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The Federalist Papers Democrats claim the roughly $47 billion spent on the Iran war should have gone to healthcare. They stay quiet about the $182 billion Congress allocated to the Ukraine war effort under President Biden.The bigger tragedy started earlier.About a month after Russia invaded, negotiators met in Istanbul in late March 2022. Ukraine offered permanent neutrality. No NATO membership. No foreign military bases. No military alliances. In return, security guarantees from major powers. Russia engaged. They scaled back operations near Kyiv. Drafts moved forward.Western leaders pushed the other way. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited Kyiv on April 9. Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia later said Johnson told them the West would not sign anything with the Russians and they should just fight. The Biden administration backed that approach. Victoria Nuland confirmed U.S. and British officials raised concerns about military limits that would leave Ukraine too weak.The talks collapsed. The war continued.Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers and civilians have died since then. Cities reduced to rubble. Families shattered. An entire generation scarred. All after a neutrality framework that was already on the table.American taxpayers funded years of fighting that did not have to keep going. Ukrainian and Russian families paid the blood price.This was a tragedy that could have been largely avoided.