When the American/Israeli attack on Iran hit the news, and the world heard that supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had left office in a body bag, the Iranian diaspora was jubilant. And for very good reason after so many had suffered for so long under a brutal regime.

But welcoming the Americans into your country as liberators is a risky business. The Americans invaded South Vietnam to protect it from communism, and estimates of civilian deaths ran into the millions. The country was largely destroyed and left with a communist government.

In 2003 they invaded Iraq to liberate it from Saddam Hussein, which they did, but hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died, much of their (and the world’s) heritage was stolen or destroyed, and the world was gifted with ISIS, the worst terrorist organization in history.

Then came Afghanistan. The Americans, with a little help from their friends, decided to liberate the country from terrorists which, it turned out, departed before they got there. Tens of thousands of civilians died, and the country was left with the world’s most oppressive theocracy.

Former American president Ronald Reagan once stated, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” When it’s the American government here to help liberate you, terror may indeed be appropriate, something for the Iranian diaspora to consider.

So far (March 20th) the civilian dead in Iran number 1,444. This includes 168 children who were killed on the first day of the war in a missile attack on the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school. The numbers will escalate as the violence continues, particularly with the Americans aided by the very proficient Israelis, fresh off a genocide in Gaza. The Israelis are simultaneously killing dozens of innocents in Lebanon.

And the deaths don’t stop when the shooting does. The injured greatly outnumber the dead, and scores will suffer shortened and diminished lives. Then there are those who will die because of destroyed facilities such as clinics and hospitals. Already a number of Iranian healthcare workers have been killed.

And then there are the noxious effects caused by the destruction itself. For example, the bombing of fuel depots and refineries in Tehran sent black smoke blanketing the skies above the city. The soot and chemicals released came down as “black rain.” Toxic hydrocarbons, sulphur oxides and nitrogen compounds can cause chemical burns and lung damage, and even trigger heart attacks or strokes in people with pre-existing disorders. Babies and young children are particularly vulnerable. The effect borders on chemical warfare.

The Americans have a lot to offer in helping struggling nations develop economically and politically; they can be highly beneficial friends when they pursue peaceful approaches. But all that military prowess and hardware, the mightiest in the world, is hard to resist. And for a narcissist like Trump, it is proving irresistible.

Nor, we might assume, did he allow the probability of events such as the killing of dozens of schoolgirls or the poisoning of Tehran’s population with toxic gasses—collateral damage—deter him. Do nations marching to war ever include the inevitable suffering and slaughter of innocents in their calculations?

And what, exactly, will all this killing and destruction achieve? A democratic regime or something even worse than the present theocracy? Judging from history, from Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, it will more likely be the latter. The Iranian government’s choice of a new leader—Ali Khamenei’s son—is not a good sign.

Perhaps a miracle will occur, and somehow Iranians will emerge from their misery with a civilized government and something less than a destroyed country. Possible also is the worst imaginable outcome—yet another American quagmire.