Rich, small Kuwait will never be `ordinary' state

"The defence of small nations" is frequently put forward as a reason for going to war; "the defence of small, rich nations" might be more accurate. Nations don't come much smaller - or richer - than Kuwait, a barren, sandy statelet of 1.7 million people on the Arabian Gulf, which just happens to be sitting on massive oil reserves. And neither do they come less attractive.

Kuwait, as before 1990, is an undemocratic society, where power and wealth remain in the hands of a small minority. The Kuwaiti elite, who abandoned their country without the bang of a rifle when Saddam invaded, have simply returned to their old ways. Promises of reform during and immediately after the Gulf War have been forgotten or abandoned.

True, there have been elections, but suffrage is limited to 120,000 "first class" male citizens, aged 21 years and over, who registered as citizens in 1920, and their descendants. The Emir, Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad alSabah, last year issued a decree announcing women would get the vote in 2003, but the all-male parliament rejected this.

The country relies on foreign workers to run the administration and perform menial jobs. These workers, many of them exploited and mistreated, outnumber Kuwaitis. Dozens of political prisoners have languished in jail since 1991; at least 12 people were sentenced to death in 1999. Last year, the UN paid $84 million to victims of the Iraqi invasion. The Iraqi threat remains and Kuwait is ever more reliant on US military support.

But with 100 million barrels of oil under the ground, Kuwait will never be considered an "ordinary" state.