Re: where to start
Actually(and I don't mean this in a snarky way), you've mistaken.
1. The religious differences between sunni's & shias just isn't the sort of thing that's ever manifested in the way you see in Iraq. I know, I have family in the region. Before the Iraq invasion, it would never have occurred to an iraqi to wonder if his/her spouse was sunni or shia. The Iraq are a deeply *nationalistic* people: that's one of the reason they were so determined when they attacked their shia neighbor Iran, and again when they attacked their sunni neighbor Kuwait. They don't identify along religious lines: they're nationalist.
2. The Occupying power was *not* represented as being 'nutjobs': true, there was a minor concession of less-then-sainthood, but it was very minor, like child's tantrum. OTOH, the occupied people are represented as nut-jobs, pedophiles, literally Monsters, wife beaters, and murderers. The comic is peddling a false equivalence in an effort to appear 'fair & balanced'.
3. Radical Muslims are a super small minority, like our own radical christians. I'm sure that somewhere in the middle east, there's someone who's showing clips of snakehandlers in Alabama, and trying to convince people that thus are all Christians. Don't believe the hype.
4. I can't speak to your peace corp guy who was speaking to bunch of high school students, but let me just say that his experience is not consistent with my own. And, again, I've *been* there.
5.I've read Perawpolis, as well as Hafiz, Sufi, and Ramadi, as well as probably a 1/2 dozen books on the culture that (chances are very high) you haven't had a chance to. Yes, the ME has problems. But by and large, they're not the simplified problems the talking heads on Fox & Cnn tell you exist. for the real dope, try Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Amy Goodman, or Robert Fisk.
6. The story is being told from the point of view of a monster in a society that is already presumed to be monstrous. It's like Rush Limbaugh wrote a story about teh gay, and told the story from the point of view of a molested boy who grows up to be gay and a would-be murderer, but finally shakes of the evil influences of his his brethren. Hardly a sympathetic rendering, even if it is 'focused' on them.
6. The middle east isn't the desert mix of klingon\dune culture it's being sold as. Pop quiz: which country has the highest percentage of female college graduates? The United States or Iran?