A lot of wars it did not really start; if you blame the US for Vietnam (instead of the french), you also have to count South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transistria and Chechnya 1 & 2 on the Russian side.
The industrialized nations that actually did laudably little warmongering in the last half centuries are (somewhat ironically) the core WW2-axis powers: Italy, Austria, Germany, Japan; despite having plenty of "opportunities" to start something (e.g. over Königsberg/Silesia, Dalmatia, Kuril islands, ...)
I'm all for saying french caused a lot of death and destruction, but the Vietnam war was clearly created by the US during the 1954 Geneva Conference. Also, US-British involvement in France politics during the Indochina war (under Truman: Roosevelt didn't had to deal with Dixiecrats and give racist idiots a new enemy) probably made the 'sale guerre' last way longer that it had to.
Manly men (in their own heads at least) try to use testosterone to remove the thorn in their side, find things out the hard way. But although the finding out period is expensive, other people pay for it, so they are very slow learners.
Russia is trying to occupy land using ground troops and failing. Right tool for the job, but the tool is rotten.
The US is trying to enact strategic change by (competent) airpower, which in 100 years of airpower has never worked. No matter how potent that tool, it is the wrong one for the job.
- The greatest enemy of Iranian regime are the Iranian people. They want to get rid of that government. Unlike the Ukrainians. Thousands of Iranian protesters were gunned down by their own government in December/January.
- Iran is not "winning" by holding the line in conventional warfare (like Ukraine). They would not stand a chance. They're winning because they're pain tolerance for collateral damage is higher than the US tolerance for high oil prices.
- Ukraine was attacked completely unprovoked, while Iran is a terror state and the single biggest reason for instability in the middle east.
“He talked to me as a mother who lost her son,” said Shari Feehan, Lt Feehan’s mother. “He saw the devastation. He witnessed that, and so he knows.”
.... Mmm