The Pottery Barn Rule is rubbish

The Pottery Barn Rule of war holds that “if you break it, you own it.” In other words, if the victor “breaks” the country it has been fighting, the victor becomes responsible for the fate of the vanquished nation after the war.

This rule was made popular by, and perhaps originated with, Colin Powell in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Powell warned President Bush:

You are going to be the proud owner of 25 million people. You will own all their hopes, aspirations, and problems. You'll own it all.

Powell was an estimable man but the extent to which his virtues included foreign policy wisdom is debatable. In any case, the Pottery Barn Rule makes no sense.

A pottery barn is not the enemy of its customers and never has been. Furthermore, the customer owes the store a duty of care in handling its merchandise.

A nation defeated in a war has been the enemy of the victor. The victor did not owe its enemy a duty of care when breaking the enemy during the war (beyond what international law provides); nor does not owe it reparations afterwards. In fact, it owes the vanquished nation nothing.

It’s true that after World War II, we took “ownership,” in a sense, of Japan and part of Germany. But we did this not out of any sense of obligation, but because it was in our national interest to run Japan and share in the running of Germany for a while.

Similarly, we owed nothing to the people of Iraq after that war. We could have walked away from Iraq without violating any obligation. In fact, many smart people say we should have done just that.

I don’t agree with them. I won’t go into my reasons for this view here except to say that any sense of obligation to the Iraqis is not among them.

In the case of our war with Iran, again, we have no ownership of “the hopes, aspirations, and problems” of the Iranian people. There is an alignment between these hopes and aspirations and U.S. interests because complete overthrow of the regime would serve Iranian hopes/aspirations and our national interests.

However, the cost to the U.S. of toppling the regime via invasion may be too high. If the administration so concludes, we violate no obligation to the Iranian people by leaving with the regime (or what’s left of it) intact.

Furthermore, no obligation to Iran will arise if, pursuant to President Trump’s latest threats, we obliterate Iran’s infrastructure, including its power plants and oil facilities.* I hope these threats produce an agreement favorable to the U.S. But if they don’t and Trump follows through on his threats, I won’t be too disappointed to see us break more pots.

The more damage the U.S. inflicts on Iranian infrastructure, the less able the regime will be to rebuild its military, ramp its nuclear program back up, and find the funds to pay not only its terrorist proxies but also the forces that oppress the Iranian people. The latter development — non-payment of the regime’s domestic enforcers — would make regime change more likely, but would not guarantee it.

And we wouldn’t own Iran — not even a single pot.

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*Depending on the scope of the bombing of infrastructure, the bombing campaign might raise issues of international law. I do not discuss them here except to say that if the administration considers international law, I hope it takes an expansive view of what is permissible.