March 13, 2026
What exactly is President Donald Trump trying to achieve in Iran, and how does it compare with past US interventions in the Middle East?
Before the Iraq War, Secretary of State Colin Powell warned President George W. Bush about what became known as the “Pottery Barn rule”:
“You are going to be the proud owner of 25 million people… You’ll own all their hopes, their aspirations, and problems. You’ll own it all…. The Pottery Barn rule, ‘You break it, you own it.’”
The idea was simple: if the US destroys a regime, it becomes responsible for what comes next. But Trump’s approach to Iran looks very different, raising a bigger question: if Washington breaks something this time, will it feel responsible for owning it?
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CEO and Co-Founder of Anthropic Dario Amodei speaks during the 56th annual World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on January 20, 2026.
REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The release of Antrhopic’s Mythos, a powerful AI model with an extraordinary ability to identify software vulnerabilities, appears to have rattled the Trump administration.
A view of Iranian-flagged cargo ship Touska as USS Spruance (DDG 111) conducts its interception in a location given as the north Arabian Sea, in this screen capture from a video released on April 19, 2026.
CENTCOM/Handout via REUTERS
The US Navy isn’t just intercepting Iranian-linked ships outside the Strait of Hormuz. It’s redirecting Iranian-linked ships in Asian waters, too.
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