When Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Esmaeil Baghaei, accused Kuwait of being “part of the fire of the wicked” on social media last week, it was apparent that the previously amicable relationship between the two countries had now soured.
“Iran has always adhered to good neighbourliness, but the smoke of ingratitude and the absence of foresight will blind the eyes of the ungrateful,” Baghaei warned.
His comments were a reference to the support Iran lent Kuwait during the Gulf War (1990-91), and were made as American military bases in Kuwait came under fire by Iranian missiles.
Since the start of this year’s aggression, American bases across the Gulf have been targeted by Iran, which has long preferred asymmetrical warfare to direct confrontation, and have been significantly damaged as a result.
Kuwait has denied that the USA has launched strikes from air bases on its territory, and its defence ministry spokesperson described Iran’s actions as “criminal aggression".
Before recent tensions, relations between the two states had been tested over the decades. They took a downward turn when Kuwait aligned itself with Iraq after President Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980, but became more cordial in the aftermath of the Gulf War.
Iran and Kuwait had long maintained diplomatic, commercial and cultural ties, but Saddam’s war on Iran (1980-88) changed that.
Kuwait provided financial and logistical support for the Iraqi president’s war efforts against Iran, offering billions of dollars in loans, and allowing its port to be used to transport Iraqi weapons and supplies.
"They had concerns about Revolutionary Iran," Dr Alam Saleh, a lecturer at the Australian National University, told Middle East Eye.
After the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, Kuwaiti leaders feared that Iran’s new government might gain dominance over the Persian Gulf region.
They also worried that Iran might incite Kuwait's sizeable Shia population to revolt against the Al-Sabah monarchy.
During the 1980s war, Iran was blamed for attacking Kuwaiti oil ships and targeting the US and French embassies, Kuwait International Airport, and the hijacking of Kuwait Airways flights.
“Direct Iranian state responsibility for these attacks has never been conclusively proven,” Saleh observed.
In August 1990, just two years after the end of the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam invaded Kuwait, allegedly because the Gulf state was overproducing oil by using American technology to drill in Rumaila, southern Iraq.
This had led to a global slump in oil prices and damaged Iraq’s fragile economy, which was already in debt from war with Iran.
Days before the invasion, Saddam held a meeting with the US Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, who seemingly implied that America would not intervene in Arab regional conflicts. Saddam viewed this as a green light to invade Kuwait, a territory he had previously claimed belonged to Iraq.
America did end up becoming involved, however, and led a coalition of 42 countries to fight by air and on the ground against Saddam’s forces.
The war created a humanitarian crisis, with over a million people in Kuwait fleeing to neighbouring countries.
Iran welcomed thousands of refugees, including foreign nationals who had been working in Kuwait, people who were stateless, and Iraqi nationals.
Mobile camps in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, on the border with Iraq and Kuwait, were set up providing food, shelter and safe passage, and the Iranian government granted political asylum and organised flights for people stranded by the conflict.
