Kuwait is eager to hear it. An Islamic land where liquor is banned and women are veiled might not seem like a heaven for honky-tonk angels. But ever since U.S. troops led Kuwait’s liberation from Iraq in 1991, the rich little emirate has been experimenting with things American. Food is one obvious case in point: Hardee’s, Arby’s, Wendy’s, Chi-Chi’s, Sizzler, Pizza Hut, KFC, Fudd-tuckers-they’ve all got franchises in Kuwait. Just last summer a vast new McDonald’s opened right in front of the crown prince’s seaside palace. Bacon cheeseburgers aren’t on the menu (practicing Muslims don’t eat pork), but the drive-through attracts long lines of cars. Even through windows closed against 100-degree heat, you can hear the blast of hip-hop, pop, rock–and the call-in chatter from “The Love Connection,” a show where cellular-phone-toting Kuwaiti singles who might not be comfortable being seen together in public get to flirt invisibly on the airwaves. In English, of course.
Not since the days of 50-cents-a-gallon gas (which continue in Kuwait) have cloverleafs been so crowded with American chrome and horsepower. Iraqi occupiers stole thousands of Kuwait’s cars. To replace them, the United States exported $508 million worth of passenger vehicles from 1991 to 1993, and Detroit’s biggest dinosaurs found a home on Kuwait’s flat, flat-out highways. The car of choice: the full-size Chevy Caprice. “It’s the heartbeat of Kuwait,” says dealer Moustapha Rajai. “In America they talk about it as if it’s dying. But here it’s doing fine.”
Other gulf states are also attracted to Americana. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Dubai have their share of Tex-Mex restaurants and GMC Suburbans; Fuddruckers in Jidda is a favorite hangout for Arabia’s would-be rednecks. But while the Saudis, for example, long ago decided that having off gave cowboys and the Bedouins something in common, Kuwait has tried to chart a nonaligned course. It was the first country in the gulf to have diplomatic relations with Moscow and, right up to Saddam’s invasion, the essence of its foreign policy was to make no enemies by making no real friends. “Shy and coy” is how one Foreign Ministry official describes pre-invasion diplomacy, No longer. The Kuwait that used to have no defense treaties now has pacts with four of the five permanent members of the U.N, Security Council–with the United States the most important friend.
But Kuwaitis have put American brand names – and values–to their own use. Some of Kuwait’s fast-food franchises are funded by the nation’s Muslim fundamentalists: they make money from American products while denouncing American culture. And thanks to U.S. pressure for broader democracy, the fundamentalists have a base in Parliament for launching their attacks. American values don’t apply in a country where nobody believes everyone is created equal; human-rights abuses are chronic, especially against the many foreign workers Kuwaitis consider inferiors.
An anti-American backlash is inevitable – not over cultural tensions, but over costs. Thousands of U.S. troops will be stationed in Kuwait for months to come, handing the Kuwaiti government a billion-dollar tab. How to pay? The answer to that may be another American institution: income tax. No one is likely to thank Washington for that.
