As Kuwaitis celebrate the country’s 55th independence and quarter of a century of liberation from the Iraqi occupation, it is time to reflect and take stock of what has happened. Have we, Kuwaitis and Iraqis, buried the hatchet? Which slogan best captures the collective Kuwaiti sentiment: “We might forget, but will never forgive”, or “we will never forget and neither will we forgive”? What are the lessons learnt and what are the lessons missed or lost?
It has never happened in Arab politics for a larger neighbour to literally occupy and pillage a smaller neighbour; that was the bitter and brutal truth of what Saddam Hussain, the tyrant of Iraq did, by invading, occupying and erasing Kuwait from the map, making it Iraq’s 19th province. That was a watershed moment in Kuwait’s history. The wanton Iraqi occupation has traumatised and left an indelible mark on the Kuwaiti collective psyche.
In a column in Gulf News on July 25, 2011, titled “Kuwait-Iraq Cold War brewing”, I argued that a cold war was still brewing between the Kuwaitis and the Iraqis. And “it does not seem we have buried the hatchet. On the contrary… this comes at a very critical juncture and brought out all the pent-up anger and the frustrations harboured by Kuwaitis. It reminds Kuwaitis that their problem was not with Saddam Hussain, who is long dead and buried, but rather with Iraq as a system, entity, neighbour and people. This is unfortunate, especially with the seeming thaw of tensions and high-level visits by officials of both countries.”
There have been watershed developments dotting the tenuous years between Kuwait and Iraq. It is true that Kuwait since then has reopened its embassy in Baghdad, and two General Consulates in Arbil in Kurdistan Province and in Basra in southern Iraq. Moreover, Kuwaiti officials made landmark visits to Iraq, led by the Emir’s visit to Baghdad to attend the Arab League summit in March 2012. The Iraq president and prime ministers and foreign minister have visited Kuwait many times, and Kuwait has even opened a General Consulate.
Huge shadow
But today, we gaze at a different Iraq, a different Kuwait and much different, precarious Gulf and Middle East region. Moreover, we are witnessing a worrying retreat of America, a resurgent Iran, an assertive Saudi Arabia and what I call “the GCC era in Arab political order”.
These tectonic shifts have produced an Iran-dominated Iraq, and a worrying sectarian schism is casting a huge shadow on the region, emanating from the Syrian inferno and Iraq’s fractured state and society, fanned by Iran’s project that is fomenting much of the chaos and instability in the region to advance as the hegemonic player.
Today, Kuwait no longer fears Iraqi invasion and occupation, but rather, we are worried about Iraq’s destabilising, failed-state status, its sectarian politics, Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) using Iraq as training grounds to launch attacks, and the worrying practices by the sectarian politics of “Hashed Al Shabii”, the “Popular Mobilisation” militias or thugs who act with impunity under the government auspices to wreak havoc, killing, maiming and pillaging Sunni communities in Iraq.
Today, we fear in Kuwait and other GCC states the changing nature of the Iraqi asymmetrical threat, rather than the usual menacing symmetrical threat of Saddam and all the Iraqi political systems since Iraq became a republic in the 1920s. And there is real fear that Daesh and the “Popular Mobilisation” militias with their sectarian behaviour and practices, are pushing Iraq and the region towards the abyss by fanning the flames of sedition and polarisation. These ghastly practices by those hard-line Sunni and Shiite militias is upping the ante and is alleviating the influence and power of the non-state actors in regional politics at the expense of the state actors and central governments. We witness such worrying activity in Lebanon by Hezbollah, in Syria by Daesh, the same in Iraq, in addition to Hashed Al Shabii, and in Yemen by Al Houthi rebels.
This has mobilised the world community, including Kuwait and other GCC states to launch operation “Enduring Resolve” to target Daesh strongholds in Iraq and Syria since August 2014, but after 17 months, maybe we have slowed Daesh down, but we are no closer to achieving the Obama administration strategy of degrading and defeating them. It is clear that Daesh and the Shiite militias constitute major destabilising forces that threaten Kuwait and other states. Kuwait itself was the victim of a Daesh suicide bomber during Ramadan in June 2015, which killed 26 people during Friday prayers. The terrorist attack was carried out by a Daesh militant. Two months later, in August 2015, Kuwaiti authorities uncovered the largest terrorist cell, recruited, trained and armed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah.
In February, the terrorist cell (25 Kuwaitis and one Iranian) were indicted by the Criminal Court “of plotting to topple the political system in Kuwait in favour of Iran’s revolutionary system”. This is the asymmetrical threat I am referring to, which has replaced the traditional threat of invading and occupying.
Kuwait has to be guarded and close ranks with its GCC partners to face all these threats.
I find it depressing, but appropriate to end my column, as I ended my previous one five years ago, by arguing that there is a need to bury the hatchet and for both Kuwait and Iraq to engage “in strategic and joint venture projects. The Iraqi side, with its dysfunctional politics, is keeping the country cocooned in a vicious cycle of distrust and acrimonious relations with its smaller neighbour. Until when will both sides squander opportunities and remain stuck in the past and be hostage to the curse of our history and geography, and to other countries’ projects and designs?”
Professor Abdullah Al Shayji is a professor of political science and the former chairman of the Political Science Department, Kuwait University. You can follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/@docshayji.
