Sheikh Nawaf al-Amad al-Sabah, the Emir of Kuwait, who has died aged 86, was minister of defence at the time of the Iraqi invasion in August 1990; he was swiftly demoted after the country was liberated by a coalition led by Britain and the US, but was gradually rehabilitated until in 2020 he acceded as ruler, though his reign was blighted by ill health and destined to be the third shortest of any monarch in the history of this tiny, oil-rich country.