At the time people were absolutely trying to frame it partially in moral terms. It’s the other end of the spectrum, an intervention with some intended moral aim (to stop the attacks on the Iraqi Kurds) that’s now nearly universally understood to not have been moral.
I don’t think anybody is actually suggesting that the Iraq war for example was moral so I’m not quite sure what your point is.
At the time people were absolutely trying to frame it partially in moral terms. It’s the other end of the spectrum, an intervention with some intended moral aim (to stop the attacks on the Iraqi Kurds) that’s now nearly universally understood to not have been moral.