IRAN/NORTH KOREA/NUCLEAR/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/UN: “When President Trump made his first visit to the United Nations last year, he ridiculed North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, as a suicidal ‘rocket man’ and threatened to ‘totally destroy’ his country. He also vowed to rip up the Iran nuclear deal, which he called an ’embarrassment to the United States.’ This week, he returns to trumpet the overture he has since made to the North Korean leader, whom he now calls ‘very honorable,’ despite evidence that Mr. Kim continues to build a nuclear arsenal. And while he has dealt his long-promised blow to the nuclear deal, he has also said he would ‘always be available’ for a meeting with Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani. For Mr. Trump’s advisers, the biggest risk at the United Nations General Assembly this year is the reverse of what it was last year: not that he will be dangerously undiplomatic, but that he will be overly enthusiastic about engagement with wily adversaries. Far from restraining Mr. Trump’s belligerent tendencies, his senior aides are engaged in a quiet effort to avoid a direct encounter with Iran’s leader that he would be unprepared to handle or concessions that they fear could undermine their effort to keep pressure on North Korea.”
–Mark Landler and David E. Sanger, “Trump at the U.N.: Undiplomatic? This Time, Aides Fear the Opposite,” The New York Times online, September 23, 2018