Saying Iran has a better international reputation than the United States is a massive stretch, but yes, this is emotional decision making.
"Emotional" doesn't mean "wrong". If the entire world is making an "emotional" decision to spurn you, it means you done fucked up bad.
The idea that Iran has a worse international reputation is laughable. The US is literally causing a global recession, along with an energy crunch, and likely manmade induced famine that will ruin the lives of 10s of millions of people; or do none of these lives matter because they have the wrong shade of melatonin?
Whatever goodwill the US built from WW2 has been thoroughly destroyed.
I wish I could say we deserve the imperial boomerang but the only people that will continue to suffer, both domestically and abroad, will be innocent civilians while the elites (who are the only beneficiaries of US imperialism) go unpunished.
And this is strictly talking about political governance, US corporations are another layer of evil as well.
Can you find equivalent facts from USA to justify the parallels you are drawing?
That's just scratching the surface. Please note i'm not defending the Iranian government which is monstruous. I'm arguing the USA government is just as monstruous. And nothing will ever justify a country attacking a foreign nation. Remember when attacking Iraq and Afghanistan was supposed to liberate their peoples? See how that turned out.
Let's start with the systemic suppression of Black Americans, starting with slavery, then Jim Crow and segregation, then the systematic destruction of Black political power by branding Black organizations as terrorists, then the CIA pushing drugs in Black-heavy districts across the country.