GR,
You laid that out very thoughtfully, and much better than I could have.
Thank you for pointing out the connection between Iran's behavior now as opposed to their behavior before Saddam was deposed. It doesn't get talked about enough (or at all really), because if we can make Saddam the 100% bogeyman in every way, then it makes all the casualties somehow "worth it," which leads me to....
I think the thing that bothers me most, that you so succinctly stated was how many Iraqis have died...at our hands, at each other's hands since the infighting reached breaking point etc.
Many point out the terrible things that Saddam did to some of his own people.
But those are the people who are differentiating killing. They are implying that it is somehow noble and somehow worthy and somehow right to kill Iraqis in a war we started of our own volition. That those deaths are somehow more honorable or more easily written off as collateral damage because they weren't at the hands of a brutal dictator. A dead Iraqi who is dead because of violent force is a dead Iraqi who is dead because of violent force.
I don't like to parse words and try to talk around the fact that Iraqi deaths because of the United States are somehow even remotely more acceptable than a death at the hands of a dictator.
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