The U.S. Liberated Kuwait but Now Struggles to Protect It From Iran

Washington is rethinking the wisdom of its large military footprint in the Persian Gulf emirateA December joint military exercise in the Kuwait desert.U.S. servicemembers raising the American flag last month at the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait.In the decades since Kuwait’s liberation in the first Gulf War, the U.S. has used the oil-rich emirate as one of the Army’s biggest logistics hubs in the world, hosting thousands of troops, Abrams tanks and heavy artillery.The American military footprint gave Kuwait a sense of security. Never again could a bigger, more powerful neighbor threaten it.But the Iran war has undercut this arrangement for both Washington and Kuwait City. The U.S. is now rethinking the scope of its footprint in the emirate, said U.S. officials familiar with the deliberations, even as Kuwaiti officials have said they still need a firm commitment of American support.Tehran has pummeled Kuwait with hundreds of missiles and drones, targeting its power and desalination plants, international airport and Persian Gulf port, as well as cutting off its oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. has said American-made air defenses have shot down most of the Iranian salvos and saved countless lives. Still, the U.S. installations have drawn repeated Iranian strikes, including one in March that killed six American servicemembers in one of the deadliest attacks of the war.Kuwait has so far weathered the strikes on its power and water supplies, drawing on reserve capacity and emergency repairs. But the conflict has underscored the danger of a sustained campaign against Kuwait’s civilian infrastructure—and the vulnerability of longstanding U.S.-Kuwaiti defense ties.“The attacks have made people in Kuwait think of the U.S. presence as a liability, but also as absolutely necessary to defend Kuwait,” said Douglas Silliman, the president of the Arab Gulf States Institute and a former U.S. ambassador to Kuwait. “I think they are trying to figure out what the best way forward on defense is.”Kuwait recently signed a new defense pact with Pakistan, which has played a mediating role in seeking to halt the U.S.-Iran conflict. There is no sign that Kuwait’s rulers are planning a fundamental shift away from heavy reliance on the U.S. as their main security partner. But they might press for new weapons and stepped-up air defenses systems from Washington and other suppliers to counter the Iran threat.“The recent attacks have highlighted the increasingly complex security environment in our region and the evolving nature of modern threats, including missiles, drones and asymmetric capabilities,” a spokesman for Kuwait’s U.S. Embassy said in a statement, adding that Kuwait “remains committed to working closely with the United States.”America has a strong relationship with Kuwait, which has been a great partner in advancing regional stability, a U.S. official told The Wall Street Journal.What is more likely to spark changes in the relationship is a U.S. realization that a large, permanent troop presence in Kuwait is no longer critical or militarily wise, analysts said. The Pentagon was already thinking about drawing down its forces before the Iran war began, said current and former officials. In response to the Iranian attacks on American bases, the Pentagon has reduced its presence in Kuwait to minimize risk, U.S. officials said.“The question really is, if the Iran war continues, whether that large of a U.S. presence still makes sense,” said Elizabeth Dent, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former Pentagon official focused on the Persian Gulf.For Kuwait, she added, the danger is that Washington’s commitment to its defense might decline if the Pentagon permanently shrinks its footprint.After Iranian missiles struck Kuwait’s international airport in June, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, called it a “self-defense” strike, claiming it was a site that the Pentagon used as staging grounds for attacks.Officials in June inspecting damage at Kuwait International Airport after an Iranian attack.American forces have operated from the Kuwaiti airport in the past, although it couldn’t be determined if they were still doing so. Kuwait has launched its own airstrikes on Iran, the Journal has reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Kuwait’s ambassador to the U.S. denied the report.With the Strait of Hormuz closed, Kuwait’s exports of nearly 2 million barrels a day were halted for months, depriving the world of around 2% of its daily needs and shutting off the country’s main income source.More than 90% of Kuwait’s drinking water comes from desalination, much of it produced at facilities integrated with power plants. A desalination facility and power plant in Kuwait caught on fire and had serious damage after new Iranian strikes this month.Satellite imagery captured on July 18 shows smoke rising over Kuwait’s Al-Ahmadi port area. By July 20, damage was visible near the northern pier, which belongs to the state-owned company that oversees the emirate’s oil-and-gas sector.While Kuwait has largely kept the lights on and taps running through reserve capacity and emergency repairs, the attacks have highlighted how even a major U.S. military footprint hasn’t shielded it from Iranian attack.Bader al-Saif, a professor of history at Kuwait University, said Iran’s tactics underscored that Kuwait is facing a more dangerous security environment and the need to broaden its security partners.“Whether the Americans are there or not, these threats from the Iranian side will continue,” he said. “Where the Americans helped us in the ’90s when conventional warfare was the thing, that’s not the case today. So I think it was a wake-up call.”The relationship is an outgrowth of the early-1990s Gulf War, when the U.S. led a multinational coalition that expelled Iraqi troops from Kuwait after a brutal invasion and occupation by its neighbor.That created a deep reservoir of support in Kuwait for the U.S. military presence, which grew significantly after the 2003 U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. It was then that Kuwait emerged as a major logistical hub for U.S. forces heading into and out of Iraq for two decades.Even after the war in Iraq, as many as 13,500 U.S. troops have been based at Camp Arifjan and at Ali al Salem Air Base and other installations in Kuwait in recent years, behind only Germany, Japan and South Korea for the largest overseas-deployment locations.Kuwaiti resistance fighters celebrated with a U.S. serviceman after American forces entered a town in 1991.A 2021 celebration marking the 30th anniversary of the liberation of Kuwait from Iraq.It became the main place in the region where the U.S. Army stored tanks and armored vehicles, staged troops, repaired equipment, stocked ammunition and fuel, and prepared forces for deployment across the region.Unlike Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region, Kuwait had no qualms about having large numbers of U.S. troops permanently on its territory—and even saw their presence as its best guarantee against another land invasion from Iraq or Iran.As the threat from Iranian missiles and drones grew, the Pentagon has deployed Patriot antimissile batteries to Kuwait to protect the U.S. bases and sold the system to the Kuwaitis.But in many ways, Kuwait’s principal security concern remained a ground invasion, said Silliman, the former U.S. ambassador to Kuwait. When the U.S. and Israel launched waves of airstrikes against Iran in late February, Kuwait suddenly found itself on the front lines of a very different kind of war.As in other Gulf states, Kuwait officials were perturbed that President Trump started the war that put them in the crosshairs without much consultation, a sentiment that has grown sharper as the conflict has dragged on and its oil exports have remained bottled up.Kuwait “is caught in a difficult place right now,” said Dent, the former Pentagon official. “They want the war to be over, but they also want to end any threat from Iran,” she said.Write to David S. Cloud at david.cloud@wsj.com, Shelby Holliday at shelby.holliday@wsj.com and Anika Arora Seth at anika.seth@wsj.comGet the latest World News, breaking headlines and global updates from the US, UK, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Russia and other countries. Follow major international events on Hindustan Times.