I will complete my 18th year here (close to half my life) shortly, but I doubt I will ever feel at home or "Americanized" ever, unless of course Americanization is the process of gaining an alienated, rootless, community-less existence that feels like your life is on hold elsewhere ;-).
I am with Wojtek entirely, on the positives of life in the West (as at least a first step, I would jump behind anything that makes a Sweden, or even a USA, out of the rest of the world -- assuming it is theoretically feasible). But I am also with the Wojtek who pointed out once to me (I believe now, quite correctly) that he and I would never be accepted (he was talking about the "working class" but it might as well be general society!) because we would always be foreigners.
But putting aside all this pseudo-exotic whining (on my part), there are some inherent differences I see between the USA and the rest of the world (the rest of the West included, but by "rest of the world" I only mean the little I have interacted with people from it). There is a natural individualism and Nietzschean blond beast righteousness to the American psyche, character and personality (coupled with an earnestness that transcends both cynicism and sentimentality) that I do not generally find in others.
Regarding the Iran thing: it is a bit puzzling/amusing to me that those who criticise the Iranian "regime" have little or nothing to write about the neo-lib development in India as it completes its transformation from political "goonda raj" to capitalist goonda raj.
--ravi