Level 1 — Absolute Beginner
World leaders are in New York this week. They are at a big meeting called the United Nations General Assembly. Every country sends a leader to speak.
President Trump speaks about Iran. He says he has a big decision. He can make a deal with Iran. Or he can attack Iran.
Trump says Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. He says Iran is waiting on purpose. He thinks a deal will come after the elections in November.
Many Americans are not happy. A new poll says 71 percent do not like his foreign policy. Most people say the war costs too much money and too many lives.
- leader
- a person who is in charge of a country or group
- meeting
- a time when people come together to talk
- decision
- a choice you make after thinking
- deal
- an agreement between two sides
- attack
- to use force or weapons against someone
- weapon
- a tool used to hurt or fight, like a gun or a bomb
- poll
- a study that asks many people what they think
- war
- a long fight between countries or armies
Level 2 — Elementary
Leaders from almost every country in the world arrived in New York this week for the 81st United Nations General Assembly. The war between the United States and Iran was the main subject in almost every speech and private meeting.
When President Donald Trump took the stage on Tuesday, September 22, he described his situation as a choice between two very different paths. He said he must decide whether to make a deal with Iran or to destroy the Islamic Republic completely. Whatever he chooses, he added, the result will be that Iran never builds a nuclear weapon.
Trump also claimed that Iranian negotiators are slowing the talks on purpose, because they hope the American midterm elections in November will weaken him. He predicted that an agreement would finally be signed after those elections, although he has made similar predictions several times during the conflict.
Voters at home appear tired of the war. A poll published the same day showed that 71 percent of Americans disapprove of the way he is handling foreign policy, his worst result on that question. About three out of four people said the war with Iran is not worth its human and financial cost.
- assembly
- a large group of people who meet for a special purpose
- subject
- the thing that people are talking or writing about
- path
- a way forward, or one possible choice
- destroy
- to damage something so badly that it no longer exists
- negotiator
- a person whose job is to discuss terms and reach an agreement
- on purpose
- done because someone wanted to do it, not by accident
- disapprove
- to think that something is bad or wrong
- worth
- good enough to justify the cost or effort
Level 3 — Intermediate
The 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly opened this week under the shadow of a war that has already reshaped global shipping, energy prices and diplomatic alliances. Delegates who came to New York expecting speeches about climate and development found instead that almost every corridor conversation returned to the same question: how the conflict between the United States and Iran will end.
President Donald Trump answered that question on Tuesday in unusually blunt terms. Framing the moment as a personal choice rather than a policy debate, he told the chamber that he must decide whether a deal will be made with Iran or whether he will annihilate the Islamic Republic. He insisted that either path leads to the same destination, which is an Iran that never obtains a nuclear weapon.
His explanation for the delay was political. Iranian negotiators, he argued, are deliberately dragging out the talks in the belief that the American midterm elections in November will leave him weaker and more willing to compromise. He therefore expects an agreement only after those votes are counted, a forecast he has offered more than once since the fighting began.
Domestic opinion is moving against him. A survey released on the same day found that 71 percent of registered voters disapprove of his handling of foreign policy, the lowest rating he has recorded on that issue, and roughly three quarters said the war is not worth its human and financial cost. Oil markets, meanwhile, read the speech as a sign that diplomacy is still alive, and crude prices fell sharply on reports that Tehran might reopen the Strait of Hormuz if American military pressure eases.
- session
- a formal period during which an official body meets
- delegate
- a person sent to represent a country or group at a meeting
- blunt
- saying something directly, without softening it
- annihilate
- to destroy something completely
- obtain
- to get or acquire something
- drag out
- to make something last longer than necessary
- compromise
- to settle an argument by each side giving up part of what it wants
- forecast
- a statement about what someone expects to happen
Level 4 — Advanced
There is a particular kind of theatre to the General Assembly's opening week, in which the formal architecture of multilateralism plays host to speeches that are, almost without exception, aimed at domestic audiences. The 81st session was no exception, except that this year the ambient anxiety had a single source. A war between the United States and Iran has already rerouted tanker traffic, repriced energy across three continents and strained alliances that had survived far longer provocations, and the delegates gathered in New York wanted above all to know how it ends.
President Donald Trump offered them an answer that was less a policy than a binary. He told the chamber that he faces a decision over whether a deal will be made with Iran or whether he will annihilate the Islamic Republic, and that the two outcomes converge on a single guarantee: that Tehran never acquires a nuclear weapon. The rhetorical construction is characteristic. It converts a negotiation with many variables into a choice between two absolutes, and it locates the agency for that choice in one man rather than in any institution.
The timetable he sketched was frankly electoral. Iranian negotiators, in his telling, are protracting the talks in the expectation that November's midterm elections will diminish his leverage and soften his terms, and so he anticipates a settlement only once those results are known. Analysts noted that this is at least the third occasion on which he has placed the decisive moment just beyond the next political horizon, a pattern that tends to erode the credibility of the deadline rather than the resolve behind it.
Domestically the ground is shifting beneath him. Polling released the same afternoon put disapproval of his foreign policy at 71 percent, the worst figure of his presidency on that measure, with close to three quarters of respondents judging the war not worth its human and financial cost. Commodity traders, reading the speech more optimistically than voters did, treated it as evidence that a diplomatic track survives, and crude benchmarks fell sharply amid reports that Tehran might reopen the Strait of Hormuz within a week if Washington eased its military posture.
- multilateralism
- the practice of several countries working together on shared problems
- ambient
- existing in the surrounding atmosphere or background
- provocation
- an action intended to make someone angry or to cause conflict
- binary
- a situation presented as having only two possible options
- converge
- to come together at the same point or result
- protract
- to make something last longer than it needs to
- leverage
- the power to influence an outcome or a negotiation
- benchmark
- a standard price or measure used for comparison
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