Even though the hostage crisis that coincided with the IR was daily news in the U.S. until the hostages were finally released just before Reagan's inauguration, very few Americans paid much attention to the war between Iran and Iraq from 1980-1988. Your point about that solidifying the IR is spot on because Saddam was also viewed as a secular American political puppet, not to mention Sunni Arab.

The death toll varies, but it is agreed to be somewhere between 1 million and 2 million, with Iran getting the worst of it. Iran countered Saddam's superior military with human wave tactics by soldiers as young as 15.