so your claim relies on the idea that every American is an idiot?

Sort of: not idiot in the sense of trying putting the triangle blocks in the circle hole but idiot in the sense of the majority of people are to preoccupied and busy to study enough history and polisci to make informed political decisions. And I'm not targeting America specifically, this is a problem in many many countries, including Iran. It's just that because of this, America was taken advantage of more compared to other countries.

While news organizations and human rights organizations do have a publicity side to it there is a limit to what they are allowed to do, they can't simply claim whatever they wish, especially verifiable things that can be construed as libel.

But they're not verifiable! For instance, I while back a 'letter' got published from the woman who killed a guy then claimed to do it in self defense of rape. I spent days investigating it and the earliest source was a blog post on a neo-con thinktank with no sources. That letter got published in at least a dozen famous 'news' websites. Something like a month after it got its massive media attention, the Guardian published an article explaining why it was bullshit.

also that 70% thing was from a poll of a 1003 readers of a specific paper, not exactly a varied sample pool.

Well the poll isn't exactly a beacon of accuracy but the specific paper wasn't Illiterate Redneck Weekly, it was by USA Today. Even as late as 2007, polling showed that over 40% of Americans think Saddam was personally responsible for 9/11.

also scientific growth isn't that big of a indicator of a successful country

The fastest scientific growth wouldn't mean anything if a country like Vanuatu that went from 2 published articles to 6 then claimed they're first in growth. Iran was ranked 17th in science production in 2012.