Was Saddam Hussein as bad as he sounded?
He wasn't, actually.

Now don't get me wrong; He used chemical weapons on his own people. He threatened (through a spokeman) to nuke Israel. He lied, he cheated, he stole, and his mama dressed him funny. But he was also no worse than many of his world leader peers.

No. The issue was that he broke the post-WWII Rules For Invading A Sovereign Country. Like most game rules these are arbitrary, are biased in favor of whoever is already winning, and are subject to revision. But also like other game rules we either follow them or make sure no one is looking when we cheat. Otherwise all the other players turn against you and you lose your seat at the table.

Since another regional power recently made a similar mistake, this seems like a good time to revisit them.

You may invade another country under the following conditions:

1• Someone, somewhere in the country invites you to do so. This doesn't have to be a majority. Just someone.

2• You must give a semi-plausible security or humanitarian reason. This doesn't have to be your real reason, or even true, but it has to not be immediately and comprehensively disprovable.

3• You can't keep the territory you conquer. That doesn't mean you have to set up a legitimate democracy; It just means you can't add it to your national territory on a map. You can even leave a blatant puppet government, so long as it is headed by and comprised mostly of local residents.

4• Prior violations of #3 since WWII will result in losing your foreign intervention privileges.

5• Having nuclear weapons means you get the benefit of the doubt in ambiguous cases.
Having the UN's blessing means you can occupy longer.

6• America's blessing is an acceptable substitute.

Saddam violated #2 & #3, and tried but failed to obtain the benefits of #5 & #6.

More recently Putin violated #3, #4, and didn't bother with #6.

Follow these six easy rules and you too can rock out with your Glock out, asserting dominance over other countries near and far!

Fail to play by the rules and the world will come for you.