As long as we're not counting on the population to help us, and as long as we're not going to send our troops in without rendering them totally unable to fight back first, I'm OK with this policy.
But they won't be throwing flowers at us.
We attack them, we become the common enemy. No flowers for us. We become too overt in helping an overthrow, be too much of a reminder about something we did in the past. Again, no flowers for us.
Thinking out LOUD about an Arab culture having domination over Persians, we don’t need no stinkin flowers, but we do wonder when Persians are gonna reclaim their balls from the Arabs.
The reverse psychology they’re trying out against the US to draw us in (per this article), which will prop up Iranian nationalism against an outside foe deserves a counter along the same vein.