Why does Kuwait Exist? (Short Animated Documentary)

kuwait it's a small nation located here between both iraq which many times has wanted to annex the country and saudi arabia which has also many times wanted to annex the country yet despite the fact that kuwait is much smaller than its neighbours with very little in the way of deterrence it still stands which raises the question why why does kuwait exist and why hasn't it been annexed by one of its neighbors so going back to the mid-19th century kuwait was an independent shakedom based around kuwait city with some very loosely defined fuzzy borders because desert kuwait was a very busy port which carried goods from all over the world and as a result was very rich next door sat both the ottoman empire and the emirates of nage which both wanted such a wealthy port for themselves however the kuwaitis were able to play both off of each other and would often submit to paying tribute in return for its continued independence that was until the british turned up and in 1899 the sheikh of kuwait made an agreement with them in return for kuwait's continued existence as a british protectorate and a few sacks of cash britain would have exclusive military access to its lands and would negotiate any border changes on its behalf the kuwaiti sheikh had hoped that this treaty with the british would guarantee his state's independence long term but fun fact no you see britain wasn't interested in having to wait for itself it was interested in france russia and germany not having it and so the treaty had effectively allowed britain to negotiate the status of kuwait with any power that it wished and it chose the ottomans the british knew that the ottoman sultan had wanted kuwait for a long time and so in 1913 they drafted an agreement with him that would split the arabian peninsula like this which as you can see gave kuwait to the ottomans in return for these lands for britain as upset as the shake would have been about this it didn't matter since the next year world war one and after the destruction of the ottoman empire the threat to kuwaiti's existence was gone for like four seconds because to the south south the kingdom of nage which swiftly conquered most of the arabian peninsula and became the kingdom of saudi arabia the sauds wanted kuwait to be a part of their new kingdom and made several attempts at conquest between 1920 and 1922 the fighting was fairly small in scale at first but when things heated up the british intervened and put pressure on the south to stop and in the end it was decided that kuwait would lose most of its territory to saudi arabia and in return british interests there would be protected so to the north now sat the brand new kingdom of iraq whose people saw kuwait's independence as unnatural and only the result of foreign meddling and as the decades went on both in iraq and in kuwait there was an ever growing movement to unite the two however since kuwait was a british protector iraq couldn't invade and the kuwaiti rulers there imprisoned anyone who wished for unification which meant that nothing changed until the 60s and that change was the decline of the british empire which left the country in 1961 shortly after its oil industry had boomed so being an oil-rich country surrounded by other larger oil-rich countries meant that some tensions were inevitable iraq now led by saddam hussein had racked up a lot of debt fighting a war with iran which they believed had been fought on behalf of the arab world and as such that world owed them there were some choice words and kuwait increased its oil production to punish iraq who then accused them of stealing oil and so sent an angry letter and by sent an angry letter i mean they invaded kuwait in 1919 formerly annexed it into the country to the rest of the world this was a bit much and after iraqi forces refused to withdraw these countries invaded and drove them out kuwait's independence was restored and thereafter there were no further attempts to annex the country and its existence would be assured i hope you enjoyed this episode and thank you for watching with a special thanks to my patrons james bisonette kelly moneymaker mr wolf sky chappelle jerry lamdin yn hockey marvin castle jordan longley gareth turner rod d martin bugley wiggily captain cydog spencer lightfoot corso wolfe gustav swan matthew shipley winston cayward robert wetzel aaron the white marcus asner maggie paxkowski anthony beckett alex schwinn mo the mukwopa coppertone spinning three plates ben ivinson charles the first adam stalter and scottish trekkie

Channel: History Matters

Views: 2,595,238

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Id: zQBaSPqLOnc

Length: 3min 44sec (224 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 30 2021