....
As for our actions "hurting the ordinary citizens of Iran" I guess the mullahs over there need to break out that 150B cash their friend Obama gave them, and hand it out.
I agree the mullahs bare some responsibility, but it's misleading to say Obama gave them this cash, they were Iranian assets which were frozen. You have brought to conversation an interesting pont about the passing of the deal in Iran. But since all other countries involved in the deal are still committed to it, what can be done. Would you accept European countries maintaining the Iran Deal and ignoring any sanctions put in place by the USA on Iran? They have no reason not to stick with it, since they are perfectly satisfied with it and should not have to bow down to America every time a political decision is made, even if they are close allies (in my opinion of course).
The nature of human behavior both by intent and the pursuit of advantage is to create "damned if you do damned if you don't" situations.
It's not misleading to say Obama gave them that cash, that's exactly what he did. I would have given it to the American men and women they held hostage.
I'm not concerned with what other countries do or don't do on this issue, as the entire matter revolved around illegal making of a treaty by Obama. FYI, it may not have been illegal to give them the frozen assets back. Offhand I would guess a US President could do that without consulting the other branches.
However, look at where we are now.
(A) they got their damn money back
(B) they are funding hundreds of cases of international terrorism each year
(C) they are not following the rules of the agreement with the other nations
(D) The US has pulled out of a bad deal but with a statement that we're open to a better deal.
(E) Iran is acting like an angry idiot child.
I don't have any problem with the US handling of this situation. I can see how internationally we might be criticized for it, but trust me on this; the international community does not want US Potus to be able to do whatever he wants. They might want Obama's actions on this issue, but they know they won't want to deal with any random US Potus having such an ability.
One dimension of this problem is that the international community fully expected Hillary to win, and she would have followed this and other illegal actions of Obama faithfully as well as many other batshit crazy things.