Fifteen days after 9/11, the CIA’s seven-member JAWBREAKER team entered Afghanistan, drawing on years of ties to the Northern Alliance; Special Forces and airpower then magnified local fighters. That is the Iran lesson: build partners before bombing. Read Gary Schroen’s First In.
Democratic leaders were still calling diplomacy the “most effective tool” on February 20, after evidence of a vast state massacre had emerged. Bloomberg reported that the UN special rapporteur believed more than 20,000 people may have been killed; TIME, citing two senior Iranian Health Ministry officials and hospital data, said the toll could exceed 30,000. Le Monde reported more than 6,800 confirmed deaths, with thousands more under investigation. The evidence was not merely statistical: it verified videos showing security forces using military-grade weapons against protesters who posed no visible threat, along with gunshot wounds and hundreds of body bags at the Kahrizak morgue.
How does one negotiate with a regime that murders its citizens, hides the evidence and cannot be trusted? Diplomacy can operate without trust only through intrusive verification, enforceable terms and credible penalties. Where is the Democratic Party’s comparable outrage to its fury over Gaza, where Israel was responding to October 7? Neither Democrats nor Republicans apply human rights consistently; both invoke them selectively.
On January 13, Trump urged Iranians to continue protesting, told them to take over their institutions and declared that “HELP IS ON ITS WAY.” He did not explain whether that meant military action, covert assistance, communications support, sanctions or merely rhetorical solidarity.
Powell would never have advised a president to make such a statement—even if an operation to assist the protesters had already been authorized.
If help was genuinely coming, announcing it sacrificed operational ambiguity and gave the Iranian security services reason to intensify surveillance, arrests and suppression. If no concrete assistance was imminent, the declaration risked encouraging people to expose themselves while relying on an American promise that might not be fulfilled.
Some Iranians subsequently said they believed American intervention might follow and felt betrayed when immediate assistance did not materialize. That does not prove Trump’s statement caused anyone to take to the streets, but it illustrates the danger of an American president making an undefined commitment to civilians confronting an extraordinarily violent regime.
Powell understood that ambiguity could be strategically useful. He opposed announcing fixed rules that told adversaries precisely what the United States would or would not do. Trump somehow combined the worst alternatives: publicly promising assistance while remaining ambiguous about whether the promise had any operational meaning.
Comment One: The Eight Questions Behind the Powell Doctrine
The Powell Doctrine is commonly presented as an eight-point checklist:
Is a vital national-security interest threatened?
Is there a clear and attainable objective?
Have the risks and costs been fully and honestly analyzed?
Have reasonable nonmilitary alternatives been exhausted?
Is there a plausible exit strategy?
Have the consequences of military action been considered?
Is there sufficient support from the American public?
Is there meaningful international support?
One historical qualification is important. Powell did not publish this exact numbered checklist in his 1992 Foreign Affairs essay. Indeed, he wrote that there could be no fixed set of rules governing every use of military force.
He nevertheless asked substantially the same questions: Is the political objective important, clearly defined and understood? Have nonviolent means failed? Can military force achieve the objective? At what cost? Have the gains and risks been analyzed? What is likely to happen after force alters the situation?
The checklist is therefore best understood as a useful synthesis of Powell’s principles, not as a direct eight-point quotation. His central test was whether military operations had been matched to a defined political purpose.
Comment Four: Prepare Before Bombing
Fifteen days after 9/11, the CIA’s seven-member JAWBREAKER team entered Afghanistan, drawing on years of ties to the Northern Alliance; Special Forces and airpower then magnified local fighters. That is the Iran lesson: build partners before bombing. Read Gary Schroen’s First In.
Comment Three: Diplomacy Without Trust
Democratic leaders were still calling diplomacy the “most effective tool” on February 20, after evidence of a vast state massacre had emerged. Bloomberg reported that the UN special rapporteur believed more than 20,000 people may have been killed; TIME, citing two senior Iranian Health Ministry officials and hospital data, said the toll could exceed 30,000. Le Monde reported more than 6,800 confirmed deaths, with thousands more under investigation. The evidence was not merely statistical: it verified videos showing security forces using military-grade weapons against protesters who posed no visible threat, along with gunshot wounds and hundreds of body bags at the Kahrizak morgue.
How does one negotiate with a regime that murders its citizens, hides the evidence and cannot be trusted? Diplomacy can operate without trust only through intrusive verification, enforceable terms and credible penalties. Where is the Democratic Party’s comparable outrage to its fury over Gaza, where Israel was responding to October 7? Neither Democrats nor Republicans apply human rights consistently; both invoke them selectively.
Comment Two: “Help Is on the Way”
On January 13, Trump urged Iranians to continue protesting, told them to take over their institutions and declared that “HELP IS ON ITS WAY.” He did not explain whether that meant military action, covert assistance, communications support, sanctions or merely rhetorical solidarity.
Powell would never have advised a president to make such a statement—even if an operation to assist the protesters had already been authorized.
If help was genuinely coming, announcing it sacrificed operational ambiguity and gave the Iranian security services reason to intensify surveillance, arrests and suppression. If no concrete assistance was imminent, the declaration risked encouraging people to expose themselves while relying on an American promise that might not be fulfilled.
Some Iranians subsequently said they believed American intervention might follow and felt betrayed when immediate assistance did not materialize. That does not prove Trump’s statement caused anyone to take to the streets, but it illustrates the danger of an American president making an undefined commitment to civilians confronting an extraordinarily violent regime.
Powell understood that ambiguity could be strategically useful. He opposed announcing fixed rules that told adversaries precisely what the United States would or would not do. Trump somehow combined the worst alternatives: publicly promising assistance while remaining ambiguous about whether the promise had any operational meaning.
Comment One: The Eight Questions Behind the Powell Doctrine
The Powell Doctrine is commonly presented as an eight-point checklist:
Is a vital national-security interest threatened?
Is there a clear and attainable objective?
Have the risks and costs been fully and honestly analyzed?
Have reasonable nonmilitary alternatives been exhausted?
Is there a plausible exit strategy?
Have the consequences of military action been considered?
Is there sufficient support from the American public?
Is there meaningful international support?
One historical qualification is important. Powell did not publish this exact numbered checklist in his 1992 Foreign Affairs essay. Indeed, he wrote that there could be no fixed set of rules governing every use of military force.
He nevertheless asked substantially the same questions: Is the political objective important, clearly defined and understood? Have nonviolent means failed? Can military force achieve the objective? At what cost? Have the gains and risks been analyzed? What is likely to happen after force alters the situation?
The checklist is therefore best understood as a useful synthesis of Powell’s principles, not as a direct eight-point quotation. His central test was whether military operations had been matched to a defined political purpose.