A burned vehicle at the scene of a fierce predawn battle in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Feb. 26. The Ukrainian military, outmanned and outgunned, waged ferocious, close-range battles on Saturday to maintain control of the capital, Kyiv, and other cities around the country as intense street fighting broke out on the third day of the Russian invasion. (LYNSEY ADDARIO, New York Times/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

In 1992, political scientist Francis Fukuyama published "The End of History and the Last Man." He argued that the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall had brought the end of ideological conflict and the beginning of a post-political era.

Fukuyama declared that the West had won. Western-style liberal democracy would be the final stage of humanity's social development.

The book was criticized, especially by Samuel Huntington in his 1993 book "The Clash of Civilizations." Unlike Fukuyama, Huntington argued that there are no universal values, and the world is divided into distinctive cultures and civilizations.

"The Islamic civilization," Huntington wrote, is the most troublesome. People in the Arab world "do not share the general suppositions of the Western world."

America and the West have taken Huntington's words to heart in the last three decades, especially after the 9/11 tragedy, and declared war on terrorism and Islam. America and its allies invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and destroyed Libya and Syria.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has changed things. Putin didn't read either Huntington's or Fukuyama's books. His war in Ukraine is neither a clash of civilizations nor of ideologies; it is based on Putin's old-fashioned Russian nationalism and pride.

Russia has been run by oligarchs tolerated by the West after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Putin wasn't anti-West, as David Hearst explained in the Middle East Eye, an online news outlet, he repeatedly tried to engage the West and was repeatedly rebuffed.

"America — and it alone — defined democratic behavior and issued waivers to pro-Western autocrats to ignore it," Hearst writes. "Thus human rights or a values-based foreign policy became highly selective — to be used against Venezuela but not Saudi Arabia or Egypt."

America has been deciding, uncontested, what countries to invade or regimes to change. Ukraine, which sent troops to help the "coalition of the willing" that invaded Iraq, now is fighting alone, only getting encouraging words from the coalition of the unwilling.

Putin sounds like George W. Bush, accusing Ukraine of having an ominous weapon called MLRS (multiple launch rockets, or something). "Neo-Nazis are putting up heavy weapons, including MLRS, right in the central districts of large cities, including Kyiv and Kharkiv," he explained.

President Joe Biden thinks Putin is dumb and threatened economic sanctions; former President Donald Trump thinks Putin is "pretty smart."

Western media has portrayed the invasion as an attack on Europe's civilized countries, and Putin as the new Hitler. Conservatives are impressed by Putin's chauvinistic aggressive persona.

Sounding like Muhammad Ali when he refused to be drafted and sent to Vietnam, Fox News star Tucker Carlson asked: "Why should I hate Putin? Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him?"

Bloody images are coming out of Ukraine, where the victims look like European whites. Nothing moves liberals like white suffering. Flustered CBS foreign correspondent Charlie D'Agata reported live: "But this isn't a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades ... . You know, this is a relatively civilized, relatively European [country]." He was choosing his words carefully, he added.

One wonders what words he didn't choose.

Similar racist media reporting and internet postings are coming from Europe.

"It's very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blonde hair being killed," Ukraine's former deputy chief prosecutor David Sakvarelidze sobbed on the BBC.

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees are welcome in Europe, where they have been turning away refugees from Africa and the Middle East.

This was on BFM TV (France): "We are in the 21st century, we are in a European city and we have cruise missile fire as though we were in Iraq or Afghanistan. Can you imagine!?"

From the Daily Telegraph: "This time, war is wrong because the people look like us and have Instagram and Netflix accounts. It's not in a poor, remote country anymore.

ITV (U.K.): "The unthinkable has happened. ... This is not a developing, Third World nation; this is Europe!"

Even a British Al Jazeera presenter stepped into the white civilized world fray, "What's compelling is looking at them, the way they are dressed. These are prosperous, middle-class people. These are not obviously refugees trying to get away from the Middle East ... or North Africa. They look like any European family that you'd live next door to."

People in the Middle East have seen enough of invasions through the years. Now they are just sitting on the sidelines to watch the war unfolding from afar.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is not their war after all. It is a civilized people's war.

Ahmed Tharwat, host and producer of the local Arab American TV show "BelAhdan with Ahmed," writes for local and international publications. He blogs at Notes From America: www.Ahmediatv.com. Follow him on Twitter: @ahmediaTV.