The US president will preside over his first session of the body and differences over Iran policy are certain to feature prominently

Donald Trump will today preside over his first security council session, where he is expected to face determined opposition from his fellow leaders over his efforts to isolate Iran and his rejection of globalism.

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The US envoy to the UN, Nikki Haley, has predicted the session would be “the most watched security council meeting ever”, but it also risks further deepening perceptions of Trump’s own increasing isolation on the world stage, a day after the UN general assembly openly laughed at the former reality show host’s boasts about his achievements.

US allies around the table, represented primarily by the UK’s prime minister, Theresa May and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, side with Russia and China in their opposition to Trump’s withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, and are uneasy about US sabre-rattling towards Tehran.

Macron meanwhile, used his own address to the UN general assembly on Tuesday to present himself as the antithesis to Trump and entrench his status as an alternative leader of the western world, flatly rejecting Trump’s appeal for national “patriotism” to take precedence over multilateral action.

“Nationalism always leads to defeat,” Macron said. “If courage is lacking in the defense of fundamental principles, international order becomes fragile and this can lead as we have already seen twice, to global war. We saw that with our very own eyes.”

While Trump’s address had been greeted with a mix of giggles, murmuring, long periods of silence, and with polite applause at the end, the French president’s speech was given a rapturous reception.

Trump is chairing the meeting because the US currently holds the rotating presidency of the security council. The original plan was to devote the session to Iran, to allow Trump to highlight Iran’s role in the Syrian and Yemeni conflict, its missile developments and the full range of what Washington calls Tehran’s malign activities.

However, the administration came to fear that would also highlight the transatlantic rifts over the Iran nuclear deal, from which Trump withdrew in May, as his fellow leaders are equally determined to speak in defence of the agreement. The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, would also have had a right to attend and to speak in a session exclusively about his country.

The subject of Wednesday’s session has therefore been widened to counter-proliferation, including North Korea, but Iran is still likely to be a central point of contention.

The Trump administration has set out its campaign against Iran at the UN general assembly, producing a special booklet, Outlaw Regime, chronicling Iran’s “destructive activities”.

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The administration sent several senior officials to a conference organised by anti-Tehran activists, United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI), to denounce the Iranian government.

The national security adviser, John Bolton, issued a serious of threats, saying that Iran would have “hell to pay” if it did not change its behaviour. He singled out the commander of the external arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Qassem Soleimani, who has led the Iranian military campaign in Syria in support of the Assad regime, and IRGC operations in Iraq.

“We will use every tool available to pursue Soleimani and others like him,” Bolton said. “Iran’s leadership will no longer enjoy a life of security and luxury while their people suffer and starve.”

Bolton stressed that the campaign against Soleimani would focus on funding and arms supplies. But asked asked for clarification later, the US envoy on Iran and the head of the state department Iran Action Group, Brian Hook, did not rule out military action. Asked what Bolton meant by using “every available tool” against Soleimani, Hook said: “I think it speaks for itself.”

“So looking at Iraq with Soleimani, the IRGC is responsible for so much violence and bloodshed in the Middle East, and as part of restoring our deterrence, we will be focusing on him and his operations,” Hook said.

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In his own remarks to the UANI conference, the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said that an Iranian-backed militia was responsible for rocket attacks against the US embassy compound in Baghdad and the US consulate in Basra, in southern Iraq. He warned that the US would response directly against Iran in the event of another such attack from Iran, or a militia deemed to be an Iranian proxy.

“The United States will hold the regime in Tehran accountable for any attack that results in injury to our personnel or damage to our facilities. America will respond swiftly and decisively in defense of American lives, and we will respond against the source of the attack on American interests.”

The National Iranian American Council condemned the administration’s rhetoric, noting Bolton’s role in the buildup to the ill-fated Iraq invasion in 2003.

“No serious person believes that Bolton and this administration is working towards a diplomatic end with Iran,” the NIAC statement said. “He earned his credentials in the Bush White House as an Iraq war architect, he made his intentions for war with Iran well-known as a private citizen, and he is now putting that plan into action.”