President Donald Trump’s remarks on Iran to the UN Security Council on Wednesday were, in many ways, predictable: He accused the Iranian regime of exporting “violence, terror, and turmoil,” and made the case for why the Islamic Republic should never obtain nuclear weapons. And then he said something that wasn’t so predictable. “With all of this said, I want to thank Iran, Russia, and Syria for, at my very strong urging and request, substantially slowing down their attack on Idlib province and the 3 million people who live there, in order to get 35,000 targeted terrorists,” Trump said. “Get the terrorists, but I hope the restraint continues. The world is watching.”
We’ve seen a version of this before. Last year, as Trump took to Twitter to denounce North Korea, he would occasionally throw in a laudatory remark about Kim Jong Un, the North Korean leader. He did the same thing with Iran after withdrawing from the multilateral nuclear agreement in May. His administration has unveiled crippling sanctions and called out Iran’s regional activities and its pursuit of ballistic missiles in order to, in the words of several administration officials, “change its behavior.” But even as Trump and his top officials spent the past two days and the run-up to the UN General Assembly meeting threatening Iran and promising “severe consequences” for anyone who doesn’t comply with U.S. sanctions on the Islamic Republic, Trump tweeted Monday: “Despite requests, I have no plans to meet Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Maybe someday in the future. I am sure he is an absolutely lovely man!” (Rouhani denied he had made such requests.)