I know what can happen when an American president calls for an uprising and then doesn’t get involved when it starts. That’s because I’ve seen it before.
Thirty-five years ago, George H.W. Bush stood at a Patriot missile factory in Massachusetts and told Iraqis to “take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside.” The workers cheered. The speech barely registered in my Baghdad hotel room—I was too busy covering a war that had just killed 400 civilians in the Amiriyah shelter.
But some Iraqis took him seriously.
After Iraq’s army was expelled from Kuwait, a ceasefire left Hussein in power. Shia in the south and Kurds in the north rose up, believing they had America’s blessing. They were wrong.
The coalition watched as Saddam’s helicopters—weapons the Americans had allowed him to keep—led a counter-offensive that killed thousands. I spent those weeks in freezing, snowy mountains in Kurdistan, watching fathers carry down the bodies of their children, small bundles wrapped in blankets, who had died of exposure or dysentery on mountainsides overnight.
The Shia in the south were not so lucky. The Americans, British and French were eventually shamed into a humanitarian operation to save the Kurds. No one came for the Shia.
Thirty-five years later, I think about that every time I hear Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu telling Iranians they’re being given a “once in a generation chance” to overthrow the Islamic Republic—without promising them direct military support.
The Third Gulf War
This is the third Gulf War. The first, in 1991, expelled Iraq from Kuwait but left Saddam in power. The second, in 2003, removed him—and unleashed years of sectarian killing, civil war, and the rise of the Islamic State. Iran was the big winner, watching its bitter enemy destroyed by American bombs.
Now the third aims to undo that outcome—to smash Iran’s military and nuclear ambitions and, in Netanyahu’s words, “smite the terror regime hip and thigh.”
“It is what I have yearned to do for forty years,” Netanyahu said on the war’s second day. “This is what I promised and this is what we shall do.”
Trump’s decision to launch this war jointly with Israel is unpopular at home. Polls show Americans skeptical of another Middle East conflict. Allies are alarmed—with the exception of Israel.
But what if the skeptics are wrong? What if this war actually succeeds?
The Case for War
Trump’s supporters argue that higher petrol prices for a while will be worth it if this war stops Iran from getting nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles that could threaten Europe and even America.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth—rebranded as “Secretary of War”—has little patience for European qualms about UN authorization or self-defence.
“So many of our traditional allies who wring their hands and clutch their pearls, hemming and hawing about the use of force,” he said dismissively.
Iran’s regime is unsavoury. In January, it killed thousands of its own citizens for marching against repression, corruption and economic collapse. It enriched uranium to levels that could be turned into a bomb.
Removing it, the argument goes, would make the world safer.
The Case for Caution
But ending wars is harder than starting them. And the evidence so far suggests this one began without a coherent political strategy, under a president who appears to be making it up as he goes along.
The 1991 uprising’s legacy is not just dead Iraqis—it’s Osama Bin Laden, furious that foreign troops had violated the land of Islam’s holiest shrines, putting together the organization that became Al Qaeda. Each Gulf War planted seeds for the next.
Already, Iran’s response is designed to defy American power, spread the conflict, cause huge economic damage and disrupt carefully constructed alliances between the US and Gulf countries. Iran has turned those countries into targets.
China is watching. If Trump declares victory and leaves Saudi Arabia and the others to clear up the mess, they might reassess the value of an alliance with the United States.
Trump, who promised Americans “no more forever wars,” might find himself keeping forces in the Middle East that he would rather deploy to face China.
The Unanswered Question
For Netanyahu, the calculus is simpler. Israel sees the best opportunity it has ever had to reorder the Middle East and strengthen its position as the unchallenged military hegemon. It aims to destroy Iran’s Lebanese ally Hezbollah once and for all—something it’s tried and failed to do since the 1990s. It is also taking steps toward effective annexation of the occupied West Bank while the world’s attention is fixed on Tehran.
But for Iranians watching Trump’s call for an uprising, the question is the same one Iraqis faced in 1991: will America back them if they rise?
The last time an American president told people in this region to “take matters into their own hands,” tens of thousands died while the world watched.
Trump may learn that starting wars is easier than ending them. It is hard to know when to stop if you don’t know exactly where you’re going.
It is even harder when the world’s most powerful country seems to be making it up as it goes along.
