Paris (Imran Y. CHOUDHRY) :- Former Press Secretary to the President, Former Press Minister to the Embassy of Pakistan to France, Former MD, SRBC Mr. Qamar Bashir analysis : Trump’s UN address and the international rejection surrounding Netanyahu exposed a world increasingly divided between the rule of law and the unrestrained exercise of power.

The United Nations was created after the Second World War to restrain power through law, replace war with diplomacy and give sovereign countries a voice. President Donald Trump’s address to the 81st General Assembly on September 22, 2026, presented a different conception of international order—one in which military dominance, economic control and national power appeared to take precedence over multilateral accountability.

Trump again credited himself with settling eight wars. Fact-checkers found the claim exaggerated: several cases involved temporary ceasefires, while at least two were not wars during his presidency. The continuing US–Iran conflict further complicated his peacemaking claim. His assertion of $21 trillion in new investment commitments also exceeded his administration’s published total of approximately $11.2 trillion, much of it consisting of nonbinding announcements.

The most consequential passage concerned Iran. Trump offered a choice between an agreement allowing Iran to rebuild and the rapid annihilation of the Islamic Republic. He spoke of driving it into a condition with no hope of survival. These words were delivered before the institution was established to prevent aggressive war and mass destruction.

Religious and ethical traditions differ, but humility, restraint and the protection of innocent life are central to many of them. Against that background, contemplating the destruction of an entire country represented the hubris of power, speaking as if it possessed authority over the survival of another civilization. A threat alone is not only a completed war crime, but implementing an indiscriminate campaign against Iran’s population or civilian infrastructure is also a grave violation of international humanitarian law.

Trump’s attack on the International Criminal Court reflected the same conflict over accountability. He called it an anti-American tribunal, described its officials in degrading language and urged all member states to withdraw. The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute, but the claim that the court can never exercise jurisdiction over Americans is incomplete. The ICC says nationals of nonmember states may fall within its jurisdiction when alleged crimes occur on a member state’s territory, when jurisdiction is accepted by the relevant state or after a Security Council referral.

Trump announced that artificial intelligence should be renamed “super intelligence” and rejected international controls. Yet superintelligence already means a hypothetical system exceeding human abilities. Hundreds of researchers and executives have warned that extreme AI risks deserve serious attention. AI offers remarkable benefits, but celebrating its power while dismissing its risks is not responsible governance.

Trump also mocked predictions of climate catastrophe. His administration withdrew from the Paris Agreement and, in January 2026, announced its departure from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Scientists’ central finding is that human emissions are warming the planet and increasing serious risks. America’s withdrawal weakened action on a problem no border can contain

Other economic assertions required similar scrutiny. The official poverty rate declined to 10.2 percent in 2025, but the broader Supplemental Poverty Measure remained around 13.1 percent.

In the Strait of Hormuz, Trump described large numbers of ships moving through regularly, although shipping data recorded only 17 commodity vessels during the cited weekend—far below the prewar average of approximately 125 large commercial vessels per day. The gap between rhetoric and verifiable conditions ran throughout the address.

The most revealing issue, however, concerned Venezuela. Trump publicly said the United States was taking in “billions and billions of dollars” from that country. When asked about reports of $13 billion, he suggested the amount might be even greater and declared that the proceeds had repaid the cost of the American military operation many times over. He further indicated that the money could support the running of the United States, including its military.

Before the House Financial Services Committee, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described the broader Venezuelan arrangement as potentially “one of the largest assets ever to go on the U.S. balance sheet.” He confirmed American control over multiple Venezuelan assets but did not provide lawmakers with a complete total, identify every account or disclose all ultimate beneficiaries.

The central issue is not an accounting technicality but sovereignty and propriety. Venezuela is an independent country whose oil, gold, minerals and other natural resources belong to its people. When a foreign power takes control of revenue and national assets and then describes the arrangement as an asset on its own balance sheet, the boundary between custody and appropriation becomes impossible to ignore. Calling the arrangement management, protection or administration does not erase the reality that Washington determines how the wealth is held, valued and distributed.

Consider the reaction if Britain intervened in the United States, assumed control over American oil revenue, gold or strategic minerals and placed the resulting interests on the British balance sheet. Washington would never accept such an arrangement as benevolent stewardship. Imposing it upon Venezuela establishes an alarming precedent: military superiority allows the stronger country to control the resources and sovereign functions of the weaker one.

The administration maintains that Venezuelan funds remain Venezuelan sovereign property held in American custody. Yet that explanation sits uneasily beside Trump’s assertion that “we” are taking in the money, his claim that it repaid America’s war costs and Bessent’s reference to the US balance sheet. The absence of a complete public accounting makes the contradiction more serious. Whatever legal terminology is ultimately applied, Venezuelans—not foreign governments, corporations or financial intermediaries—should be the beneficiaries of Venezuela’s national wealth.

Trump’s conflict with the press added a constitutional dimension. CNN, MS NOW and Politico journalists were denied White House access, prompting major networks to suspend pooled coverage while the excluded organizations sought judicial relief. At the UN, Trump told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that she should not be there. Viewpoint-based exclusion creates serious constitutional questions; a press free to question power remains indispensable to democratic accountability.

The widely circulated photograph of diplomats leaving Benjamin Netanyahu’s UN address tells another story. Representatives from more than 50 countries walked out as he defended Israel’s Gaza campaign and rejected genocide accusations. The ICC identifies him as allegedly responsible for war crimes, including starvation as a method of warfare.

The walkout documented Israel’s growing diplomatic isolation amid Gaza’s devastation and the continuing denial of Palestinian statehood. Israeli measures expanding control in the occupied West Bank have since been described by one Israeli minister as “de facto sovereignty.” Palestinians, Arab governments, the UN and human-rights organizations argue that settlement expansion further destroys the possibility of a viable two-state solution.

Trump and Netanyahu spoke at General Assembly sessions and faced similar controversies. What connected the two appearances was the same unresolved question: does military superiority place leaders beyond international scrutiny? One faced a mass diplomatic walkout. The other delivered threats and disputed claims that immediately provoked international criticism.

If international law binds only weaker countries, it ceases to function as law and becomes an instrument of power. If a sovereign nation’s assets can be controlled without transparent accounting, independence loses its meaning. If journalists are excluded for unfavorable reporting, democratic scrutiny narrows. The speeches and reactions surrounding Trump and Netanyahu revealed a world still struggling to decide whether power will remain answerable to law, ethics, sovereignty and humanity.

Paris (Imran Y. CHOUDHRY) :- Former Press Secretary to the President, Former Press Minister to the Embassy of Pakistan to France, Former MD, SRBC Mr. Qamar Bashir analysis : Friendship is tested not during ceremonies, state dinners or commercial negotiations, but in moments of danger. When a country faces missiles, drones and attacks on its critical infrastructure, it discovers whether its powerful partner’s security promises carry real weight or are merely diplomatic language.
The contrasting treatment of Israel and Saudi Arabia by the United States has now brought this uncomfortable reality into sharp focus. Washington has repeatedly mobilized its intelligence, naval, air and missile-defence capabilities to protect Israel. Yet when Saudi Arabia requested direct American military assistance against escalating Houthi attacks, President Donald Trump declined to open another front and limited American support largely to intelligence and targeting assistance.
Neither Israel nor Saudi Arabia has a NATO-style mutual-defence treaty with the United States. In practice, however, Israel enjoys something approaching an operational American defence guarantee, while Saudi Arabia remains principally a customer, investor and regional partner whose protection is conditional.
For decades, Israel has received approximately $3.8 billion annually under the ten-year US-Israel security assistance memorandum signed in 2016. That agreement provides $33 billion in Foreign Military Financing and $5 billion for missile defence through fiscal year 2028. After the October 7, 2023, attacks, additional emergency appropriations, weapons transfers and regional US military deployments expanded American support considerably.
This relationship goes far beyond selling weapons. The United States shares high-level intelligence with Israel, replenishes its military stocks, deploys forces to the region and has directly helped intercept missiles and drones aimed at Israeli territory. Regardless of the economic or military cost, Washington has demonstrated that it is prepared to participate actively in Israel’s defence.
Saudi Arabia’s relationship with Washington is fundamentally different. The kingdom receives negligible conventional foreign aid because it is a wealthy country. Instead, it purchases American weapons, finances military cooperation and hosts or supports US strategic infrastructure. Its importance rests on energy, investment, arms contracts, intelligence cooperation and its geographical position—not on an unconditional promise that American forces will defend it.
Saudi Arabia pledged hundreds of billions of dollars in investments, purchases and commercial cooperation with the United States. The White House announced a $600 billion Saudi commitment in May 2025, including a defence-sales framework valued at nearly $142 billion. These headline figures, however, combine investments, procurement plans, memoranda and long-term commercial intentions; they should not all be interpreted as money already transferred into the American economy.
Nevertheless, the scale of Saudi economic engagement is enormous. Riyadh has purchased American aircraft, air-defence systems, missiles, training and technical support while investing in American technology, energy and infrastructure. Yet when the kingdom faced a direct security emergency, commercial importance did not translate into the level of military protection routinely extended to Israel.
The recent Houthi escalation has demonstrated that distinction. Missile and drone attacks have threatened Riyadh, Yanbu and Saudi energy infrastructure. Saudi authorities reported intercepting an attempted ballistic-missile attack on the capital, while the Houthis claimed strikes against several sensitive and petroleum-related targets threatening to Saudi cities and oil-export capacity.⁠
But when Saudi Arabia, which has done much more than Israel has ever done for the USA, sought direct US military action against the Houthis, Trump refused point blank to undertake offensive strikes. President even when attacks unsettled Saudi and other Gulf markets.⁠
Whereas, while defending Israel, Trump is ready to sacrifice its own soldiers and prestige and billions of billions of dollars of expensive military hardware, but when it comes to helping Saudi Arabia against legitimate targets, it started giving lame excuses such as it does not want to become trapped in another prolonged Yemen campaign, risk greater confrontation with Iran or expend scarce interceptors and precision weapons indefinitely. But from Riyadh’s perspective, the refusal exposes the limitations of decades of dependence upon the American security umbrella.
Saudi Arabia is suffering from a war it neither initiated nor initially wanted. Disruption around the Strait of Hormuz threatens its eastern export routes, while Houthi pressure jeopardizes infrastructure and navigation toward the Red Sea. Any sustained interruption of the East-West Pipeline or ports serving those routes would damage Saudi revenue, increase global oil prices and undermine the kingdom’s ambitious development programme.
The kingdom must now ask a difficult question: were American bases and deployments in the Gulf established primarily to protect Gulf states, or to protect wider US interests—including Israel, shipping routes and Washington’s regional military position? The evidence suggests that these facilities do not constitute an automatic guarantee that America will fight whenever a host government comes under attack.
There is an immense possibility that the United States or Israel could have secretly enabled Houthi attacks in order to weaken Saudi Arabia, which is the signature modus of operandi of Israel to fracture and weaken any Muslim country in the middle east which now or in distant future could threaten implementation of Israel’s greater Israel project.
Riyadh must therefore avoid falling into an escalation trap. A widening confrontation with the Houthis would impose greater costs upon Saudi cities, infrastructure and development than upon a movement experienced in surviving air campaigns and operating from difficult terrain. A simultaneous confrontation with Iran would be more dangerous still.
The United States has shown Saudi Arabia the precise limits of their relationship. Washington will sell weapons, provide intelligence and cooperate when American interests coincide with Saudi needs. It may not, however, fight Saudi Arabia’s wars.
That realization should not lead Riyadh toward reckless confrontation. It should lead to strategic independence. If even the world’s greatest military power cannot impose a sustainable solution through force, Saudi Arabia should not sacrifice its economy and national transformation by attempting the same. Its strongest response is to escape the trap, mend regional fences and prevent other powers from deciding when, where and against whom the kingdom must fight.
The most appropriate immediate initiative would be for the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to convene an emergency summit, bringing together Iran, Saudi Arabia, the GCC states, Yemen’s internationally recognized government, representatives of the Houthis and other influential Muslim countries.
The OIC should provide a neutral platform on which every party can state its security concerns, political objectives and conditions for ending hostilities. Through mediation, compromise and reciprocal concessions, the participants could formulate a practical roadmap for de-escalation.
Whenever two or more Muslim countries fight, the result is not merely an individual national loss but a collective loss for the entire Muslim ummah. Even if one side gains more in a negotiated settlement, its gains remain within the Muslim world; continued warfare, by contrast, destroys Muslim lives, economies and strategic strength for the benefit of outside powers.
The Muslim countries must therefore stop exhausting one another and redirect their combined diplomatic, economic and political influence toward securing justice for the Palestinian people, including a viable two-state solution that enables Palestinians to live in freedom, security and dignity.

New York ( Imran Y. CHOUDHRY):- Both sides reviewed Pakistan-France bilateral relations and exchanged views on regional and global developments.

The DPM/FM reiterated Pakistan’s desire to further strengthen bilateral ties, including through enhanced political engagement, trade and investment, educational linkages and people-to-people exchanges.

The DPM/FM appreciated France’s efforts in support of the two-State solution, including its decision to restrict imports of goods from Israeli settlements. Both Ministers stressed that the Palestine issue must remain high on the international agenda and underscored the importance of sustained international efforts towards a just, lasting and comprehensive resolution.

On the situation concerning Iran, both sides exchanged views on the importance of continued diplomatic engagement and regional efforts to address the crisis, and highlighted the importance of implementing the Islamabad MoU. Both Ministers also stressed the need to ensure the safety and free flow of maritime traffic and uninterrupted energy supplies, given the wider economic implications of the disruptions.

The French Foreign Minister appreciated Pakistan’s diplomatic efforts for peace and stability in the region and agreed on the importance of utilizing regional forums to address regional challenges and promote dialogue.

Both sides agreed to maintain close engagement on bilateral and regional matters of mutual interest.