Iran has been terrorizing the entire region, exporting radicalism and funding terrorism. Many of the wars that have occurred in the middle east were caused by Iran. If you look at the history of Israeli attacks, they have essentially been reactions to Iran-backed terrorist attacks against Israel.

Why did Saudi Arabia attack Yemen? For fun? No, they were reacting to Iran-backed terrorist groups. Why did Iraq attack Iran, for fun? No, even back then they were reacting to Iran exporting their terrorism to Iraq.

Their strategy has been to try to look innocent by avoiding direct attacks from Iran and have diplomats that pretend Iran is a nice actor on the international stage, while using their country as a stable foundation for exporting terrorism. This isn't exclusively a strategy for achieving state power, it is a religious imperative to achieve a radical vision of global Islam.

The US has worked with the Middle East for many years to settle on some kind of peace after thousands of years of conflict (which was also the case for Europe). There can never be peace as long as Iran manufactures conflict regularly.

When the US does things, there is usually a strong and valuable logic behind it, even if it is not expressed publicly. For Iran, the reasons tend to be religious. Their goals and behaviors are not the same as you would expect from a rational state actor.

> and like your definition of terrorists, the US/Israel are using us (US citizens) as human shields.

No they don't, that is ridiculous. In what way could US citizens take collateral damage in this war? They aren't in harms way at all. You could argue they use Israeli and Arab civilians as human shields since they are the ones taking the attacks, but not American ones. And even for the Arabs that has US bases there are no girl schools inside those US bases like Iran puts in theirs. (the girl school was inside the walls of an irgc base, probably an old repurposed house)