Kuwait's Position: The Gulf State That Remembers What Closure Actually Costs

Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Kuwait remembers. Of all the Gulf states whose oil revenues depend on Hormuz transit, Kuwait is the one with the most direct experience of what it looks like when a regional power decides that its neighbors’ sovereignty and economic interests are subordinate to its own strategic ambitions. The Iraqi invasion of August 1990 and the seven-month occupation that followed were not a Hormuz closure, but they were something equivalent in economic and political terms: the abrupt elimination of Kuwait’s ability to govern itself and export its oil. The institutional memory of that period shapes Kuwaiti foreign policy in ways that are distinct from the other Gulf states that have not experienced occupation.

Gulf War on Hormuz.net

Kuwait's Position: The Gulf State That Remembers What Closure Actually Costs