Iranian Foreign Ministry: We aided you, and you repaid us with terrorism

Last Tuesday, Ismail Baghaei, spokesperson for the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, posted a photo of the Iranian team that came to Kuwait and extinguished 28 oil wells, out of more than 700 wells sabotaged by Saddam Hussein before his defeat and withdrawal in 1991.

Baghaei wrote on X: “Honorable Iranians extinguished the fires that befell you, but you have now become part of the fires of the wicked against our people!” This prompted us to respond, given our interest in their history in the region since the 1980s.

First, we remind Baghaei that the Iranian well-firefighting team, whom he called “honorable,” arrived as part of 27 teams from ten foreign countries. Like other foreign firefighting teams, they extinguished the wells for a fee, receiving $71,000 per day. Kuwait paid a total of $1.5 billion to extinguish all the wells, meaning your contribution was not free.

In contrast, honorable Kuwaitis donated to Iran without any compensation. For example, as stated by a spokesperson for the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kuwait was the first Arab country to provide aid to flood victims, as an indication of “a sense of humanitarian responsibility and the affirmation of brotherly ties between Muslim countries.” Kuwait, under emiri directives, delivered tons of relief supplies via an air bridge over several months, both directly and through the World Food Programme, even after the floods receded.

Also, by emiri order, Kuwait provided earthquake relief aid, with donations to Kermanshah reaching $3 million. Iranian officials noted that Kuwaiti aid was the largest among all countries. In combating the coronavirus, Kuwait provided Iran with $10 million in aid.

We say to Baghaei: There is a proverb that says, “Beware of the evil done to those you have treated well.” In return for Kuwait’s kindness to Iran as a neighbor, allowing its community to work safely, and providing free humanitarian aid worth millions of dollars to the Iranian people, the Islamic Republic of Iran responded with evil and its terrorist arms, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Since the early 1980s until today, Iran has carried out hundreds of terrorist operations. Over twenty years, we have written about nearly a hundred articles on these attacks, which resulted in dozens of civilian casualties and injuries, including bombings of popular cafes and embassies, such as the American and French ones, as well as attacks on power stations, factories, oil wells, refineries, storage tanks, and pipelines. These included the hijacking and bombing of ships, attacks on aviation offices, the hijacking of planes, and the cold-blooded killing of innocents by the criminal Moghniyeh. Among the many terrorist operations, the most heinous was the attempt to assassinate the late Emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad, who miraculously survived the bombing of his motorcade, which left several victims.

Iran did not stop its activities with the end of the eight-year war. Instead, it continued criminal operations and sectarian incitement in the region for decades to undermine Gulf states, planting terrorist cells to destabilize them. This included the Al-Abdali cell in Kuwait, in addition to three other terrorist cells planted at the start of the current conflict.

We tell Baghaei that the bombing of civilians, government institutions, borders, energy facilities, oil infrastructure, and airports in Gulf states has nothing to do with your war against Israel and the US forces, which you claim are present in our military bases.

Returning to Ismail Baghaei’s tweet, in which he claimed that Iran helped us extinguish our oil wells, we remind him that you extinguished them for a fee, while the honorable ones are the Kuwaitis who provided millions of dollars in free aid to your people. In return, you brought us war, bombing, and ignited terrorism.