>Besides, what's happening in Iran is minuscule compared to what happened during the 'War on Terror'. Play imperial games, win imperial prizes.
Disagree, Those wars were confined to an adversary that was already a few rungs down on the ladder and couldn't crash the world economy. Iran is larger than Iraq + Afghanistan combined, has very large mountainous terrain which has a lot of easy hiding spots for drones/launchers, has the fourth largest collection of trained staff in the field of nuclear science (more than France) and even became space launch capable in 2009.
Thats is like night and day difference between Iraq/Afghanistan.
America needed to push cheap credit to boost confidence after 9/11, oil prices skyrocketed and haven't really come back down, hugely expensive wars were funded on debt. It's arguable that these all directly contributed to the GFC in substantial ways.
Global confidence in American leadership plummetted since these wars, and opened the door for China and 'multi-polarity' to enter the stage which has caused a new wave of proxy wars as powers are trying to get a piece of the new round of global empires. We have Russia making moves (apparently also kickstarted by Gadaffi's death), UAE and Turkey playing games in the Sahel, dicerolled team selections in Libya, China testing the waters in Myanmar and Laos, fuckeries in Venezuela and Cuba, Syria, Azerbaijan....
If anything, Israel have been baited into their current actions just like America were as new and old powers try and undo 'centuries of shame', etc.