This is not the views of Iran that the American Government wants you to see. They would prefer that you see a grotesque cartoon version of Iran that makes you scream for wide scale military violence. When the Soviet Union aimed thousands of long-range missiles tipped with nuclear bombs at us, we acted with restraint and some intelligence, like adults, but we apparently no longer have that capacity.
What are the U.S. casualties so far from the Iraq invasion and occupation? It is a huge number that has not yet been calculated, according to this article by Dan Froomkin:
The death count is accurate. But the wounded figure wildly understates the number of American servicemembers who have come back from Iraq less than whole. The true number of military personnel injured over the course of our nine-year-long fiasco in Iraq is in the hundreds of thousands -- maybe even more than half a million -- if you take into account all the men and women who returned from their deployments with traumatic brain injuries, post-traumatic stress, depression, hearing loss, breathing disorders, diseases, and other long-term health problems. We don't have anything close to an exact number, however, because nobody's been keeping track.These numbers, whatever they might be, are a tiny portion of the total human casualties caused by the decision to invade Iraq.
According to Lyric Hughes Hale, the United States is working hard to cultivate a climate of ignorance that will heighten suspicions about Iran and put us on a hair-trigger:
[Author Trita] Parsi faults Obama for allowing the same neoconservatives who brought us the war in Iraq to frame the Iran debate as well, for not creating "a new metric of success in our dealings with Iran." He quotes Albert Einstein: "You cannot prevent and prepare for war at the same time".There are alternatives to war with Iran. For instance, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) offers this alternative:
NIAC opposes war with Iran because military conflict would imperil a democratic future for Iran, devastate Iran’s democracy and human rights movement, undermine U.S. national security, and strengthen hardliners in Iran’s government. NIAC supports a policy of persistent strategic engagement with Iran that includes human rights as a core issue and addresses American and regional security concerns.
Gloria Bilchik sums up the non-event of the end of the Iraq War at Occasional Planet:
Of course, there was no dancing in the streets, no victory parades, no flashy photos of sailors kissing nurses in Times Square. Why would there be? No one is proud of what the U.S. did in—or should we say “to”—Iraq. No valid mission has been accomplished. There’s no victory and nothing to celebrate. It’s just, sort of, over. Poof.
[Rachel] Maddow wondered specifically what the Republican candidates learned from waging what she called "preemptive war." Maddow played clips of the various candidates responding to questions posed to them about a nuclear Iran. Maddow said by exception of Ron Paul, "every single Republican running for president says that he or she would gladly consider starting a preemptive war in the Middle East. No problemo." [Frank] Rich said that "half of [the candidates] don't know where Iran is," and described the candidates' responses as "empty posturing." He added that "they've learned nothing, they don't even care if they've learned anything," from the war in Iraq.