ABSTRACT
The regional developments of the late 1970s and the 1980s were not good omens for Kuwait. The Islamic revolution in Iran and the subsequent Iran-Iraq war had, still have, and probably will continue to have a profound impact on Kuwaiti politics. These and later events exposed the fragility of Kuwait’s domestic structure and redefined its external outlook. Indeed, after a long period of internal security and external pragmatism, Kuwait reached the threshold of turmoil. For the first time since the foundation of the state, the hidden strains of communal life tested its structure and the society became more polarized. The country was engulfed in bombings and terrorist acts unprecedented in its history, acts for which the political regime found itself unpreprepared.
