Standing empty with dark scorch marks from a drone strike, Kuwait Petroleum Corp.’s waterfront headquarters is a symbol of the turmoil in the Gulf over the past six months. It’s also emblematic of a country that knows what it’s like to be on the front line.
Iranian strikes stirred up some familiar fears and exposed familiar vulnerabilities in the tiny petrostate. But as the Iran war approaches its seventh month with no lasting peace deal between President Donald Trump and Tehran, Kuwaitis are focused on keeping the economy running and uniting behind public displays of resilience. After Feb.
28, when the US and Israel first struck the Islamic Republic, daily life was punctuated with retaliatory attacks by Iran and its proxies in Iraq.
A report after the first few weeks of the war by the International Institute for Strategic Studies showed Kuwait was the most targeted of the Arab states after the United Arab Emirates – which said this week it has cut all economic ties with Iran after accusing Tehran of firing missiles at it – and more than Saudi Arabia and Qatar combined.
In response, Kuwaitis were quick to donate blood, secure safe rooms in basements, buy generators and stockpile food and water. School classes moved online. The government secured ways to export oil and maintain business as usual. That intensified after the Iraqi invasion. Damage is being done, of course.
“That trauma lingers especially with 308 missing persons, unresolved maritime borders with both Iran and Iraq, and the return to war in the past few months. Kuwait is one of the richest countries in the world, underpinned by its $1 trillion-plus sovereign wealth fund, but the country has been shaken. Exports slumped after the Strait of Hormuz was closed, and the economy will contract by 7.9% in 2026, according to a Bloomberg News survey of nine economists in mid June.
People see the current conflict as the latest chapter in their fight for independence, said Bader Al-Saif, a historian at Kuwait University and an associate fellow at Chatham House. It’s a struggle that has colored much of the nation’s history, he said. “Kuwait had to constantly manage external threats and contend with much larger, and at times more powerful, neighbors,” Al-Saif said at a café in a suburb of Kuwait City. “Just like Kuwaitis, the Al-Arfaj flower is vibrant, it blooms in the harshest conditions, symbolizing resilience and rising under pressure,” said Mohammad Sharaf, who designed and developed the idea initiated by his friend, Khaled Alfadala. “Despite the severity of the shock, Kuwait’s economy has weathered the crisis reasonably well thanks to a combination of strong sovereign buffers, effective policy intervention, and regional cooperation,” said Daniel Kaye, chief economist at National Bank of Kuwait, one of the country’s biggest lenders. “GDP will of course take a hit this year, but many of the activity indicators we monitor have bounced significantly off their initial lows.”
