Iran at the United Nations

The United Nations, generally a useless joke of an organization in practice, has a powerful opening line in its founding document: 

WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war...

So today we have the very strange spectacle of the President of Iran addressing the United Nations General Assembly a day after the President of the United States threatened to annihilate his country.  The President of Iran on most days is expecting to be killed by a US or Israeli airstrike; today he's in New York City, traveling freely about town under the protection of the US Secret Service. (Yes, really.) 

Apparently there is some diplomacy occurring, with direct talks between the administrations of Iran and the US occurring at the conference.