WHAT DO WE OWE TO PEOPLE WHOSE COUNTRIES WE HAVE BROKEN?

“YOU ARE GOING to be the proud owner of 25 million people. You will own all their hopes, aspirations, and problems. You’ll own it all.” According to legend, Secretary of State Colin Powell offered that pithy thought to George W. Bush in 2002 as they contemplated invading Iraq. As The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward later wrote: “Powell…called this the Pottery Barn rule: You break it, you own it.”

Setting aside the wildly problematic idea of “owning” 25 million people, subsequent events in the region have demonstrated that Powell was onto something. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, the post-9/11 invasions were followed by yearslong slogs. The citizens of both countries have been made meaningfully worse off by ongoing American military meddling—assuming they survived