Trump tells UN he may opt to ‘annihilate’ Iran, will rebrand AI ‘superintelligence’
President Donald Trump warned at the UN General Assembly that he may either negotiate a deal with Iran or "annihilate" the Islamic Republic, framing the choice between peace and destruction. He emphasized that the decision would be made after the mid‑term elections, stating he will not run for office and that his focus is preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Trump’s remarks came amid a U.S. and Israeli military confrontation with Iran that has shut down the Strait of Hormuz, raising global energy prices. The speech triggered condemnation from Pope Leo, Catholic bishops, and other world leaders, who called the threat morally unjustifiable, and it coincided with Trump’s lowest foreign‑affairs approval rating.
9 days ago
President Donald Trump used his Sept. 22 address to the 81st United Nations General Assembly to warn that he could either reach a deal with Iran or “annihilate” the Islamic Republic. He also called for artificial intelligence to be officially described as “superintelligence,” while rejecting proposals to slow its development. 1
Trump said he faced a choice between allowing Iran to rebuild through an agreement and destroying the country to prevent it from killing or threatening other nations. He said the central objective was ensuring that Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon. 1
Trump predicted that an agreement could follow the U.S. midterm elections, while insisting that the election would not influence his policy toward Iran. He said he was not personally running in the midterms but would assist the Republican Party. 1
The remarks came during an ongoing U.S.-Israeli war with Iran that began in February, according to the report. Iran’s attacks on shipping and the resulting effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz have contributed to a global rise in energy costs. 1
Trump’s foreign-affairs approval rating had fallen to 29% in a CNN/SSRS survey, with pollsters attributing the decline partly to the Iran war. 1
The renewed threat echoed Trump’s earlier warning that Iran’s “whole civilization” could be wiped out. Pope Leo XIV, Archbishop Paul S. Coakley and other Catholic leaders previously condemned such language, with Coakley stating that destroying an entire civilization and intentionally targeting civilian infrastructure could not be morally justified. 1
Pope Leo has opposed the U.S.-Israeli war as unjust and called for diplomacy, dialogue and the rejection of nuclear weapons. The report also says Trump repeatedly criticized the pope, falsely claiming that Leo supported Iran obtaining nuclear weapons. 1
During the UN speech, Trump proposed replacing the term “artificial intelligence” with “superintelligence” in official U.S. documents and encouraged other countries to adopt the terminology. 1
Trump said the United States would encourage AI development rather than restrict it. His position contrasts with technology leaders who have called for slower development and safety safeguards. 1
The U.S. Catholic bishops’ administrative committee had recently formed a task force focused on protecting human dignity as AI advances. The report also says Pope Leo’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas called for regulatory tools to promote justice and limit the harmful effects of technological power, while U.S. bishops urged Congress to enact AI safeguards. 1
During Trump’s visit to New York, the United States, Denmark and Greenland signed an agreement allowing a larger U.S. military presence on the island. The report notes that Trump had previously discussed acquiring Greenland, including through force, before later ruling out the use of force. 1
Evaluate Catholic teaching on war and AI ethics in contemporary geopolitics
Catholic teaching evaluates war and artificial intelligence through one central principle: the inviolable dignity of every human person and the pursuit of the common good. War is not a normal instrument of policy, while AI is not inherently good or evil; both must be judged by their purposes, methods, consequences, and accountability.
The Church strongly prefers diplomacy, justice, reconciliation, and international cooperation. Gaudium et Spes describes peace not merely as the absence of fighting but as an order founded on justice and love, and calls Christians to build institutions of peace.
Nevertheless, Catholic teaching recognizes a limited right and duty of legitimate defence. Force may be morally permissible when it protects innocent people from grave aggression, peaceful alternatives have genuinely failed, the objective is just, and the means used are proportionate and discriminating. This is not a licence for preventive war, revenge, regime change, territorial expansion, or unlimited retaliation. Catholic teaching raises particular concerns about preventive military action and insists on ethical limits, accountability, and respect for humanitarian law.
The contemporary geopolitical difficulty is that these conditions are hard to establish. States often claim self-defence while pursuing strategic, economic, or ideological goals. Catholic evaluation therefore requires examining:
A defensive war can therefore be legally permitted yet morally unjust if its methods are indiscriminate or excessive. Conversely, refusing to protect victims when effective protection is reasonably possible can also be morally deficient. The obligation is not pacifist passivity, but restrained and accountable defence ordered toward peace.
Nuclear weapons present an especially serious problem. Catholic diplomacy has argued that nuclear deterrence offers only an unstable “illusion of peace” and has called for their elimination because their humanitarian and environmental effects cannot be reconciled easily with human dignity and proportionality.
Catholic teaching does not treat AI as a person or as an autonomous moral agent. It is a human technology whose purposes and meaning remain determined by people. The crucial question is therefore not whether AI is “intelligent,” but who designs it, who controls it, whose interests it serves, and who bears responsibility for its effects.
The principal criteria are:
These principles are explicitly applied to AI by Antiqua et Nova, which states that both the ends and means of AI applications must respect dignity and promote the common good. Pope Leo XIV likewise identifies concentrated control of data, computing power, and regulation as a new form of political and economic asymmetry requiring attention to universal access, worker protection, and justice in the design of systems.
The strongest Catholic concern arises when AI is used to select or attack human targets. Delegating lethal decisions to systems that cannot possess conscience, moral responsibility, or compassion risks transforming persons into statistical objects. Holy See diplomacy has therefore insisted that deadly weapons remain under human control, since only human beings can exercise conscience in accordance with humanitarian norms.
This does not mean every military use of AI is automatically immoral. AI could assist with logistics, evacuation, missile interception, medical care, or identifying threats while reducing civilian danger. But such uses remain morally acceptable only if:
“Human in the loop” should not become a merely formal safeguard in which a person approves machine recommendations too quickly to exercise real judgment. Catholic ethics requires meaningful human control, not symbolic supervision.
Catholic teaching challenges two opposing errors. The first is naïve technological optimism: the belief that superior algorithms will automatically create security. AI can accelerate surveillance, cyberwarfare, disinformation, arms races, and lethal escalation. The second is fatalistic realism: the belief that security competition excuses secrecy, limitless force, or the abandonment of moral law.
A Catholic approach instead calls for:
The available material does not settle every technical question—for example, exactly which autonomous systems could satisfy the requirements of discrimination and proportionality. That remains a matter for further moral, legal, and technical judgment. But the governing conclusion is clear: no state, corporation, military, or algorithm may place strategic advantage above the person made in God’s image. War can be justified only as tightly limited defence, and AI is legitimate only when it remains subordinate to human dignity, conscience, justice, and peace.