Kuwait faces stability challenges
Gulf politics become focus of foreign policy
By Lidia Qattan Special to the Arab Times
the mid-seventies great challenges were facing Kuwait stability and very existence: Fundamentalism on one hand and the Iraqi -Iran rising tension on the other hand were posing serious predicaments.
Since the Iraqi attack on the frontier in 1973, the Kuwaiti government engaged in an extensive armament program that intensified in proportion to the Iran-Iraq rising tension.
The imminent armed conflict of these two nations was making Kuwait quite uneasy; it also worried all the other countries in the region.
The Arab Nationalists who saw in Saddam Hussein the champion of the Arab cause was also causing tension, his pragmatic regime was having a powerful effect not only on the nationalists but also on some powerful members of the Chamber of Commerce, who were expecting to receive contracts from Iraq after the war and the reimbursement of unpaid obligation to them.
At this phase “state survival,” meant realigning priorities. But when the Iraq-Iran war did actually breakout, the Arab Defence Pact required that Kuwait should side with Iraq; this was a radical deviation from the traditional non-involvement in belligerent conflicts, which Kuwait had strictly observed since it was born and was largely responsible for maintaining its internal stability and safeguarding its survival.
But times were changing. The government was now under heavy pressure from the National Assembly, the media, sectarian and ethnic groups, the one supporting Iraq, the other siding with Iran.
Tension
Long before this development took place Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, then Crown Prince, alert to the impending danger was striving to achieve a base of security by two means — while tension between Iran-Iraq was escalating altering the dimension and dynamism of foreign policy in the region, he sought to strengthen his armed forces.
At the same time he tried hard to achieve the cooperation of the Gulf countries for mutual interest. In the process he was instrumental in settling the Bahraini issue and in creating the United Arab Emirates.
In 1976 Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad advocating the co-operation of all the Gulf states called for a meeting to boost regional security by joint action in politics, and co-ordination in economics, information and education.
That same year a meeting was held in Muscat in which the foreign ministries of eight Gulf states took part to discuss the Gulf regional security. This meeting was the first important step towards achieving the final goal.
Henceforth, pursuing a policy of state-survival, Gulf politics became the focus of Kuwait’s foreign and domestic policy, while all other Arab issues were given secondary importance.
In the political manoeuvres that followed Kuwait became a major influence in the formation of the GCC states.
Many bilateral and multilateral agreements were carried out in the fields of economics, politics, and social cultural affairs; but the first tangible step towards achieving coordination was in the non-political sector, when the GEM (Gulf Marine Environmental Protection Agency) and the AGE (Arab Gulf States Educational Organization) were founded.
Events were precipitated by the Iraq-Iran armed conflict, which catalysed the traditional status quo of the Gulf countries, making them more susceptible to united action.
In December 1978 the first informal Gulf Cooperation Council was born to shield the members states from potential threats.
Fearing Iranian threats on their oilshipping routes many bilateral meetings followed, one of which was held
Lidia Qattan
(Sheikh Jaber Al-Hamad Al-Sabah).
Another daring threat to the security of state was the hijacking of the Kuwaiti airliner, Al Jabriya in April 1988 in which two Kuwaiti security guards were murdered in cold-blood.
A group called the Revolutionary Organization Forces of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) carried out other violent acts.
There were incidents of violence in the sixties and seventies but they were all related to inter-Arab political clashes and Palestinian feuding.
The violent attacks of the eighties were different. The Iraq-Iran war and the fact that Kuwait and other Gulf states were siding with Iraq fearing a Shiite victory, caused conspiracies and acts of violence that were morally and financially supported by external revolutionary forces.
To meet the growing danger of Iranian retaliation in 1983 a joint striking force was formed, “the Peninsula shield, with joint military exercises and air manoeuvres being carried out all through the eighties.
From 1973 to 1990 Kuwait spent a huge sum of money in purchasing the latest weaponry from East and West sources.
In the early eighties the Kuwaiti Navy was born as part of the modernization of the Armed Forces’ program. But besides the sophisticated hardware and its strategic component of paramilitary forces, the Kuwaiti military system had a serious drawback: It had no sufficient manpower to run the excessive equipment infrastructure.
Another disadvantage was the heavy reliance on foreign advisors and experts training the low-ranking troops to run the weaponry system.
As for the topography of Kuwait territory – the flatness of the terrain and the small-size of the country make any military base vulnerable to aerial attack and thwarts military strategies.
This became obvious when Kuwait stood no chance against the Iraqi avalanche; the one millionstrong, seasoned army, which came crashing down on Kuwait in the early morning of August the 2nd, 1990, killing and destroying everything in its path.