The problem is that some people deliberately conflate the movement of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab with the political conflicts that later took place in the Arabian Peninsula. The Sheikh did not call for a war against the Ottomans; rather, he called for the renewal of Islamic creed and the rejection of what he regarded as innovations and acts of shirk, such as the veneration of graves, seeking aid from the dead, and other practices he believed had no basis in Islam.
The wars that occurred later were tied to struggles over influence and sovereignty in the Arabian Peninsula and cannot simply be reduced to being “religious wars.” Portraying the Sheikh as the leader of a campaign against the Ottomans is a selective reading of history aimed at tarnishing the reputation of a religious scholar known for his call to pure monotheism, whether people agree with him or disagree with him.
The objection was directed at practices that were considered shirk and at granting them religious legitimacy—not at people’s ethnicity, identity, or mere differences of opinion.