The Iran-Iraq War was a war between Iran and Iraq that began on September 22, 1980 and ended on August 20, 1988, lasting eight years. In this war, Kuwait's choice came as a surprise.
Kuwait is located on the northwest coast of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq and Saudi Arabia respectively, with an area of about 17,800 square kilometers. Kuwait declared independence in 1961, and after independence, it was repeatedly threatened with force by Iraq, especially after Saddam Hussein came to power, and repeatedly stated that Kuwait was originally only a county of Iraq. Since Kuwait's independence in 1961, Iraq has coveted Kuwait for a long time, and Kuwait understands it very well, so why does Kuwait support Iraq, which has long coveted its own territory, after the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war?
First, Kuwait and Iraq are closer together. Iraq is located in the basin of the Euphrates River and the Tigris River in Western Asia, bordering the Persian Gulf, with an area of about 438,300 square kilometers.
During the Arab Empire, Iraq and Kuwait belonged to the same country, and the capital of the Abbasid dynasty was in Baghdad. After the fall of the Arab Empire, these Arab settlements formed a number of tribes, each ruled by their own sheikhs, and each of them developed on different trajectories.
For example, the Kuwait region came under the rule of the Khalid family in 1581, and in 1710, the Sabah family, who originally lived in Najd in the Arabian Peninsula, migrated to Kuwait and established the Emirate of Kuwait in 1756. This is considered the beginning of Kuwait's independent statehood.
During this period, many Arab tribes were also formed in Iraq. It was not until the rise of the Ottoman Empire that it annexed Iraq in the 16th century. In 1871, the Ottoman Empire annexed Kuwait. At this point, Iraq and Kuwait were once again under the rule of a large empire.
During the Ottoman Empire, Iraq was divided into three provinces, Mosul, Baghdad and Basra. In 1871, after the Ottoman Empire annexed Kuwait, it was placed under the rule of Basra Province, which became a county in Basra Province. This is the reason why Iraq considers Kuwait to be part of an Iraqi county.
However, in 1899, the British invaded Kuwait and forced the Ottoman Empire to cede Kuwait, and Britain became the suzerainty of Kuwait. In 1921, Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra were integrated to form the Kingdom of Iraq. Kuwait remained under British rule until independence in 1961.
Thus, in terms of historical development, Kuwait and Iraq are more closely related, both are Arab countries, share the same language and culture, and were once part of the same whole. Iran, on the other hand, belongs to the Persian state, and from the point of view of relations, Kuwait and Iraq are closer, which is one reason why Kuwait supports Iraq.
Second, there is a desire to improve relations. Kuwait is located on the coast of Iraq and has a coastline of about 290 kilometers, while Iraq is much larger than Kuwait and has a coastline of only 60 kilometers. Kuwait's independence has constrained Iraq's access to the sea, which is also a reason why Iraq has long coveted Kuwait.
Kuwait shares a border with Iraq and Iran across the sea, and in 1961, after Kuwait's independence, it was coveted by Iraq for a long time, which made Kuwait very uneasy and sought to improve relations with Iraq. After the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war, Kuwait saw an opportunity to improve its relations with Iraq if it supported it.
In this way, Kuwait chose to support Iraq. Kuwait is an oil-rich country that has amassed a great deal of wealth since its independence in 1961 through the export of resources. After the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980, Kuwait provided a large amount of loans to Iraq, and Iraq used Kuwaiti funds to purchase weapons and support the development of the war. By the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988, Iraq owed Kuwait a total of approximately $37 billion.
However, Kuwait's support for Iraq was not well reciprocated. After the end of the Iran-Iraq war, relations between Iraq and Kuwait deteriorated further, and in August 1990, Iraq launched a war of invasion of Kuwait, which destroyed Kuwait. Since the occupation of Kuwait by Iraq, oil production has been forced to stop, and the daily economic losses have reached hundreds of millions of dollars.
On 17 January 1991, following the outbreak of the Gulf War, Iraq was forced to withdraw its troops from Kuwait. But on the eve of the withdrawal, Iraq ignited more than 700 high-production oil wells in Kuwait, resulting in direct economic losses of $32 billion in Kuwait. It took more than a year for these oil wells to be extinguished and a long time before they were put into production again, causing even greater economic losses. On 26 February 1991, Kuwait was reinstated, and it will surely regret its support for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. However, Kuwait could not have foretold the war, and if Kuwait had known that it would be invaded by Iraq after the war, it would certainly not have supported Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war.