If there is one thing we can be sure of about Donald Trump’s affection for Twitter diplomacy, it’s that it generates considerably more heat than light. His latest outburst aimed at Iran has elicited widespread reproach, most obviously from Trump critics in the US and Europe. Experience should have taught us by now that this is just Trump being Trump; although given the swift endorsement by his national security adviser, John Bolton – a man known for his visceral dislike of the Islamic Republic – the latest threat betrays loathing for a state that, lest we forget, continues to formally condemn the US as the “Great Satan”, encourages the gleeful burning of the Stars and Stripes and has now taken to abducting its dual citizens (though at least one is a full US national). Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani – in a clear attempt to reinstate himself with his country’s hardliners – has more recently threatened to retaliate for the sanctioning of Iranian oil sales with the closure of the Straits of Hormuz, a clear red line for Washington and a threat that Barack Obama previously responded to with quiet diplomacy.

The official Iranian response to Trump’s tweet has been muted, though we can expect a more robust response from the Revolutionary Guards and the supreme leader in due course. The foreign minister, Javad Zarif, settled for a somewhat awkward Twitter response, complete with nationalist tropes, noting that Iran had been around long enough to witness the rise and fall of empires, including that of Iran itself.

It is worth remembering that many Iranians were sanguine about Trump’s election, echoing their view of their Russian allies. Here was a man with whom a deal could be done. This response reflects a long-held Iranian view that Republicans are easier to deal with than Democrats, less beholden to such inconvenient ideas as human rights, and more attuned to the needs of the oil industry. They were further encouraged in this belief by the view that a Hillary Clinton presidency posed a bigger threat because she would be able to build alliances. Trump – as the voracious reading of his books in Farsi translation suggest – seemed altogether more familiar with an enthusiasm for the “art of the deal”. At the same time there is little doubt that Trump’s unpredictability has unnerved many in the Iranian regime. It is striking that the regular missile launches and provocations in the Gulf that characterised the last year of the Obama presidency have subsided significantly.

There is also little doubt that renewed verbal confrontation with the United States has given hardliners in Iran cover for an entrenchment of their power. But we should take care in suggesting a causal relationship between US actions and developments inside Iran – a conceit widely held in Washington itself. Iran has serious structural economic problems and a chronic lack of infrastructural investment, symbolised by the widespread water shortage, and these things have been decades in the making. They cannot, as Iranians are only too aware, be laid at the door of the “Great Satan”. There is no love lost for Trump, but as the continuing street demonstrations indicate, this does not translate into any popular affection for an Iranian regime that has been found wanting on the most basic issues. Trump may have poured on a heavy dose of salt, but the wound, as far as many Iranians are concerned, is largely self-inflicted.

• Ali Ansari is chair of Middle East studies at the University of St Andrews