Pottery Barn Rule

Colin Powell famously said when talking about Iraq, “If you break it, you own it.”  He described this as the Pottery Barn Rule and, I suppose, he was trying to signal Preznit Bush that messing up Iraq might create some responsibility on our part to take care of things. Lord knows, the army has been trying but as is often the case when it comes to dealing with insurgency we aren’t very good. Plus, we didn’t seem to have a plan for dealing with the aftermath of shock and awe. Iraq seems to be in such bad shape that we can actually begin to discuss the proposition that Iraqis and America might have been better off under Saddam. Up til now, when discussing the war whether for it or against it, one was required to add the obligatory, “Of course, we are better off without the horrible tyrant Saddam.” Many of the Shiites are happier and the Kurds and, it would appear, Iran. But, overall, is the world a better place or are we standing in the middle of Pottery Barn looking down at the broken glass and wondering how we will get out without paying? Trouble is, we’ve already paid heavily with American lives and dollars, not to speak of the misery we are responsible for creating. The cow like public and sheep like press have responded to the neo-con party line of WMD, 9-11, calls to patriotism, etc. without much critical thinking. We apparently have more important things on our minds than holding elected officials accountable for horrendous miscalculations and mistakes. Saddam Hussein could not be allowed to continue in power for another minute or the world might end.
If I may be permitted to regress into nostalgia, in Vietnam it wasn’t WMD. It was “the Domino Theory.” If South Vietnam fell, communism would topple countries in the far east one by one. The red scourge would spread cancer-like. I used to have the Domino Theory down pat. One day in 1966, having just returned from South Vietnam, the only officer on the base sporting a Vietnam Service Ribbon, I was asked by the Colonel’s wife to speak to the Officers’ Wives Club, most of whom had husbands flying missions out of Cam Rahn Bay. I, of course, explained the Domino Theory to them to make them feel better about the sacrifice many of their husbands would make in terms of death or imprisonment. They seemed to appreciate my geopolitical take on things which I had cribbed from some Intel Assessment and Time Magazine. I wonder now about those who were widowed or left alone for years. When they read about South Vietnam turning into a  big tourist attraction for westerners, do they feel their sacrifice was worth it? We broke Vietnam and we owned it for a time. Then we bailed. Everything sort of worked out okay. Time healed wounds. The Vietnamese turned out not to be so much communists as nationalists.
Lots of talk now about we have to stay the course in Iraq; see it through; terrorism; blah, blah. We need to face up to it. Bush fucked up. Probably with malicious intent. The whole effort is a waste. It is beyond rationalization. We broke it but we don’t really own it and we won’t make too many people except some oil men and commuters unhappy if we leave. Let Iraq solve its own problems. God knows we have too many of our own to deal with. (Diligent research has led me to conclude that Colin Powell made up the Pottery Barn Rule and a bunch of other stuff too).