Photo: Alamy
Many critics have claimed that President Trump is starting a forever war in Iran, when in reality his strategy signals the end of one.
On 28 February, the United States and Israel began a series of strikes against Iran’s leadership to eliminate threats and prevent the Middle Eastern country from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Some critics have falsely claimed that these actions have just started another war, but on a recent episode of The Drill Down, host Peter Schweizer praised President Trump for doing what many previous presidents could not.
Breitbart reported that he said, “Shocking events in a lot of respects in the sense that Trump actually did what a lot of presidents have threatened to do over the course of decades.” He added, “It’s a nice change from the present tense to the past tense when discussing the Ayatollah.”
Like previous presidents, President Trump held negotiations with Iran, but when those broke down, he was more than tough-talking. He acted. Schweizer said that President Trump’s strategy is breaking down President George W. Bush’s Pottery Barn rule. In 2002, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell had famously warned Bush of the consequences of overthrowing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Powell had likened it to the Pottery Barn rule of “You break it, you own it.”
Now in 2026, it’s clear that it is time to retire that rule. Schweizer said, “Well, guess what? Donald Trump walked into Pottery Barn, knocked a bunch of things over, and said, ‘I’m not paying for anything.’
He explains that the Trump doctrine is to say “we do not have an obligation to try to rebuild that country. We are eliminating the threat. We’re going to encourage the right people in Iran to win, but whether they step up and do that or not is their own internal business.”
Schweizer reminds critics that President Trump is not starting a new war. It’s the end of an ongoing one. For years, Iran has attempted a number of unsuccessful terrorist attacks and assassination efforts on U.S. soil. “It’s one of the reasons why we ended up in this spot.”