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Hi there, Global Story listeners.

We're coming to you on a Saturday with a special bonus episode, marking two weeks

since this war in Iran began.

As the war in the Middle East rages on and the death toll keeps growing, the big question is, what happens next?

American and Israeli leaders have urged the people of Iran to take matters into their own hands.

In this special essay, which first ran on the BBC's Today program, our international editor, Jeremy Bowen, says he's seen this before.

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 happen.

In 1991, on the 15th of February, to be precise, the first President George Bush made a speech

that he probably regretted until the end of his days. It was at the factory in Massachusetts where they built Patriot

interceptors which were making their debut as the most advanced weapon of that first Gulf War.

Patriots, which shoot down incoming missiles still have a vital role in Ukraine and in the war

with Iran. When George Bush went to the Patriot factory, desert storm,

the massive military operation to drive Iraqi troops out of Kuwait was underway. The combined

air forces of the U.S., the UK and their allies were hammering the Iraqis and their cities.

Tens of thousands of Allied troops were massed on Iraq and Kuwait's borders for the ground war,

which was still nine days away.

I was in Baghdad.

My hands full reporting the war.

A few days earlier, the Americans had killed more than 400 civilians in an airstrike on a shelter in the suburb of Amaria.

The Americans and the British claimed, wrongly, that it was a command centre, but I'd seen the bodies and been inside, and I knew that wasn't true.

...