I personally believe there is no answer to this question other than Iran's own population.

You cannot believe me , but I can see with my own eye. Every time USA or international community interfere in something all people are suspicious and whole community turn to regime supporters (you may know , being against foreign powers in middle east is one of the effective way to stay in power , and Iran's supreme leader does this in extremely effective way).

If you want to fight you can only throw this regime with only academia and liberal people through a push for reform. There is no other alternative.They cleverly managed to stop and destroy every other opposition in country.Even parties which was more than 100 years old.

I will guarantee you other way of fighting against this regime is not effective and will not effective.You want military invasion ? hell no , they will harm your military very badly , they will turn Iran worse than Vietnam and Germany in second WW.Even after changing regime they will remain active force like Al-Quada , suicidal force in society, which can change or throw government very easily.

But the increasing liberal force in Iran want reform more than ever , they pushing even badly. I am not saying it is going to be successful.No , not yet, but I am saying it can be if west does not provoke people against reform and provide platform for free information flow (which is regime nightmare)

Hang on... the USA sent armed forces 9,500 km across the globe to unilaterally invade a country literally across the border from Iran, and you reckon it's Iran's fault they were killed?

Of course Iran was going to take advantage of the situation. It's their backyard, the USA was thrashing around aimlessly and they saw an opportunity to achieve an objective to their benefit. After all they have to live beside the self-imploding remains of Iraq, they can't just climb into C-17s and say it's over.

US killed a lot more of the American soldiers since. You make it seems like 1000 US soldiers' concerns somehow makes huge difference in the overall geopolitics. That is just propaganda.

Many of those solders were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan invasion. Others were sent home traumatized mentally and physically.

> soldiers killed by Iranian proxies in Iraq

In general mentioning "killing by proxy" and US in the same comment is not a good idea if it is supposed to support the US position. US has killed by proxy a lot more and supported brutal regimes and dictators for many decades on almost all continents.

Speaking generally, in any such situation the challengers appear to be behaving badly because they are disruptive - they have to disrupt the status quo to bring change. In the end, neither side necessarily has a more legitimate claim to power and both would do the same in the other's shoes.

I'm also not sure either side behaves better. Remember the U.S. played a major role in overthrowing a (mostly) democratic Iranian government in the 1950s, then supported a dictator who brutally oppressed the people of Iran for decades. The U.S. supports insurgent groups in and near Iran, sabotages their infrastructure (the nuclear program), imposes crippling economic sanctions, and very likely participated in the assassination of Iranian scientists. I happen to think the actions against Iran's nuclear weapons program are necessary, and Iran's government is generally a danger to many people's lives in the Mideast, but the West can hardly complain about Iran behaving badly. (And don't forget the U.S. misleading the world and invading a neighboring Mideast country for no good reason.)

And how 'bout all the Iranian soldiers killed by our friend and alley, Saddam Hussein, during the Iran-Iraq war? We didn't even get upset at Saddam for the USS Stark incident!

I believe they find in each other an enemy that helps with their narrative, without the detriment of having to deal with the danger of an erratic or unreasonable enemy.

That's not the sort of thing that is easily forgotten and it is one of the cornerstones of West/Islam conflict.

After that it was mostly a downward spiral, with some recent relaxation on both sides of the line.

But that didn't happen in a vacuum either. The U.S. engineered or facilitated the overthrow of a mostly democratic Iranian leader in 1953, and put in his place a mini-dynasty of dictators who brutally oppresssed Iranians, with U.S. support, until that day in 1979. I'm not saying the Iranians should have taken those innocent Americans hostage but they didn't pick the American embassy and take hostages in a random act of violence.

... and I'm sure the 1953 coup didn't happen in a vacuum either.

If you mean "US/Iran resentment" means "US resentment of Iran but not Iranian resentment of the US", I now understand what you intended. Unfortunately, your syntax is undocumented and not defined in the language standard. :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_myth