Arming a Quiet Bystander

By Richard Stengel

Fear of war turns a desert nation toward the U.S.

During the broiling, dusty afternoons of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of dawn-to-dusk fasting, sleep is the preferred activity for most citizens of Kuwait. Lately, that slumber has proved fitful for the oil-rich, stubbornly independent nation and its capital city of glinting office buildings and flashy houses striving for modernity. Increasingly, Kuwait has been drawn into the four-year-old war between neighboring Iraq and nearby Iran.

In the past six weeks, three of Kuwait's oil tankers have been attacked in the Persian Gulf as Iran, angered by Iraq's attacks on tankers carrying its oil, has taken out its frustrations on Iraq's Arab allies. With the expansion of the conflict, Kuwait sees the good life it has carved out for itself endangered by a war it does not consider its own. Asserts Foreign Minister Sheik Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, the state's Foreign Minister: "The war is on our doorstep, and we feel the dangers more than others."

After years of proud independence, the sudden realization of vulnerability has forced this country of 1.6 million people, about half of whom are foreigners, to turn reluctantly for help to the U.S. Kuwait publicly appealed to the U.S. for a shipment of shoulder-fired Stinger antiaircraft missiles (400 of which were recently supplied to the Saudis) to defend itself against potential Iranian air attacks on its refineries, power stations and desalination plants. Though the Reagan Administration denied the request because of anticipated congressional opposition, the U.S. is offering instead to increase Kuwait's supply of American-made Hawk missiles and augment its skimpy radar facilities. For the past two weeks, a 20-man team from the Pentagon has been in Kuwait discussing the country's security needs. "We assume Kuwait is No. 1 on the escalation scenario," says a senior U.S. diplomat. In other words, Kuwait would be the first victim.

The U.S. is also trying to push the Saudis and the Kuwaitis closer together. Traditionally wary of its more conservative neighbor, Kuwait is now sharing intelligence with the Saudi air force: a hotline from Saudi ground-control systems immediately transmits information from the patrolling American AWACS radar planes. Kuwait could also be shielded from unfriendly fire by what amounts to a Saudi umbrella. Kuwait has no oil pipeline, and the Saudi shield could be vital in ensuring the safety of tankers and thus protecting the country's oil revenues, which constitute about half of its gross domestic product. To calm the apprehensions of customers, the Kuwaitis have already offered to use their own tankers to carry their oil to commercial ships anchored outside the gulf.

Ever since Sir Percy Cox of Great Britain drafted Kuwait's boundaries in 1922, Kuwaiti foreign policy has been in a state of delicate balance. The country has resolutely avoided attachments to any of its more powerful neighbors, notably Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran, which is separated from Kuwait by a slender, 25-mile finger of Iraq. Notes one Western diplomat: "The only things the Kuwaitis have are diplomacy and money. They either try to talk themselves out of trouble or buy themselves out." During the past six months, the Kuwaitis have been doing a lot of both. Despite a historically uncomfortable relationship with Baghdad, the Kuwaitis, along with the Saudis, have been supporting the Iraqi war machine with billions of dollars since early in the war. Last December, after seven bombs exploded around the country, Kuwait blamed pro-Iranian terrorists and began more openly supporting the Iraqi cause. Kuwait was also concerned about its more than 250,000 Shi'ite Muslims, some of whom were sympathetic to Iran's Islamic revolution. Yet Iranian bullying compelled many Shi'ites to renounce Iran's politics, causing a change in Kuwait's orientation. "What the Shah failed to do," says one bitter opposition leader, "[Ayatullah Ruhollah] Khomeini is actually succeeding in doing. The Shah wanted to force us into an alliance with the Americans in the region. Now Khomeini is forcing us into that alliance by fear."

But the Kuwaitis face a major problem in defending their area of the gulf: the Kuwaiti military is as small and eclectic as the country itself. Its scant force of 12,500 untested men is unlikely to be of much help in defending Kuwait's borders if the Iraqi defense crumbles before Iran's long-promised land invasion. In order to bolster their collection of French Mirage jets, British tanks and American antiaircraft missiles, the Kuwaitis recently signed contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars with the French and the British to upgrade their defenses. When the U.S. balked last week at sending the antiaircraft Stingers, one Kuwaiti official responded that "the arms market is open." By this, diplomats believe, he could have been referring to the Soviet Union. As the only gulf state to exchange ambassadors with the Soviets, Kuwait offers a potential conduit for Soviet influence in the region. Admits a U.S. official: "This is a good opportunity for the Soviets to strengthen their hand in the gulf."

Until now, the Kuwaitis have been more inclined to pour money into social programs than into defense. The government provides a generous national health plan and free, high-quality education; Kuwait is the jewel of the gulf in intellectual life and social progress. Its enterprising press is the only one in the gulf that is not government-controlled, and its democratically elected National Assembly has been known to pass legislation against the wishes of the ruling Al-Sabah family. But there are fears in the nation that a war crisis would split the country into religious and political factions, destroying its v alued freedoms.

Every evening, during the rounds of diwaniyas, a sort of casual salon of talk and coffee sipping that begins in the late evening, the Kuwaitis ponder their uncertain future. Says one politician: "We fear that Kuwait's freedom will be the victim of these attacks on our tankers." But it is more than just Kuwaiti freedom that is at stake. It is Kuwait itself. --By Richard Stengel. Reported by Barry Hillenbrand/Kuwait and Johanna McGeary/Washington

With reporting by Barry Hillenbrand/Kuwait and Johanna McGeary/Washington