If anyone doubted that the United States is under new management, President Donald Trump disabused them of that notion in his first United Nations General Assembly speech. Trump has said what it said before the United Nations before, but no American president said those things inside the General Assembly meeting hall. Trump was employing diplomacy as a fully charged phaser bank, to use a reference from “Star Trek.”
Trump threatens to destroy North Korea
Most of the media are noting the president’s threat to destroy North Korea to stop its drive to create a nuclear arsenal and the missiles to deliver it.
He was very blunt. The United Nations will restrain Kim Jong-un, or the United States will do it, and it will not be pretty. He used his new signature term for the North Korean leader, “Rocket Man” with no apologies to Elton John and declared him to be on a suicide mission.
Iran gets some attention as well
Least it feels neglected, the Islamic Republic of Iran got some attention as well. Trump demanded that Iran free American and other nationals that it has unjustly detained. He also, in a pointed reference to Iran’s drive for a nuclear arsenal, demanded that the country be made to stop its “pursuit of death and destruction.” He referred to the long-suffering people of Iran who have been ground down by the regime and hinted that the 2015 nuclear weapons deal would not last for much longer.
About socialism and radical Islam
Trump also turned his rhetoric on Venezuela, a country suffering from the end stage of socialism. He stated, “The problem in Venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented, but that socialism has been faithfully implemented.”
Trump also used the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism” to describe the threat that has haunted the world since before 9/11.
He drew out that sentence to make certain that everyone heard what he was saying. His use of the phrase was a direct rebuke to his predecessor who refused to use it, using mealy-mouthed terms such as “workplace violence” to describe terrorist attacks.
The reaction
No doubt, enemies of the United States were shocked at having to listen to such language, used as they are to being talked to in more diplomatic language.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on the other hand, likely thought he had died and gone to heaven. He tweeted that he had never heard a UN speech that was “so brave and so sharp." John Bolton, George W. Bush’s UN ambassador, also pronounced himself well pleased. The media and political reaction from around the world are just beginning, however.
