The renewal of the sanctions is only the last Iranian bet of the Trump administration.

First of all, the repeal of the Joint Global Action Plan (JCPOA), or the Iranian Nuclear Agreement, is a pact that even the administration, recognizing that Tehran defended. The rejection of the agreement by President Donald Trump leaves not only the issue of nuclear weapons unresolved, he points out that any agreement signed by a president can be canceled by the next government. This is a dangerous sign to send in a context of increased proliferation.

Now the administration is betting that a return to pre-JCPOA sanctions will reduce the regional destabilizing behavior of theocracy – a laudable goal, but one that is not certain. In fact, Tehran might be tempted to do the opposite, according to Dennis Ross, a former Middle East emissary who is now a distinguished member of the Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy.

"Will the sanctions put more pressure on Iran? Yes, they will, "Ross told an editorialist. "Will Iran change its behavior in the face of sanctions? In fact, Ross said that Iran could be even more provocative, in addition to its support for Syrian President Bashar Assad and Hezbollah and Hamas, which the United States rightly views as terrorist groups.

It's not just the Middle East that has moved. European allies are also upset because they associate the Trump administration's threats with their engagement in the Iran deal. "Our collective determination to carry out this work is unshakeable," the envoys from the European Union, the United Kingdom, France and Germany – all stakeholders at the JCPOA said in a statement. -.

The fact that eight countries have been granted derogations, at least temporarily, has the corollary concern of these fervent allies. This list includes China, South Korea and Japan, which may have been spared as they are the key to a nuclear deal in North Korea that the Trump government is seeking. India's giant India is also on the list of renunciations.

European nations, trying to create a workaround, should not have been in a position of direct opposition to the United States. Global unanimity, after all, first pushed Tehran to the negotiating table, and the Iranian leaders could try to exploit the gap created by the American action.

There is also the question of world oil prices. If the United States can significantly reduce Iran's oil exports, it will need additional domestic production as well as free-flowing Saudi oil to close the gap. But this comes amidst a crisis in US-Saudi relations following the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi and Saudi Arabia's brutal tactics during the civil war in Yemen that triggered the worst humanitarian disaster in the world.

Along with Britain, the United States is finally pushing, rightly, to put an end to the crazy toll in Yemen. He should continue to do so, but without releasing the pressure on the kingdom for his role in the Khashoggi case. If the administration is reluctant, Congress should end its complicity by finding its voice – and its backbone – and voting to pressure Riyadh by blocking the sale of weapons, among other measures.

The Iranian government is indeed a malicious force in the region and in the world. But the Iranian people are victims, not bad, in this dynamic. The administration should therefore strive to make it clear that it was not trying to punish Iranian citizens already besieged, but to change the warmongering of its government. Trump made a major mistake tweeting a well-meaning picture saying "Sanctions come" – an obvious reference to the phrase "Winter is coming" from the HBO television series "Game of Thrones".

Sanctions are not a meme pop-culture. They are brutal against ordinary citizens, especially those deprived of their means of subsistence, or even of life where they do not have access to medicines. Through the hubris, the administration explained to Iran that the real enemy was Washington and not Tehran. It was a risk that it was better not to take.