A senior Tehran cleric said the Iran war will probably be America's last adventure in the region on October 2.

Mohammad Hassan Aboutorabi Fard, who leads the capital's weekly congregational prayers, spoke 10 days after US President Donald Trump told the UN General Assembly he must decide whether to "annihilate the Islamic Republic" or agree a deal. Most of Iran's delegation walked out of the September 22 speech, and US and Iranian negotiators held three hours of mediated talks in New York hours later.

The war began on February 28, when the US and Israel struck Iran and killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. A US naval blockade of Iranian ports has run since April 13. Trump said on September 3 that US munitions stocks were virtually unlimited, rejecting reports that the war was draining them.

Aboutorabi Fard said the opposite. "What happened at the UN General Assembly was the expression of the West's political decline and the sunset of American hegemony," he said. "The decline of the West heralds the end of unilateralism in the world."

He said the Iran war had "exposed unpleasant truths" for Washington. "Washington has learned that it cannot fight a short war against a regional power without depleting its vital stockpiles and munitions," he said. Analysts estimate the US has used more than half its stock of at least four critical munitions, and that rebuilding them could take between one and four years.

He added that a senior fellow at a Washington think tank had concluded the conflict, which he called the "Ramadan war" and the "Hormuz war", was the third US "adventure" in the region after Afghanistan and Iraq. He cited as further evidence the exit of 77 delegations during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's UN address on September 24. Independent counts put the walkout at nearly 70.

He contrasted Trump with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. "Look at the remarks of the US president: they bring a message of insecurity and threat," he said. "Look also at the remarks of the Iranian president, the embodiment of the late leader's thought: they bring a message of security, peace and justice."

He urged Iranians to protect what he described as a victory by preserving national unity and the bond between the people and the state. "This great asset must be preserved with rationality, with faith and with perseverance," he said.