Pakistan, Sept. 23 -- US President Donald Trump used the UN General Assembly on Tuesday to threaten Iran with destruction, call for its complete economic isolation and, almost simultaneously, predict that Washington and Tehran would strike a deal after the November 3 midterm elections. Pakistan, unexpectedly but not insignificantly, appeared in the same speech: Trump again credited himself with ending the May 2025 Pakistan-India confrontation and singled out Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif as a "terrific man."

Taken separately, these may look like familiar strands of Trumpian rhetoric, but once out together they point towards the more overarching diplomatic question now taking shape in New York: after six months of war and the collapse of ...