Ukraine is a Russian border state, most of which was under the control of the Soviet Union before 1989, and was artificially redrawn by the Allies after WWII to include Crimea, which WAS part of the Soviet Union, and one of their most strategic oil protection points. The Russians were beyond unhappy with that and have been using every coercive idea they could to convince the World that Crimea is rightfully theirs.

When NATO entered the picture and invited Ukraine, the Western part of Ukraine from where Zelensky comes - already full of resentment of the Soviets before, was ready to risk war over Crimea, and use the NATO invitation as a wedge against Russia. That prompted Putin to threaten the US with nuclear war if we interfered. Clueless social justice warriors in the US were willing to risk it, so here we are on the brink of nuclear war over something that we would have gone ballistic over if it happened to us in Puerto Rico. Brilliant.

So the US equivalent would be something like Puerto Rico, not Iraq.

Iraq was invaded because Saddam Hussein actually threatened to use nuclear weapons. I heard him say it, as did anyone listening to the news that day. To this day it is not proved or disproved that he had them. Anti-Republicans make the unproven claim that “weapons of mass destruction were never in Iraq.” But there was plenty of evidence that there were - especially chemical weapons. And in that region, removing them to Syria would have been fairly straightforward. We had no diplomatic relations with Syria and could not cross that border. ISIS, and dozens of para-military groups could have taken them, including Russia or China. The timing of Pakistan’s and Iran’s nuclear programs suggests that either might have been the beneficiaries of US political infighting. Pakistan has one of the most elite military tactical units on the planet. It would have been well within their wheelhouse to accomplish such a thing.

How you think those are similar, eludes me.