Based on Othello's behavior, is he a victim?

It's pretty easy to assume that yes of course Othello is simply the victim of Iago's machinations. Iago sets out to destroy him with a series of lies, and by the end of the play he has managed to ruin Othello’s life and drive him to suicide. Othello clearly seems to be the victim here.

However it's actually more complicated than that. Iago deceives Othello, of course, but Othello also makes choices about who to trust and what sounds credible. He puts a lot of faith in things that Iago tells him without verification and without stopping to consider what he’s told. He does not, for instance, wonder how it could be possible for Desdemona and Cassio to carry out an affair in the extremely limited time that Desdemona has been in Cyprus – the timing does not make much sense, but Othello believes it absolutely. Even if the affair were real, Othello chooses how to handle it: murdering Desdemona is a choice, not something he is forced to do. He is a victim, but he is not a puppet; he makes decisions and he chooses how to go about dealing with the information that he's given, both true and false.