“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more beautiful shopping center in the world!” he says, as flashbulbs flicker and tuxedoed waiters serve tea and canapes. Branson says he realizes that with war looming in Iraq, “it may not be the most auspicious time” to open a new record store in Kuwait. “But business,” he declares, “must carry on.”

“Inshallah,” says a woman in the crowd. “God willing.”

The new Virgin Megastore is situated in Kuwait’s Salmiya district, a governate whose main drag would look at home in Miami or Houston. Since the American liberation of Kuwait 12 years ago, the trappings of Western consumer culture are everywhere here. Oil-rich young people cruise the palm-lined streets in Ferraris and Porsches. Sophisticates in Armani sip grande lattes at a Starbucks across the street from a movie theater that is currently playing “Die Another Day,” the new James Bond movie. On my first day in Kuwait, a Kuwaiti friend asked, “Have you had the new Five-Star Burger at Hardee’s?” We ended up eating chili-cheese fries at Johnny Rockets, a diner decorated like a 1950s soda shop.

Kuwait has not yet morphed completely into South Beach. Until it was taken down recently, the Virgin store featured a giant red billboard that read: IF IT ISN’T BANNED, WE’VE GOT IT. “This is not a joke,” the store’s manager reassures me. Government censors still snip questionable scenes and lyrics from movies and songs. But Branson, ever adventurous, says he’ll actively campaign to change Kuwait’s laws if he thinks they’re wrong. “We won’t keep quiet if we think it’s a stupid, stupid rule,” he says.

That attitude might not make Waleed al-Tabtabai, a local politician, want to get up and dance. Tabtabai, who is the leader of the parliament’s powerful Islamic bloc, is trying to restore conservative Islamic religious law (Sharia) in Kuwait. His biggest concern, he says, is “the protection of moral ethics.”

“After the liberation we have seen some new phenomena and some new strange behaviors,” he says. That includes bootleg alcohol and drugs, which are readily available. And at rock concerts, “we see girls on the stage as if they’re showing off their bodies. This is what we’re trying to stop.”

You probably won’t find Tabtabai listening to Kuwait’s government-run Super Station FM 99.7, a popular FM radio channel that plays American top 40 songs. Kuwaiti teenyboppers with nicknames like Loverboy and Heart call in to request songs like “What’s Your Flava,” by Craig David, which is in heavy rotation these days. (“I wanna taste ya, taste ya, take ya home with me/You look so good/Good enough to eat/I wonder if I can peel your wrapper/If I can be your fantasy”). The tunes are interrupted five times each day for the Muslim call to prayer.

“The course of this nation,” President Bush declared in his State of the Union Message this week, “does not depend on the decisions of others.” Yet for tiny Kuwait, it is just the opposite: for 100 years, its course has depended heavily on protection from Washington and London. “There is no country or citizen that feels happy to have foreign forces on their lands,” says Tabtabai. But even he understands that American soldiers serve a protective purpose. “It’s necessary,” he says. “Iraqi intentions are still very bad toward Kuwait.”

And yet, as a new Fuddruckers or Chili’s restaurant seems to spring up each day–to compete against the 36 McDonald’s that are already here–and as tens of thousands of American troops pour into Kuwait, there are plenty here who seem increasingly suspicious of American intentions. Cynical cab drivers insist it is all about oil. Store clerks question America’s relationship with Israel. Maha al-Ghunaim, a director at Kuwait’s Global Investment House, says that the turmoil in Israel poisons the business atmosphere all over the region. “It’s like when you try to sleep and you hear a bee buzzing,” she says.

But despite the creeping ill will, the Kuwaiti government still proclaims its support for American troops and businesses. Signs around town feature slogans like AMERICA & ALLIES GOD BLESS YOU ALL. Local newspapers run full-page photographs of Kuwaitis embracing American soldiers in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War. Some households still hang photographs of George H. W. Bush on their walls.

But too many Five-Star Burgers is enough to make anyone snap. (If I hear “What’s Your Flava” one more time, I might take up arms myself.) Maybe that’s what pushed Suleiman Abu Ghaith over the edge. He used to be a schoolteacher in Kuwait before he became one of Osama bin Laden’s spokesmen. Twelve other Kuwaitis are imprisoned in Guantanamo for fighting Americans in Afghanistan. American soldiers and defense contractors have been shot at three times here in the last four months, twice fatally. Kuwaiti authorities blamed two of the incidents on alleged Al Qaeda members or sympathizers. (One was captured; two others were killed in a shootout with U.S. Marines.)

It’s still an open question whether Kuwait will continue to be a safe place for American and British troops and businesses in the run-up to a possible war with Iraq. Military officials have already locked the troops on base, canceling once-frequent “morale” trips to Kuwait City. But Sir Richard doesn’t seem concerned about his debut. He’s already thinking about his own march to Iraq’s capital. “I hope one day we will open a shop in Baghdad,” he says.