Jeremy Bowen: Trump has called for an Iran uprising but the lessons from Iraq in 1991 loom large
In a Baghdad memory that still smells of smoke and dust, jeremy bowen recalls standing by a smouldering shelter where more than 400 civilians lay dead — almost all children, women and old men. That scene, he argues, is inseparable from a 1991 speech at a Patriot factory by President George Bush and from the wider choices leaders make when they urge uprisings without promising direct support.
Jeremy Bowen — what happened in 1991 and why does it matter?
jeremy bowen describes the 1991 Desert Storm campaign as a massive military operation to drive Iraqi troops out of Kuwait, backed by combined air forces of the United States, the United Kingdom and their allies and tens of thousands of troops massed on the borders for a ground war. While at a Patriot interceptor factory praising a new weapon, President George Bush told Iraqis that “There’s another way for the bloodshed to stop… and that is for the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside…” The first Gulf war, as Bowen notes, had the legal authorisation of the UN Security Council. Yet the aftermath showed how calls for popular action can collide with brutal realities on the ground: Bowen remembers the Amiriyah shelter, still smouldering after an airstrike that killed hundreds and which had been wrongly claimed to be a command centre.
What do veterans and letter-writers warn about echoes today?
Former senior officers and readers who lived through the Iraq invasion see hard lessons that resonate with current appeals for an uprising in Iran. Alan West, Labour, House of Lords, who wrote of being one of the UK chiefs of staff present at a meeting before the Iraq invasion, said he asked what the plans were for phase four — the period after major combat. He was told the Americans “had this all in hand, ” but he saw no plans then or later. He writes that “Beating Iraq was clearly going to be relatively easy – what happened then was much harder and not clear, ” and that the same seems true of the present situation described as a war against Iran. Other correspondents warn of shifting alliances and expectations: one letter-writer from Germantown, Maryland, expressed pain at a changing US role, and another suggested unconventional deployments as symbolic gestures. Their common thread is caution: military victory or exhortation does not automatically translate into stable political outcomes.
What warnings follow, and what might prevent a repeat of 1991’s aftermath?
Bowen’s account ties a single, vivid scene to broader strategic choices. The image of the Amiriyah shelter — bodies of women, children and elderly people, the building still smouldering — is a human counterweight to speeches made at weapon factories and to confident public exhortations. He also notes the continuing relevance of Patriot interceptors, which had a celebrated debut in 1991 and are described as playing a vital role in other conflicts. The warning is pragmatic: calls for uprising without clear plans for support or for what comes next risk creating power vacuums, civilian suffering and long-term instability. Alan West’s experience as a senior officer who pressed for post-conflict planning underlines that the question of phase four is not theoretical; it is where many wars are won and lost politically.
As the debate over how to respond to calls for internal revolt continues, the memory Bowen carries from Baghdad remains sharp. Returning to the smouldering shelter, he asks whether leaders who urge others to act have considered what they will do when those calls are answered and the costs become visible on the ground. The Amiriyah ruins stand as both a warning and a demand for clearer thinking: if history is a teacher, its lesson from 1991 is that exhortation without plan can leave the people who suffer most doing so long after the speeches have faded.
