Crisis and Opportunity at the UN

UN Secretary-General António Guterres opens the general debate of the General Assembly’s 81st session on 22 September 2026. Credit: UN Photo/Loey FelipeOpinion by Andrew Firmin (london)Wednesday, October 14, 2026Inter Press Service LONDON, October 14 (IPS) - At this year’s highest-profile UN event, Donald Trump publicly mused over his ‘big decision’ about whether to ‘annihilate’ Iran. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as dozens of delegates walked out, branded those who condemn genocide in Gaza ‘moral cowards’. The UN was established in the devastating aftermath of the Second World War with the explicit aim to ‘save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’. Its charter commits all UN members to settling disputes peacefully. Yet at the UN General Assembly’s annual high-level session, held in September, several national leaders used a podium meant for peace and international cooperation to justify and threaten violence.The bellicose tone of many speeches signalled a broader crisis of multilateralism. Autocrats are throwing their weight around, determined to prove that might makes right, or, as Trump put it when boasting of US control of Venezuelan oil, ‘to the victor ...