Returning to the ​world body on Tuesday, Trump will face a deeply skeptical audience increasingly rattled by six months of war between US forces and an emboldened Iran, growing regional instability and a nuclear threat ‌that has not disappeared despite his claims.

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Though battered militarily and economically, Tehran has remained defiant, obstructing oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz and in recent days gaining new leverage as its Houthi allies in Yemen tighten their grip on a Red Sea chokepoint, further spiking global energy prices.

The lightning advance by the Houthi militants has put Trump in an ever-tighter bind over the unpopular conflict, dealt a blow to US ally Saudi Arabia and exposed the limits of Washington’s ability to protect its regional partners.

Most European and Asian allies have spurned Trump's demands for ​assistance in a conflict he launched without consulting them and which has had damaging fallout for their economies.


And with US gasoline prices high and his approval ratings low, Trump could pay a price in November’s midterm elections ​when his Republican Party’s control of Congress is at risk.

“We are seeing what happens when a president launches a war of choice without anticipating the unintended consequences,” said Aaron ⁠David Miller, a former adviser on Middle East policy to Republican and Democratic administrations.

In Trump’s speech to the annual gathering of heads of state and government in New York, he is likely again to frame as a victory a ​military campaign he promised would be over in weeks.

The conflict has instead hardened into an uneasy stalemate that has failed to achieve Trump’s shifting goals while depleting the Pentagon's missile stockpiles.

Trump’s problems have only deepened since Houthi fighters overcame Saudi-backed Yemeni government ​forces, sweeping down the Red Sea coast and seizing islands at the mouth of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a crucial shipping corridor that allows Iran to further threaten global oil supplies.