In a tweet on May 20, Donald Trump said he is “very sad for the Iranian people” that their economy is collapsing.

This statement is self-contradictory.

He has illegally imposed sanctions on Iranians that had been lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal, and even introduced new and harsher ones, and then sheds crocodile tears for them.

Trump cannot deceive the public opinion through such remarks. If he is really concerned about the well-being of the Iranians, why is he threatening to punish any country that buys oil from Iran or trade with it?

If people are facing economic hardship; if they are losing their jobs; if prices have gone up; and if people cannot find medicine to certain types of diseases, it is because of a situation that Trump and other hardliners in his administration have created for them.

How is it possible to accept that Trump is “very sad” for the Iranians but resorts to every unlawful means to strangulate their economy.

This inconsistency in words and behavior does not convince anybody. He himself has clearly acknowledged that he has launched an “economic war” on Iran.

The way the U.S. is behaving Iran is a like a thug who does not allow a person to give food to his children and closes all the pathways to him.

Actually, Trump and his team have adopted the policy of the collective punishment of Iran.

Sanctions are putting the greatest pressure on the low income people and the poor. Sadly enough, sanctions even provide opportunity for certain businesspersons to abuse the situation to hoard the goods, including basic ones, in order to sell them at higher prices.

It is not clear for what crime President Trump, his national security advisor John Bolton, his secretary of state Mike Pompeo, and other extremists in his team are punishing the Iranians.

It is not still conceivable for Iranians in particular and the world in general why Trump quit the nuclear deal and introduced the harshest ever sanctions against them. 

Such bullying and unlawful acts are making ordinary people disappointed about international law and order. They are putting into question the authenticity of the United Nations, especially its most important body - the UN Security Council - that has endorsed the nuclear agreement, officially known as the JCPOA. They are saying that either the law of jungle is dominant in the world that they did not know about it, or that the U.S. is pushing the world toward anarchy.

The people are saying that they overwhelmingly voted for Hassan Rouhani in the 2013 presidential election for his slogans of moderation and a promise to end the nuclear standoff with the West. Again, in the 2017 election, they say they reelected him for clinching the nuclear deal and vowing to remove the remaining sanctions against the country.

But now they ask themselves what has happened that not only the previous sanctions have returned but also new ones have been introduced.

Through such a thoughtless and reckless approaches, Trump and other extremists are radicalizing the ordinary people and badly spoil their views about the United States, even though the U.S. is not synonymous with Trump and those around him.

Also, people are now seeing inconsistency in what Trump says and what he does in practice in his repeated threats of war against Iran. They are noticing that on the one hand Trump claims that he is not seeking war with Iran, and on the other he is deploying troops, bombers and aircraft carriers to the Persian Gulf and the nearby region and urgently orders sale of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who are wishing the worst for Iran.