Will President Trump fall prey to the “Pottery Barn Doctrine”?
Articulated by Secretary of State Colin Powell in the run-up to the Iraq War, it holds that when you break something – in this case, a nation, rather than a vase – you own it.
As Trump plans for next steps in Iran, cold-eyed pragmatists – whether they favored or opposed this latest U.S. military action – should hope he ignores Powell’s high-minded yet wrong-headed formulation that inspired decades of failed and costly attempts at nation-building in the Middle East.
It might sound callous, but the United States has no obligation to the Iranian people. When the bombs stop falling, America will share none of the blame if repressive forces continue to rule in Tehran. The country was broken before our military action. It was that brokenness that necessitated the attack.
America’s only responsibility is to protect its people from active threats. For 47 years, Iran has been just that, taking the lives of thousands of Americans and our allies in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Israel, and other places. Counterstrikes would have been defensible at any time since then. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth had it right when he said, “We didn’t start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it.”
The second part of that declaration remains to be seen, but the current moment was especially propitious because the recent efforts of the U.S. and Israel to weaken Tehran’s violent theocracy – especially through ongoing sanctions and last June’s bombings that obliterated its nuclear program – presented an opportunity to declaw our adversary. History shows that diplomatic efforts would have only bought Iran more time to rebuild its machinery of death. It was time, instead, to seize the opportunity.
Those who counter that the U.S. is deploying its own machinery of death offer a false equivalency. America and its allies have been the victims of Iran and its proxies, especially Hamas, Hezbollah, and various Iraqi militias, for decades. “Death to America” was not just a slogan but an ethos for the mullahs. The deeply uninformed assumption that drove President Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal with Iran – that it would come to embrace our values and assumptions if given the chance – ignored the bedrock fact that its leaders do not share our worldview. It’s the same mistake we have long made concerning China and Russia. They see the world differently. Their view is not as good and humane as ours – they have never, as we did after World War II, committed vast resources to lifting up their former enemies. Where we imperfectly strive for peace and prosperity, they seek power and conquest. They do not want to co-exist but to dominate and vanquish.
Like the January capture of Venezuela dictator Nicolas Maduro, the Iran campaign is also sending a simple but powerful warning to other adversaries – behave.
War is always ugly; the loss of life is always a tragedy. But sometimes it is necessary to stop dangerous enemies. Unfortunately, civilians suffer gravely in any conflict. On one level, they are innocents, and every practical effort should be made to spare them. At the same time, it is wrong to assert that citizens, even in a dictatorship, have no accountability for the actions of their government. The people of Iran have been represented by the mullahs since 1979. They have given them an operating base from which to carry out their reign of terror. Millions of Iranians have taken to the streets through the years to cheer their government’s barbarous acts. Separating them from their leaders not only denies this fact but turns the populace into a giant human shield that protects its leaders.
If and when we have destroyed Iran’s ability to threaten and menace nations outside its borders, we can proclaim “Mission Accomplished.” President Trump’s observation Tuesday that the forces who take over Iran could be “as bad” as their predecessors would be a setback. But that would not mar the military campaign’s achievement. If the new leaders turn out to be monsters, they will likely only have the capacity to terrorize their own people, not the world.
Our world is full of such monsters – as the genocides and murderous campaigns unfolding in Sudan, Congo, Myanmar, and other places attest. We largely ignore those killing fields because they pose no immediate threat to us. This may raise moral questions, but it reflects practical limitations.
America’s massive military empowers us to stop most forces from menacing people outside their borders – we could probably do it with Russia, if we had the will. Building peace and stability inside other nations has often proven beyond our powers. We have succeeded when the people themselves have created change. That difficulty does not mean we should stop espousing our highest ideals of freedom. But as we learned in the former Soviet Union, which has become a criminal enterprise under Vladimir Putin, freeing people from one form of tyranny is not enough.
When considering places like Iran, it is helpful to think of our penal system. When individuals threaten others, we take action against them. We might hope that their time behind bars will show them the error of their ways. Yet, the main purpose of their incarceration is not to reform their souls but to remove the threat they pose to everyone else.
Once something is broken, it is hard to put the pieces back together.
J. Peder Zane is an editor for RealClearInvestigations and a columnist for RealClearPolitics, where this column was published on March 4, 2026. Follow him on X @jpederzane.
