Although Qatar has been establishing a good relationship with Iran in recent years, to the point where four Gulf states (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt) have cut ties with Qatar, they should consider that Iran may well turn on them as was the case with Kuwait. 

Rashed wrote: “Fortunately, Tehran’s harm which targeted Kuwait was aborted at early stages either when the Hezbollah cell was discovered or when its members fled. The Kuwaiti government…expelled Iranian diplomats in the country reducing their number to four. It also shut down the Iranian embassy’s technical offices and missions as it was proven they are dens for espionage and arranging terrorist operations.

Rashed explained that despite the Iranian Regime’s clear links to terror, it was shocking that they would target a country who was so welcoming to them; Kuwait’s emir visited Tehran, three top Kuwaiti officials congratulated Tehran for the nuclear agreement, Kuwait welcomed a visit by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. This was all while Iran’s relations with Saudi Arabia were worsening and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) were embroiled in the Syrian Civil War.

About a year later, the Kuwaiti security forces found that a Kuwaiti terrorist cell, of whom over 20 members were affiliated with Iran, had stockpiled a large number of weapons. The terror cell wanted to destabilise Kuwait, who had not been hostile to Iran in any way.

Rashed wrote: “Kuwait proved, whether through the naivety of its policy or through its attempt to test the honesty of its Iranian neighbour that it’s impossible to deal with Iran without being cautious and without looking out for potential threats.”

The detained members of the terror cell escaped and were smuggled out of the country with help from the IRGC factions of the Iranian embassy, a clear violation of Kuwait’s sovereignty

Rashed wrote: “Kuwait has now realized that being lenient while dealing with Iran and other parties affiliated with it is what made them dare to harm it and facilitated achieving the aims they had failed to achieve in Bahrain when they tried to release terrorists from prison and smuggle them via boats. Bahraini authorities thwarted this attempt at the beginning of 2017.”

Rashed advises that Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries target Iran together

He wrote: “These countries cannot keep silent over Qatar’s irresponsible practices, which pave way for Iranian threats and incite to overturn regimes. Qatar’s current rapprochement with Iran and warmer ties with Turkey will burden it a lot more than burdening others. Qatar chose to take risks by dealing with powers that it will not be able to get rid of in the future and it only did so because it does not want to cooperate with the four countries that asked it to stop exporting chaos and inciting against them.”