Before and during the Iraq War Secretary of State Colin Powell would refer to a “pottery store rule” or “Pottery Barn rule.” From Bob Woodward’s book:
This is why we have to do the ugly, lengthy, painful, messy, difficult nation building we’ve been doing in both Iraq and Afghanistan — we knocked out the existing governments.
But what if regime change is internal — say, in Egypt. There’s probably some limited role that prudence would dictate we play in helping a new regime rise up. But certainly there’s no moral nor practical imperative for the U.S. to “own” Egypt after Mubarak. After all, we didn’t take him out, the Egyptians did.
How about Libya? What if we decide to enforce a no-fly zone? What if we have some limited military intervention, through NATO? And then what if this helps take out Gadhafi? Have we “broken” the pot? Do we “own” it?
