KUWAIT - Political Leadership.

Al Sabah family has ruled Kuwait since 1751 and the ruler is called emir (prince). The office of the emir, Emiri Diwan, is the highest authority in the state. Despite an elected parliamentary system, the emir's powers are absolute. But many subtle changes have occurred since Iraq's 1990 invasion and the US-led liberation of Kuwait in early 1991, which make the enforcement of his absolute authority more complex.

It is still relatively easy for the emir to dissolve the National Assembly by decree as he did in May 1999 or in 1986, or as he did in 1976 when he was crown prince and prime minister. But he has to decree free elections to the next assembly almost immediately as he dissolves the legislature - as he had to do on May 4, 1999 - to satisfy the Kuwaitis and the US that he is not suspending the democratic process as he did in the past.

Were it not for the US-led intervention in early 1991, Kuwait could have remained under Iraqi control. Had the US not moved promptly, Iraq under Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime may also have taken the oil-rich Saudi eastern province and perhaps other GCC states. Now Kuwaitis feel the Iraqi threat is behind them; Saddam's regime collapsed on April 9, 2003, after a swift US-led war. But the US is yet to win the peace in Iraq.

Opposition groups in Kuwait are equipped with constitutional arguments and external publicity. The latter is effective in getting support from the US and other Western powers committed to democratisation in the Gulf region.

In parliament, the majority of deputies can open the government's books on questionable deals and insist on greater accountability among the decision makers. Several scandals have been unearthed since 1992, including allegations of corruption within the defence procurement system.

However, the influence of Islamist groups in Kuwait has grown considerably and the ruling family is worried that, despite an overwhelming US military presence in Iraq, this could cause serious trouble in future. Shaikh Saud Nasser Al Sabah, a former minister of information and oil and now an emiri adviser, favours a decisive crack down on these groups (see DT).

The future of Kuwait will depend on success or failure of the US Operation Iraqi Freedom. None of Iraq's other neighbours is keen on seeing the US succeed in Iraq. But none can afford to provoke the US or undermine its presence in Iraq (see News Service in this week's APS Diplomat).

After the war in April, President George W. Bush was said to be reading Michael Beschloss' book, "The Conquerors", about how Franklin Roosevelt planned Germany's post-war future. The book's epigraph is an assertion by Eisenhower in 1945: "The success of this occupation can only be judged 50 years from now. If the Germans at that time have a stable, prosperous democracy, then we shall have succeeded". That should be America's test in Iraq as well.

US commentators say the risk is that, despite good intentions, Americans will become irritated and leave the job half-done, as they did after the first Gulf War and after Afghanistan, when they refused to provide security outside Kabul. In particular, Americans will be annoyed if they see benefits of freedom flowing to enemies of US values - to Shiite mullahs who favour a theocracy similar to that of Iran.

Abdullah Bishara, a former Kuwaiti ambassador to the UN who went on to head the GCC for 12 years in the 1980s and 1990s, says the ruling super-structure will eventually evolve into institutions accountable also to international audit mechanisms. This should help stamp out corruption, the scale of which can be seen from the fact that officials openly admit about half of the $100ybn held in overseas assets before the 1990 crisis has disappeared.

Days before the US-led war in Iraq began on March 20 local time, Bishara noted that, with the exception of anti-Saddam Iraqis, Kuwaitis were just about the only Arabs who openly relished a swift American victory. "It's our opportunity to get even with Saddam Hussein", he said. "We will chase him to his grave. He humiliated us, and it was not invasion by war but invasion by treachery... We want an end of Saddam and of his system".

Kuwait openly sided with the US. "The only territory in the world which opened itself completely to the Americans is Kuwait", said Bishara, who is now president of Kuwait's Diplomatic Centre for Strategic Studies and chairman of a property company. "Any solution short of the elimination of Saddam Hussein and his system is a threat to Kuwait's stability".

Bishara, whose views are shared but rarely expressed so clearly in public by Kuwait's rulers, said Arab states such as Egypt and Syria had begun a delicate process of rapprochement with Saddam's regime in recent years, largely for commercial reasons. Arab governments even stopped referring to Iraq's "invasion" of Kuwait and started talking of the "situation between Iraq and Kuwait". Bishara added: "A sort of modus vivendi with Iraq was established which we didn't like. It wasn't exactly rehabilitation, but a sort of cohabitation because of the financial needs. They accepted Iraq, not as a partner but as a fact in Arab politics, so Saddam Hussein was able to emerge from isolation. He was transformed from a bte noire into a mere nuisance".

After the war, Bishara said the Kuwaitis were the only people in the Arab world to openly celebrate the US-led victory. On the prospects ahead, he said: "They (the Americans) really will draw a new map and create a regional Pax Americana. Saddam Hussein was a block to change, to progress, to anything. This will put an end to a decade of regional paralysis. The status quo was killing us".

According to Bishara and other Kuwaiti experts, the parliamentary elections on July 6 will be won by moderate politicians emboldened by the US military victory in Iraq. The experts believe the Islamists, already on the offensive in view of the current ferment in Saudi Arabia, will be the main losers.