irish Civil War, accused of having let the British continue to control Northern Ireland.
Similarly, German officials were accused by Nazi-forerunners of stabbing their country in the back in the 1920s. In another analogy, Cherokee Treaty Party leaders were hunted down and murdered in 1839, four years after they agreed to a deal that caused the Cherokee to be forced westward by the US government.
At the UNGA, Iran’s president sought to be as defiant as possible to avoid being perceived by the IRGC generals as selling out Iran.