Saving the World From the Scourge of a Nuclear Armed Iranian Regime

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres issued a statement on June 21^st following the U.S. military’s precision bombing of Iran’s three critical nuclear sites. His statement exemplifies the UN’s total lack of moral clarity.

Guterres' statement exemplifies the UN’s total lack of moral clarity

“I am gravely alarmed by the use of force by the United States against Iran today,” Secretary General Guterres said. “This is a dangerous escalation in a region already on the edge – and a direct threat to international peace and security.” He added that “There is no military solution. The only path forward is diplomacy. The only hope is peace.”

The Secretary General also spoke to the UN Security Council, which held an emergency meeting on June 22^nd. “Give peace a chance,” he said. “That call was not heeded. Instead, the bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities by the United States marks a perilous turn in a region that is already reeling. We must act – immediately and decisively – to halt the fighting and return to serious, sustained negotiations on the Iran nuclear programme.”

All that Secretary General Guterres said about Iran was to call upon it to “fully respect” the Non-Proliferation Treaty. He did not say a word about how the Iranian regime has exploited “diplomacy” to buy time and camouflage the acceleration of its illicit nuclear weapons development and ballistic missile programs.

Secretary General Guterres’ call for peace at any price is reminiscent of the great appeaser Neville Chamberlain’s foolhardy negotiations with Adolf Hitler before World War II, which Chamberlain claimed had achieved "peace for our time" with Nazi Germany.

As Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon said to reporters before the Security Council meeting, and repeated at the meeting, “You cannot protect peace by appeasing evil.”

“You cannot protect peace by appeasing evil”

The West has given “peace a chance” with the Iranian regime for more than a decade. The Obama and Biden administrations enriched the regime to induce Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to agree to limits on Iran’s uranium enrichments and to inspections by international monitors. The regime gamed the loophole-ridden nuclear deal it negotiated with the Obama administration, which President Trump wisely withdrew the U.S. from during his first term. Hoping to revive the deal, the Biden administration did not enforce the severe sanctions on Iran’s oil exports that President Trump had imposed. Without missing a beat in its enrichment of uranium far beyond the levels needed for purely peaceful purposes, the Iranian regime proceeded to refill its coffers that had plummeted because of President Trump’s maximum economic pressure.

President Trump began his second term determined, as he has said again and again for more than a decade, that Iran must not have any nuclear weapons. But he also made it clear that he considered military force to be a last resort and much preferred a negotiated peaceful solution.

Thus, President Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold off taking any military action against the Iranian regime while the Trump administration pursued negotiations with Iran. President Trump set a 60-day deadline to reach a workable diplomatic solution which would not have all the loopholes in Obama’s disastrous nuclear deal with Iran. Once again, the United States gave “peace a chance” but with sensible conditions and a deadline.

This time the Iranian regime would have to agree to cease its enrichment of uranium altogether and allow unimpeded and reliable verification mechanisms, including 24x7 anytime anywhere inspection by independent international monitors. Instead of negotiating in good faith, the regime dragged its feet and used this time to quickly ramp up its uranium enrichment to a near weapons-grade level.

According to the Associated Press, which had viewed a May 2025 confidential United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report, “as of May 17, Iran has amassed 408.6 kilograms (900.8 pounds) of uranium enriched up to 60%.” This was an increase of nearly 50% since the IAEA’s previous February report. “The 60% enriched material is a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.”

The Iranian regime refused to resume any negotiations with the United States and held instead meaningless talks in Geneva with European leaders

The Trump administration held several rounds of talks with Iranian representatives that were mediated by Oman. But President Trump’s 60th day deadline to reach a nuclear deal arrived with no real progress. This forced Israel’s hand. The Jewish state had no choice in the face of an imminent existential threat of a nuclear armed Iran than to pursue the military alternative before it was too late.

Israel was perfectly justified to commence its military operation when it did before the Iranian regime passed the threshold of being able to imminently produce multiple nuclear weapons, along with long-range ballistic missiles capable of delivering them. The United States did not participate in these Israeli strikes inside Iran. However, when the Iranian regime responded with barrages of drones and ballistic missiles aimed at Israeli population centers, the U.S. helped Israel to intercept as many of them as possible.

At the same time, while Israel and Iran were attacking each other, President Trump still was willing to engage in diplomacy to avoid having to use American military force to put an end to Iran’s imminent nuclear weaponization threat.

The Iranian regime refused to resume any negotiations with the United States and held instead meaningless talks in Geneva with European leaders.

President Trump tried in vain to pursue the diplomatic path with an enemy that has American blood on its hands and whose leaders regularly chant “Death to America.” But all he was getting back in return was the regime’s usual runaround. Time was running out. There was a very short window in which to act to prevent Iran from imminently having the full means to produce multiple nuclear weapons.

"The Iranian regime cannot have a nuclear weapon"

Thus, President Trump finally gave the order to the U.S. military to conduct surgical strikes by B-2 bombers equipped with bunker-buster bombs and by missiles on Iran’s three critical nuclear sites.

As Ambassador Dorothy Shea, Acting U.S. Representative, told the Security Council, “Iran has long obfuscated its nuclear weapons program and stonewalled good-faith efforts in recent negotiations." She added that “the time finally came for the United States, in the defense of its ally and in the defense of our own citizens and interest, to act decisively. The Iranian regime cannot have a nuclear weapon.”

The Iranian regime, not the United States, is the cause of escalating violence and destabilization in the Middle East and beyond. If Iran’s fanatical Islamist leaders decide to retaliate, directly or through its proxies, against American military personnel, assets, or the American people at large with terrorist attacks, Iran will pay a devastating price. It is up to the Iranian regime which path to take – further escalation or peaceful dismantling of its nuclear enrichment program and unfettered international inspections.

The UN Charter begins by declaring that the people of the United Nations are determined to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.”

Secretary General Guterres should assign the blame for the present widening conflict where it belongs – the theocratic Iranian regime. He should stop engaging in moral equivalency. He should recognize that the free world, led by the United States, is battling an evil regime with far-reaching Islamist revolutionary ambitions. Allowing this regime to have nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles capable of delivering them to their targets in the Middle East, Europe, and even New York City where the UN itself has its headquarters, would invite a global catastrophe.

Saving “succeeding generations from the scourge of war” means saving the world from the scourge of a nuclear armed Iranian regime by whatever means necessary.

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