In the run up to the 2003 Iraq War, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke the “Pottery Barn Rule.” It was a silly analogy, one New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman, claimed credit for originating. Powell argued that if the United States “breaks” a country in war, it has a duty to rebuild that nation. If “you break it, you own it,” Powell told President George W. Bush.
Perhaps the origins of Powell’s arguments rested in the aftermath of World War II, when the United States and allied democracies rebooted West Germany and Japan. The United States remade these nations because of unique circumstances, however. World War II caused 75 million casualties. Nazism and Japanese militarism endangered the world. U.S. officials believed defeated ideologies might re-arise if they did nothing to prevent such an eventuality. They based their narrative, in part, on post-World War I Germany, which they had not rebuilt, blaming this decision in part for World War II. The new Cold War also colored the U.S. decision, as Washington sought to reinforce the democratic camp.
U.S.-led reconstruction of Germany and Japan served its purposes at the time, but this should not mandate permanently rebuilding belligerents. The Truman and Eisenhower policy was so unique that Wibberley’s 1955 novel, The Mouse That Roared satirized it. There is neither a national nor international law to require reconstruction, nor has any other nation ever taken on such responsibility.
There is neither a national nor international law to require reconstruction, nor has any other nation ever taken on such responsibility.
While the media celebrate Powell as a renaissance man, military strategist and statesman, his embrace of the Pottery Barn Rule cost thousands of Americans their lives. In both Afghanistan and Iraq, the bulk of casualties occurred not in the initial respective drives to overthrow the Taliban or Saddam Hussein, but rather in the months and years that followed as the United States sought to reconstruct and develop the countries. Not only was there huge cost in terms of blood and treasure, but the investment may have backfired as the billions of dollars in assistance greased dysfunctional corruption that continues to hobble both states.
Today, Powell’s popularization of the Pottery Barn Rule undermines U.S. policy across the region. When Israel launched its war against Hamas in response to the terror group’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, U.S. authorities joined their European and Arab counterparts’ handwringing about the destruction the war wrought in Gaza, never mind that Israel’s care led to a lower rate of collateral civilian casualties than any other instance of urban combat in the history of warfare. For many in the State Department and President Joe Biden’s National Security Council, the need to reconstruct trumped the necessity for Israel to achieve its military objectives against a designated terror group.
The Pottery Barn Rule also constrains U.S. policymaking toward Iran. The Islamic Republic is at war with the United States. The regime works to develop nuclear weapons and the ballistic missiles to deliver them. Its leadership embraces a messianic belief that they can hasten the end of times through violence. Bashar al-Assad’s exit from Syria does not resolve the problem; it only makes Iran’s leaders more desperate.
Taking the war to the Islamic regime [of Iran] would not require either a commitment to war or to post-war reconstruction.
Contrary to what some U.S. politicians say, taking the war to the Islamic regime would not require either a commitment to war or to post-war reconstruction. There are alternatives: Maximum pressure; sabotage; support for oppositionists inside the country; assassination; or limited military strikes. Perhaps an even better option would be to allow Israel—the chief target of the Islamic Republic’s terror—to act without restraint in destroying Iran’s nuclear program or eliminating its military or leadership capacity.
War is a messy business. It is destructive. It ruins economies and destroys infrastructure. But few democracies, and especially the United States, undertake war lightly. Failure to defeat enemies or hobble their capabilities for destruction are a far greater responsibility than underwriting the reconstruction of current or former enemies. Indeed, it might actually discourage terror and war if the societies of entities striking at the United States, Israel, or other democracies understood the permanence of the destruction they would suffer with their aggression or terror support.
