After a week of threatening to strike Iran in retaliation for the government killing protesters, the United States brought its case against the country to the United Nations Security Council on Thursday.
But the United States offered little clarity on what action, if any, it intended to take against Iran.
Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., told the council that President Trump “stands by the brave people of Iran. Period,” adding that the level of violence and repression that Iran has unleashed against its own citizens had repercussions for international peace and stability.
“President Trump is a man of action, not endless talk like we see at the United Nations,” Mr. Waltz said. “He has made it clear all options are on the table to stop the slaughter and no one should know that better than the leadership of the Iranian regime.”
A nationwide uprising has erupted across Iran since late December. Initially fueled by a tanking economy and currency, the unrest has grown to demanding an end to nearly five decades of Islamic theocracy. After initial economic gestures to contain the unrest, Iran’s leaders cracked down violently, shutting down the internet and firing, at times seemingly indiscriminately, on unarmed protesters. An Iranian health ministry official said more than 3,000 people have been killed, including more than 100 security forces. Rights groups like the Norway-based Iran Human Rights said that more than 3,400 had been killed and thousands of others injured.
Mr. Trump has swayed from saying early this month that the United States was “locked and loaded and ready to go,” and this week calling on Iranian protesters to seize government institutions because help was on the way, to announcing diplomatic negotiations were back on the table, then off, and finally suggesting Iran had heeded to his call to stop killing and executing protesters.
Russia and China, permanent members of the Security Council and allies of Iran, condemned the United States, saying it was war mongering and meddling in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation. China said U.S. military intervention would plunge the region into an abyss.
Russia’s ambassador to the U.N., Vasily Nebenzya, said Mr. Trump’s rhetoric on Iran in recent days was “reckless” and amounted to “nothing but incitements to violently overthrow” the government.
Iran’s deputy ambassador to the U.N., Gholamhossein Darzi, delivered a long and fiery speech, striking a more confrontational tone than Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has in recent days. Mr. Araghchi has indicated a willingness to defuse tensions with Washington by returning to negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program.
Mr. Darzi, however, attacked both the United Nations and the United States, labeled protesters in Iran as terrorists, and denied Iran had killed any of them, blaming the United States and Israel for the bloodshed.
“Any act of aggression — direct or indirect — will be met with a decisive, proportionate and lawful response,” Mr. Darzi said.
As he railed, some U.N. officials and diplomats present in the chamber appeared stunned. He also denounced the two well-known opposition activists the United States had invited to address the council, Masih Alinejad and Ahmad Batebi, as being on “Mossad’s payroll,” repeating common tropes used by the government to discredit its critics.
In October, a federal judged sentenced two men who had been hired by Iran in a plot to assassinate Ms. Alinejad in New York, where she lives. In her remarks to the council, she read the names of some of the victims who have been killed in the recent protests. “The list of names goes on and on,” Ms. Alinejad said. “They knew they would face guns and bullets, but they wanted justice.”
Mr. Batebi recounted that when he was a university student in Iran in 1999 he was arrested for participating in protests and sentenced to death. He had drawn the authorities’ ire after a photo of him holding up the bloody shirt of a fellow student landed on the cover of the Economist magazine. He was jailed for eight years, two of which were in solitary confinement, and repeatedly tortured, including in mock executions. He escaped and came to the United States in 2008.
Mr. Batebi told the council that his body remained covered with scars from his time in prison, when interrogators cut him and poured salt over his wounds. “I can show you my body if you don’t believe me right now,” he said.
Turning toward Mr. Darzi, the Iranian representative, he said: “I’m here in front of you — you tried to kill me but you couldn’t. You cannot kill all the people.”
Mr. Darzi appeared to smirk.
“Don’t laugh, sir, don’t laugh at me,” Mr. Batebi said, “because a day will come when you have to go to court and answer to all the things you did.”
Farnaz Fassihi is the United Nations bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of the organization. She also covers Iran and has written about conflict in the Middle East for 15 years.
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