Editor's note: Bobby Naderi is a journalist, current affairs commentator, documentary filmmaker and member of the Writers Guild of Great Britain. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

We hear from Western press media that in breach of international protocols and the nuclear deal signed between Iran and the P5+1 (the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany), the United States has targeted Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in new sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Zarif is a veteran diplomat credited with crafting the landmark nuclear deal in 2015, which heralded as ending Iran's international isolation and lifting U.S. sanctions.

Whether for good or bad, the Iran that ultimately rises out of the ashes of these sanctions will be unlike the Iran we know today, and for that, we can thank the Trump administration, not another round of useless sanctions. This is because the U.S. cannot cross the Iranian sea merely by standing and staring at the water. In the long run, it would hit only what it aimed for the destruction of diplomacy and international isolation. After all, the aim was too low, and it reached it.

It's the same sentiment across Europe, where think tanks, lawmakers, traders, and government officials admit that U.S. sanctions are not the best way to deal with Iran. They equally acknowledge that economic and diplomatic warfare has been ineffective, unnecessary, and counter-productive - a costly farce right from the beginning.

In the interim, the Capitol Hill decisionmakers have been powerless to edge Iran's rising influence throughout the Middle East. Some acknowledge that when Trump leaves office, Iran will be a stronger nation than when he took office; Iran will be an undisputed regional power than it was when Trump took office; and Iran will be playing a much more prominent and constructive role in the region and the world than it was before Trump took office.

Of course, the oppressive tactics have, to some extent, altered the modus operandi of finance and commerce in Iran. They have slowed down the socio-economic and political rise of Iran. But they cannot stop it - the fact that the U.S. can no longer afford to deny.

In light of all this, it is pretty much evident that the new sanctions regime against Iran and its top diplomat is short of scientific, technical, legal or justified virtues, and only endorsed by President Trump under immense pressure and coercion from the neocons. The oppressive tactics won't force Iran back to the negotiating tables and have already generated a great deal of resentment on the world stage. Given the rotting business situation in Europe and America, it is still in the best interests of all concerned to continue converging on a diplomatic solution. It is the only viable option left.

As for Iran's "non-negotiable" defense capabilities, developing indigenous missile and anti-missile systems is a key component of Iran's deterrence strategy. The regional tension between Iran and the U.S. goes a long way toward explaining why Iran feels the need for greater defense capabilities. The country was cornered and forced to consider ballistic options because of what the U.S. did to Iraq, Syria, and a host of other countries in the region.

Washington's usual rhetoric of "all options are still on the table" is not forgotten. Iran needs a powerful deterrent of some kind. It has to build a robust traditional army and air force in this dangerous neighborhood. It has to opt for a missile defense program. It's a rational response to Washington's long-standing policy of regime change in Tehran, arming its regional allies, and its unwanted naval presence in the Persian Gulf.

Amid the anti-Iranian hysteria, the Trumpsters have gone out of their way to reiterate the tough policy positions of the Obama administration concerning Iran, underlining that nothing has changed about the sanctions regime and regime change campaign. Tehran has duly noted these developments.

At the United Nations, the breakthrough in Tehran-Washington relations that some had hoped for after the nuclear deal is now dismissed as improbable. While Washington is being criticized for this, Tehran is getting all the praise and support from the international community for sticking to the nuclear deal and for cooperating with the remaining signatories.  

Put narrowly, ratcheting up of pressure from the U.S. that Iran has experienced post-nuclear deal is designed to stop it from the ongoing plan to proceed on the international stage in the new circumstances. The motto is to undermine self-reliance in military field and pursuit of the independent regional and global policies that have been forming since the confrontation with the U.S. escalated.

The new sanctions regime pursued by Washington is nothing but a colonial plan that is envisioning a future Middle East order whose contours harken back to the 20th century. In terms of details, the Americans are now inseparably wed to "economic terrorism" for reasons of self-interest. The same is becoming true of their uneasy sanctions against Iranian officials.

In summation, there is nothing routine about Trump's new gambit to bring the anti-Iran sanctions rule back. Given what we know so far about the Trump team's foreign-policy agenda, the new sanctions move fits a pattern of testing attacks on Iran that can then be imposed on other sovereign states that are not in good terms with Washington. The international civil society should be unsettled because things come apart so quickly when they have been held together with lies and arrogance.

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