Kuwait in Crisis
Is Kuwait on the brink?
Tensions have escalated in Kuwait as allegations of corruption and greater calls for reform have gripped the oil-rich Gulf state in the wake of uprisings throughout the region in other Arab countries. Recent strikes by airline and oil industry employees threaten to disrupt oil transportation and further pressure the ruling emir, whose family history in Kuwait is claimed to date as far back as a.d. 1613. Last month, protesters stormed the parliament building infuriated by allegations of financial corruption by the government.
Now what?
“Kuwait’s ruler dissolved parliament Tuesday and set the Gulf nation toward elections, citing ‘deteriorating conditions’ amid an increasingly bitter political showdown over alleged high-level corruption. The decision by the emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah, comes less than a week after he named a new prime minister and parliamentary sessions were put on hold” (Associated Press, December 6).
The country must conduct elections within two months. The United States will be watching the result closely. Kuwait had been planned as a stationing area for U.S. troops as they withdraw from Iraq.
One wonders if anyone still remains inside the palace walls who may recall the visit of an honored guest in more stable times. Almost four decades before the so-called Arab Spring, Herbert Armstrong wrote, “At cities like New Delhi, Teheran, Addis Ababa, where we have many friends at the top of the countries, we were able to arrange dinners or receptions in their honor, and in the Arab oil cities, Kuwait, Dubai and Cairo, they opened the door for me to have meetings with heads of governments” (member and co-worker letter, Jan. 27, 1974).
Bringing the gospel message of the coming Kingdom of God (Matthew 24:14), and acting in his capacity as the internationally honored unofficial ambassador for peace, Mr. Armstrong was invited to visit with the 12th ruling emir of the al-Sabah dynasty. “At Kuwait I had a very fine meeting with the head of state, Sheikh Aaba as Salim al-Sabah. He is an absolute ruler, since the form of government is an absolute monarchy. Kuwait City has grown to be a city of about a half million people and, since the virtual destruction of Beirut by civil war, Kuwait is probably due now to be the financial capital of the entire Arab Middle East. Our conference there was very successful and will bear much fruit” (ibid, May 28, 1976). Herbert Armstrong had provided a witness of the gospel message to Kuwait, to its ruling emir, but would it be heeded?
By the 1980s, Kuwait would be impacted regionally by the Iranian revolution, deposing of the Shah, and fallout from the U.S. hostage crisis. The state chose sides and supported Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war, sending millions in financial aid into Iraq. Iran attacked Kuwaiti oil tankers and then the U.S. became involved by sending warships into the region.
The 1990 invasion of Kuwait by Iraq resulted in the al-Sabah dynasty being broken, citizens repressed, beaten and tortured, and over half the population fleeing as refugees of war. It wasn’t until the U.S.-led, United Nations-sanctioned invasion, supported by 34 other countries, that the al-Sabah family and its ruling emir could be reinstated.
By the turn of the century, the country was serving as a major staging base for U.S. operations for the invasion of Iraq. Since that time Kuwait has remained in the line of fire but kept its head down, spending billions of dollars to repair oil infrastructure damaged by war.
A rebuilt, retooled, revived Kuwait now faces political pressure from within and without. The Associated Press reports, “In January, the emir ordered 1,000 dinar (us$3,559) grants and free food coupons for every Kuwaiti. Those handouts have been since dwarfed by other Gulf rulers trying to use their riches to dampen calls for political reform. Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has pledged about $93 billion for more government sector jobs and services. In September, Qatar announced pay and benefit hikes of 60 percent for public employees and up to 120 percent for some military officers” (op. cit.). This disparity in handouts between Kuwait and neighboring nations has escalated tensions in that tiny, yet strategically crucial, Persian Gulf nation.
Pressured by the prospect of Iran filling the vacuum in neighboring Iraq as the U.S. draws down its troops in that country, watch for Kuwait to become increasingly dependent on Saudi Arabia, a key nation of the biblically prophesied Psalm 83 alliance, for its security. Opposition to the burgeoning influence of radical Islam led by Iran, biblically identified as the king of the south, is rising in the Arabian Peninsula. To fully grasp where this trend is leading, request your free copy of Gerald Flurry’s vital booklet The King of the South.
Herbert Armstrong often stated that knowledge is of no value unless it is applied.
For decades he carried the gospel message to world leaders, but few applied that knowledge.
The lesson for embattled Kuwait, its ruling dynasty, and indeed all nations whose leaders received Herbert Armstrong’s witness, is that when God’s messenger goes unheeded, tragedy will result. Only by heeding God’s message of admonition to obedience to His overarching law of love will a nation learn the way to peace, collective happiness and abundance of national blessings (Exodus 20:1-17).
Take note of that moment Kuwait hosted God’s ambassador for peace within its rulers’ very palace walls, and witness the result today of its leaders not heeding his message. That in essence is what is wrong with this world. The nations have never truly heeded the message of God’s prophets. The impending catastrophe that the escalating global crisis portends is the result.
It’s time to take note of the world’s increasingly chaotic state and resolve to respond actively now to God’s call to action before time runs out and you find yourself caught up in the maelstrom, with no way of escape. For, there does yet remain a way of escape from the terror to come (Leviticus 26:14-16). You can read of that way of escape in our booklet Repentance Toward God.
