Trump ignored this clear warning about reckless strikes and the disasters that follow
There is an old warning in foreign policy about the arrogance of power, “If you break it, you own it.”
That principle, popularly known as the Pottery Barn rule, was articulated by Colin Powell in private conversations with President George W. Bush ahead of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Powell, an experienced general turned Secretary of State, was blunt and prophetic. Forcibly removing a government means inheriting responsibility for everything that follows: security, governance, infrastructure, and human suffering.
The United States ignores that truth at its own peril. Chaos is guaranteed.
With Donald Trump’s alarming and potentially illegal incursion into Venezuela and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Powell’s warning feels less like history and more like indictment.
I learned how seriously some leaders once took these decisions 35 years ago this month, when I was working on Capitol Hill during the debate over whether the U.S. should use force to expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait.
The congressman I worked for, a Marine veteran and member of the Armed Services Committee, understood the gravity of the vote. He summoned each staffer individually and asked what we thought. That alone was unprecedented in our small corner of the Hill.
I urged him to vote no. I feared it wasn’t in America’s long-term interest. Quietly, personally, I also feared for a Marine I was dating at the time. The congressman voted against the authorization, alongside a majority of Democrats.
History unfolded differently than many expected. Operation Desert Storm was swift and successful. President George H.W. Bush’s approval ratings soared. But that success wasn’t accidental. It was disciplined. It was done by the book.
Bush checked every box that matters before committing American force. He sought and received congressional authorization. He built a broad international coalition. He defined clear, limited military objectives. And most importantly, when those objectives were achieved, when Iraqi forces were expelled from Kuwait, he stopped.
That restraint was not weakness. It was wisdom born of experience.
About a year earlier, Bush had authorized the invasion of Panama to remove dictator Manuel Noriega. The mission succeeded, but the aftermath was destabilizing and messy. Civilian infrastructure was damaged. Governance failed. You don’t simply dispose of a dictator and call it quits. Barack Obama would later learn the same lesson in Libya after the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi, a decision Obama himself later called the “worst mistake” of his presidency.
Bush understood what happens when you remove a dictator without a durable plan.
So when faced with Saddam Hussein in 1991, Bush resisted the urge to march on Baghdad. He was criticized for leaving Hussein in power but history has been far kinder to that decision than to what followed.
In 2003, George W. Bush ignored Powell’s warning and invaded Iraq based on two falsehoods: that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction, and that Iraq was connected to the September 11 attacks.
Despite private doubts, Powell went along with the case presented to the world at the United Nations. He would call that moment a “blot” on his record.
We know the catastrophe that followed. Two decades of war, regional destabilization, hundreds of thousands of deaths, the U.S. still paying the price.
Trump now appears to be repeating every mistake history has warned against, while ignoring every safeguard that once constrained American power.
Unlike George H.W. Bush, Trump did not seek congressional approval. Not that there is any point pretending Mike Johnson’s House or John Thune’s Senate would act as meaningful checks on a president who treats the Constitution as optional.
Unlike Bush, Trump did not work with allies or build an international coalition. He acted unilaterally, foolhardy, and in secrecy.
Unlike Bush, Trump has no clear strategy, no defined endgame, and no plan. He admitted as much this morning, saying the administration is “still trying to figure out what’s next for the country.”
Still trying to figure it out? That question is not a postscript to military action. It is the central requirement before the first move is made.
Public approval? There is none to speak of, largely because the American people arguably have no idea what is happening in Venezuela. Most couldn’t locate the country on a map. They hear vague references to drugs or “bad hombres,” but nothing approaching an honest justification.
Strategy? Double ha.
For weeks, military analysts and regional experts have warned that any action without a clear political and military endgame would be disastrous. Maduro and his inner circle are deeply entrenched. The military is fractured. Armed groups operate throughout the country. This is not a system where you “cut off the head” and expect the body to collapse.
Greek mythology offers a better metaphor: cut off one head, and two more take its place.
Yet instead of behaving like a statesman, or even a cautious commander-in-chief, Trump went before the cameras and acted like a slurring and “sleepy” but braggadocious thug, boasting about American military might rather than explaining honestly why we need to break and own another country.
He said today that “we” — the United States — “will run the country.”
Who? How? Here we go again. A quagmire in the making.
He promised a larger attack if needed. He pledged that the U.S. would spend “billions” fixing infrastructure, i.e. oil infrastructure, of course. Like Iraq. Like Libya. It always comes back to oil. Trump has always said the quiet part out loud.
There were also echoes of former Vice President Dick Cheney, who after we invaded Iraq said the U.S. would be welcomed with open arms, freedom will ring, prosperity for all, and the restructuring, rebuilding, etc. would be paid for by oil. It was B.S. then and it’s B.S. now.
Trump hates Cheney, but he sure has no problem stealing his bogus talking points.
Finally, is this what MAGA wanted? Is this America First? Spending billions in Venezuela, just as we did elsewhere in the region, i.e. bailing out Argentina? Trump campaigned on isolationism. But “dominance,” as he called it today, means nothing to 28 million Venezuelans who will likely reject American intervention.
George H.W. Bush understood something Trump never has, and that is power without restraint is not strength. It is recklessness. And we are about to see the consequences.
The Pottery Barn rule exists because history demands it. Break a country, and you own the consequences for the people whose lives are upended, for the region destabilized, and for America’s standing in the world.
Colin Powell learned that lesson in Vietnam. He reinforced it in Desert Storm. He warned about it in Iraq, and regretted being ignored.
Trump now has his own blot. Given his extraordinarily blotted record, it may seem redundant. But this one will haunt Venezuela, South America, and the U.S. for years to come.
Trump broke Venezuela. Now we own it. And this never ends well.
- John Casey was most recently Senior Editor, The Advocate, and is a freelance opinion and feature story writer. Previously, he was a Capitol Hill press secretary, and spent 25 years in media and public relations in NYC. He is the co-author of LOVE: The Heroic Stories of Marriage Equality (Rizzoli, 2025), named by Oprah in her "Best 25 of 2025.”