At dawn on August 2, 1990, Kuwaitis awoke to what Asharq al-Awsat called a “treacherous invasion.” Thirty-six years later, the commentary says the region is still living with the same logic: military adventurism, expansionist ambition, and states deciding that force gives them the right to determine other people’s fate. The article uses Kuwait’s occupation to argue for Gulf unity and sovereignty, but the deeper pattern is harder to miss. In this telling, people are always the ones who wake up to smoke, occupation, and speeches about security after the fact.
The State's Monopoly
The Asharq al-Awsat piece says Iraq’s leadership was carried by arrogance into calculations that proved catastrophic, and that Saddam Hussein invaded a peaceful neighboring country whose people had never failed to support Arab causes. It says the occupation lasted seven months and was black in every sense, while also revealing the strength of Kuwaiti national cohesion. The Gulf states, it says, treated the aggression as an attack on themselves, received Kuwaitis forced from their homes, and mobilized to end the occupation, with Riyadh at the forefront alongside every Gulf capital. The central truth, the article says, was collective security. That’s the language of states, neat and polished, even when the ground beneath it is burned oil wells and displaced families.
The same article says Kuwait’s late Emir Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York on September 27, 1990, and that the assembly rose and applauded for several minutes after his speech. He said he came carrying the message of a people who loved peace, worked for it, extended help to those who deserved it, sought reconciliation among the disputing, and then saw their security and stability violated. He declared that the invaders would inevitably leave and that Kuwaitis would return to their country as they had known it, a home of safety and security. The UN applauded. The occupation continued until it didn’t.
Smoke, Sovereignty, and the Same Old Script
The article says Iraqi forces set Kuwait’s oil wells ablaze before retreating. The writer says he returned soon after liberation with an international team and saw daylight transformed almost into night as smoke covered the sky and the smell of fire announced the scale of the destruction. The aggressor fled and Kuwait remained, the piece says, and that outcome came only through sacrifice: a people who rejected occupation, a leadership that upheld the state’s legitimacy, Gulf solidarity, and Arab and international support from those who understood that permitting one independent state to swallow another would have catastrophic consequences.
Then comes the warning, dressed up as remembrance. The purpose, the writer says, is not to revive hatred but to remember that sovereignty and Gulf solidarity must be strengthened through sustained effort because the dangers have changed in appearance but not in essence. The region has not become safer, the article says. The faces have changed, but the impulse to expand remains. The nation-state is still threatened whenever one party believes force gives it the right to determine the fate of others. That sentence lands harder than the rest, even if the writer still wants to save the state from the very logic that creates it.
The article ends that thread by pointing to today’s threats: the Houthis sending drones toward Saudi Arabia and threatening to close Bab al-Mandab, while other forces of evil launch their own attacks. It calls the region a perilous neighborhood where sectarian arrogance still thrives. Thirty-six years later, the writer says, he still sees Kuwait from that airplane window, daylight buried beneath the smoke of burning wells, and some still seek to bring back the darkness.
Ankara, the Army, and the Oslo Racket by Another Name
A second article in Nida Al-Watan, published in Lebanon on August 1, says President Joseph Aoun’s visit to Ankara went beyond conventional bilateral relations and showed Lebanon’s effort to broaden its regional and international partners in order to restore sovereignty, strengthen security, and revive the economy. The meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, it says, carried political, security, and economic messages far beyond the two countries and laid the foundations for a new phase in Lebanese-Turkish relations amid accelerating regional change.
The timing matters, the article says, because Lebanon is entering a delicate period while international efforts continue to stabilize the south, implement security understandings, and consider arrangements following the eventual end of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon’s mission. Erdogan announced Turkey’s readiness to participate in any new international security framework intended to support Lebanon’s security and protect its sovereignty, alongside continued Turkish assistance to the Lebanese Army. That’s the familiar international script: new framework, old hierarchy, same promise that armed institutions will keep the peace if only the right sponsors are involved.
Politically, the article says, Aoun sought Turkish support for Lebanon’s demand for the completion of Israel’s withdrawal, the restoration of state authority over all Lebanese territory, and the strengthening of the army as the only legitimate institution entrusted with protecting the borders and maintaining security. It also says the visit could open the door to Turkish contribution on border issues, displaced populations, and wider regional cooperation. Economically, the article says Turkey’s expertise in infrastructure, energy, ports, transport, industry, and tourism could attract new investment, expand trade, and encourage private companies to participate in reconstruction. Diplomatically, it says Aoun has followed a line of diversifying Lebanon’s foreign partnerships rather than confining them to a single axis, after opening to the United States, Arab states, and France, while maintaining contact with other international actors.
The joint press conference, the article says, showed a desire by both leaderships to elevate relations toward a more ambitious partnership based on trust and practical cooperation, including continued support for the army, assistance with economic recovery, and broader sectoral ties. Aoun said the next phase required effective partnerships capable of helping Lebanon regain its natural regional role, consistent with his vision of a strong state with full sovereignty and functioning institutions. The article says the Ankara visit was not merely ceremonial but a calculated step within a wider diplomatic strategy to reposition Lebanon in the region, expand its support network, and secure political, security, and economic backing for the reconstruction of the state.
The pattern is plain enough. One article celebrates collective security after invasion. The other celebrates sovereignty through new partnerships, army support, and international frameworks. Different capitals, same faith in institutions that promise protection while ordinary people are left to live inside the arrangements they never designed.