Ukraine

Definitely off topic, and suggestive of decades old axe-grinding whataboutism. But - since it's a topic of apparent interest to you, let me counter in good faith with another OpEd angle for "why was iraq invaded", beyond the simple motive of vanity revenge. Pure speculation, no claim this is fact.

In the initial months and years Post 9-11, there were dozens of AQ cell attacks across the globe, including inside the US and Europe. Gunman squads, workplace murders, bombings across the globe, Spain, Belgium, France, etc. Stopping them all is essentially impossible. The US is also in a position of having to "respond" to deal with the american electorate's bloodlust. You can't just do nothing and bleat on superlatives about moral superioirty. Someone has to die. They are unable to find and stop AQ cells from carrying out attacks on soft targets against civilians, in areas only protected by local law enforcement. So - what do you do? Deploy your army everywhere in your own country to try and interdict attacks after they're already happening? Well, that's not a great plan.

Maybe the conscious decision was to create a global flashpoint in someone else's backyard, which would draw in the irrational hatred of global jihadism, where they could fight directly against the US military, instead of against civilians, and where collateral damage would be the lucky host country's problem. Put simply - invite the jihad inclined global population to come to Iraq and die fighting the US Army instead of having them come to you and kill people in malls, airports and gas stations. Of course the idea is morally reprehensible - criminal even. But it's also logical. That is not the same as saying it was a good idea, before you go down the ad hominem route. Offered only as a possible line of thought of "why was Iraq invaded at all". But - brought up only because of an incongruity with your assertion that Iraq was a vanity revenue project and therefore(?) at least somehow comparable to Putin's decision to invade Ukraine because of it's ongoing insistence on being an independent country.

Now, perhaps you're doing what you seem to be - trying to equate the US actions in Iraq as a moral equivalent to what Russia has done to Ukraine. If that's your angle, well - you be you, i wouldn't try to change your mind. I would only, in that case, say that Russia invaded Ukraine, first in 2014 and again in 2022, without any pretext 9/11 style attack. Russia's simple, naked imperial genocide was not provoked by any Ukrainian-spawned outrage, but if you'd care to make the case that even that is not true, but all means, let's hear it.