A careful reading of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine speech last week raises two contrarian questions. First, is Ukraine Putin’s Iraq? The parallels are striking. As the United States was propelled into the second Iraq war 20 years ago over weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that did not exist, Putin’s manufactured arguments for invading Ukraine to protect the people of Donbas and Crimea from Kyiv’s “neo-nazi” repression resonated with similarly fraudulent arguments. Most Americans accepted the George W. Bush administration’s reasons for the invasion. So too, many Russians believe or have chosen not to reject Putin’s deceit. Further, as George...