Is Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei trolling Trump?

Tehran, May 12 (IANS) A picture showing Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reading a Persian-language edition of Michael Wolff's book "Fire and Fury", which claims that life in President Donald Trump's White House is chaotic, have led to raised eyebrows.

Khamenei was pictured in a post on his Instagram feed at the Tehran Book Fair on Friday, just three days after ties between the US and Iran took a significant turn for the worse, the BBC reported.

Trump had on Tuesday pulled the US out of a multi-country deal that suspended sanctions on Iran while limiting its nuclear activities, calling the deal "defective at its core", and placing more sanctions on Tehran.

Iran had responded with frustration, but it now appeared to be engaging in a more off-the-cuff manner, the BBC said.

The photo was posted just days after Iran's President Hassan Rouhani appeared to troll the US in the wake of Trump's decision.

Trump had described the book as "fiction" and Wolff as a "fraud", when the book was released in January.

It was described as a "bombshell" by commentators as it raised doubts over Trump's mental health. It claimed that Trump pursued friends' wives and that his daughter Ivanka Trump would mock his hairstyle behind his back.