Put it bluntly: the Gulf is now closer than ever to burying past hostilities and unlocking the enormous potential of its youth.
The Arabian Gulf states are already demonstrating a coordinated, forceful foreign policy that reflects the trust and ambition of their peoples on the world stage.
The power of Iran, the specter that had haunted Gulf security authorities for years, was dealt a decisive blow by US attacks in June and Israel’s ruthless wars of attrition against Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.
Although the tragic conflict in Gaza remains unresolved and is contained only by a tentative peace proposal, Saudi Arabia is reportedly close to joining the United Arab Emirates under the Abraham Accords, a move that would fundamentally realign Middle East politics and usher in an era of mutual cooperation between Arab states and Israel.
The wave of optimism sweeping the Gulf was reflected in President Trump’s celebrated visit to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in May this year, during which he announced a series of AI and investment deals that could transform the region into a hub of technological innovation and prosperity.
But amid this flowering of Gulf confidence, one nation remained conspicuously absent: Kuwait, the region’s one-time Western flagship.
When President George HW Bush called on the international community to defend Kuwait against the aggression of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in 1990, Kuwait emerged as the West’s staunchest ally in the Middle East. Kuwait was a base for coalition forces before the second Gulf War in 2003 and is still home to several US military bases.
To this day, Kuwait retains the status it received from the US as a “major non-NATO ally” in 2004, the same year it signed a Trade and Investment Framework Agreement, a symbol of the close ties it forged with America during two Gulf Wars.
Kuwait should therefore have been at the forefront of President Donald Trump’s mind as he sought allies in the Gulf to bolster U.S. interests in the region and partners to share in the dynamism of America’s technology and AI sectors.
But Kuwait’s leaders allowed relations with the United States to collapse, threatening to make the country a backwater in a region dominated by its more enterprising neighbors: the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
At the heart of the problem is the impunity shown by members of Kuwait’s ruling elite towards corruption, which risks becoming endemic. Just one example is former Defense Minister Sheikh Khaled Al Jarrah, who was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2023 after being accused of embezzling around $800 million from a military aid company.
Sheikh Khaled’s successor in the ministry, Sheikh Talal Al Khaled, ensured he took over the mantle – and was sentenced to 14 years in prison this year for embezzling public funds while in office.
In fact, corruption has become so pervasive in Kuwait that Bader Al Saif of the Carnegie Endowment described it as an “internal invasion” – a term not used lightly in a country that has suffered from severe armed conflict for as long as anyone can remember.
But looking at the cases that have made it to court is only scratching the surface of Kuwait’s corruption quagmire.
Recently leaked documents show that Sheikh Ahmed Meshaal may be at the center of a multi-million dollar embezzlement of public funds for his own benefit.
As deputy undersecretary of the Council of Ministers, Sheikh Ahmed Meshaal signed a consulting agreement in February 2013 with KGL Investment, a highly controversial investment fund that was later embroiled in a half-billion-dollar embezzlement scandal that saw its two executives jailed.
Just over a month later, the Council of Ministers approved a $35 million investment by the state-run Kuwait Ports Authority in KGL Investment – and just weeks later, disgraced KGL Investment executive Saeed Dashti wired Sheikh Ahmed Meshaal $1.4 million into a Panama-registered bank account.
What makes Sheikh Ahmed Meshaal’s case so vexing is not just that he is the son of the current Kuwaiti Amir Sheikh Meshaal Ahmed. Just a year before the KGL investment scandal, Sheikh Ahmed Meshaal had been appointed director of the Government Performance Follow-Up Agency – a government organization that officially has oversight of ministries and public works projects and has since in practice consolidated its control over state land use under Sheikh Ahmed Meshaal’s supervision.
The rampant ruthlessness of Kuwait’s ruling elite reached an almost unbelievable climax a few months ago when a government program to strip naturalized Kuwaitis of their citizenship appeared on the front pages of Britain’s Financial Times.
The purpose, of course, was to distract from Kuwait’s struggling economy and to maintain the illusion that Kuwait can support its generous system of social handouts while its rulers divert public funds for their own benefit.
If Kuwait wants to maintain its hard-won reputation as a reliable Western ally, there can only be one solution: for the ruling elite to turn inward and address its rampant culture of corruption, rather than launching witch hunts against law-abiding citizens
If not, key allies like the US will surely continue to sideline Kuwait in favor of the Gulf’s less important fruits.
At a time when foreign investment and technology sharing is needed to compete amid unprecedented global upheaval, Kuwait urgently needs to address its corruption crisis; or it risks becoming a Gulf backlog.
The unbridled ruthlessness of Kuwait’s ruling elite reached levels that are hard to believe
