> we don't care what militarily irrelevant countries think about our activities because, well, we don't and they don't matter and we don't really care what they think.

Why is the US pleading and whining for help then?

Also, let's not forget that most of the people responsible for murdering ten thousand protesters a few weeks ago are now dead. No matter what else happens in this war, that is an excellent precedent.

Thank you, it's always interesting hearing a USofAian PoV on the stupid things the country has done.

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  Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

> Vietnam - actually has great relations with the US and we won the peace.

They won the peace (and the war). You didn't win shit. You lost, badly. The wound in the American psyche by this defeat will never heal, to the point we have to witness claims such as yours.

> Afghanistan - We wanted to provide schooling for little girls and stuff like that and, well, the population didn't want it. So at some point you cut your losses.

So you lost. Mainly because you went on a military adventure, with unclear goals, with a population you didn't understand. Much like in Vietnam!

And here you are, in Iran.

I think the one lesson you did learn is to heavily control the media and the narrative. Body bags and mission failures are bad press. Lesson learned.

> Vietnam - actually has great relations with the US and we won the peace.

Ironically, I used to teach English in Vietnam and my wife is Vietnamese.

The US didn't win anything. What Americans call the "Vietnam War" was and is called the American War in Vietnam. The country was absolutely decimated and left with scars that are still healing today (see for instance Agent Orange). After the US fled the country, it continued to wage what amounted to an economic war against Vietnam, excluding it from the global economy. Into the 90s, Vietnam was one of the poorest countries in the world. My wife's parents had relatives who survived the war only to starve to death after the war.

Vietnam, largely because of its geography, is a very smart and pragmatic country. It's the only country in the world that has comprehensive strategic relationships with the US, China and Russia.

Relations between the US and Vietnam are good because Vietnam's "bamboo diplomacy" policy allows it to leverage its unique position to extract benefit from all of the superpowers. Relations are not good because of US exceptionalism.

> The US usually starts the war because the US is the only country in the world actually trying to do anything about nefarious actors.

The good old, "I had to beat my wife because she wasn't acting right!"

> Iraq - well they had Saddam and now they have a functioning parliament and things seem to be going a lot better for them.

An estimated 300,000 to 1 million Iraqis died as a result of the war. But yeah, they have a parliament and "things seem to be going a lot better for them."

> Afghanistan - We wanted to provide schooling for little girls and stuff like that and, well, the population didn't want it. So at some point you cut your losses.

Do you actually believe anything you write? The US went into Afghanistan to get bin Laden and attempt to eliminate Afghanistan's role as a safe haven for Al Qaeda. Ironically, through Operation Cyclone, the US directly supported militant Islamic groups during the Soviet war, and where do you think the Taliban came from?

> Iran - We're not going to like invade and occupy Iran, though we could. We're just going to have to keep blowing up their military capabilities until they have a more reasonable government.

Iran has about 4 times the land area and double the population of Iraq. Given the amount of debt the US has and Trump's ecstatic destruction of Pax Americana by defecating on all of America's most important alliances, I think the most optimistic scenario is that the cost of making the Persian Empire again would be the collapse the American Empire.