Limited time to look it up now, but I know we started arming the Mujahideen (Islamic fundamentalists who were precursors to the Taliban and al-Qaeda) beginning with Carter, I think, but really taking off under Reagan. These pre-Taliban were praised by Ronald Reagan as freedom fighters. During the Reagan involvement, I remember thinking to myself that, bad though the Soviet invasion was, we were stupid to arm fundamentalists because I was sure one day those weapons would be aimed at us. And they eventually were!

When the Soviets withdrew, America did nothing to help rebuild. We simply stopped worrying about it and let the fundamentalists take over and a civil war ensued. It was during that period that Iran became involved against the Taliban and in favor of the Shi'ites. So ALL our pre-9/11 interest in Afghanistan was due to the Cold War...until Clinton. Clinton wanted to and tried to get Osama bin Laden well before 9/11. But by and large our interest had been because of the Cold War.

As far as I know we never had boots on the ground until after 9/11. We fought in Afghanistan by proxy only.

As far as Iraq goes, I think you are right that they were Soviet allies for awhile (their tanks were Soviet made, I believe) while Iran was our ally, under the Shah. But during the Iran/Iraq war we backed Saddam Hussein...in fact Bush senior provided him with supplies that could be used to make WMD, which is why we knew all along what capabilities Hussein did or did not have. That was, as far as I am aware, the only post-Cold War involvement with Iraq we had and our interest was mainly anti-Iran. But Rumsfeld went to Hussein and gave him all he wanted so we could fight our proxy war against Iran.

The opposition to our invasion of Iraq and our pending invasion of Iran I think largely is due to the fact that it makes no sense. The French were fighting side by side with us in Afghanistan and we suddenly pulled up stakes and moved most of our troops to Iraq. The French couldn't figure out what the hell we were doing. The Russians might well oppose us no matter what...they have nothing as a Superpower other than their opposition to us. But France was side by side with us at Tora Bora and it was the French troops the Taliban feared the most.

We lost many allies when we invaded Iraq...and we will lose more if we invade Iran. We forget that Iran WON the war against Iraq. We are mired in Iraq...we have little chance if we invade Iran. I don't even think we can fully occupy Iran if we invade in our current overextended state.