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Fifty years ago today, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser seized control of The Suez Canal Company from British and French interests. Official celebrations are low-key, but others are far more enthusiastic. Nasser is regarded as a hero and an inspiration by Islamist opposition groups in Egypt; some even compare him with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Al-Karama, a Nasserist weekly newspaper, published a full-page picture of Nasrallah, who has led Hezbollah for the last 16 years, with the words: "Nasrallah, in Nasser's footsteps". Al-Arabi, another opposition newspaper, made a special supplement and called it: "Nasser 1956 – Nasrallah 2006: We will fight and not surrender."
"Until his last gasp, Abdel Nasser refused to be corrupted… Nasrallah is the same, he is not talking about peace but about war. He does not negotiate and seeks to recover lost national pride," wrote al-Arabi.
President Nasser grabbed the canal as retaliation against the US and Britain for their refusal to increase economic aid. Nasser had recently forged close links with the USSR and Communist China and had also been working to undermine British influence in the Middle East and French influence in North Africa.
Britain and France, with Israel’s co-operation, responded by building up their military forces in the region and threatening to attack unless Nasser backed down. American President Eisenhower put pressure on Britain and France to stand down while the United Nations passed a ceasefire resolution. The UN also organised the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF), its first large international peacekeeping effort. In the meantime, however, Britain and France landed paratroopers along the Suez, Israel invaded Sinai, and the Soviet Union threatened to intervene on behalf of Egypt. Eisenhower backed the deployment of UNEF to Egypt, and Britain, France, and Israel gradually withdrew from Egypt.
William Rees-Mogg of The Times of London sees the Suez Crisis as both an American blunder and the end of the British Empire and says, "I blame Ike".
It has been reported that President Eisenhower in his old age was asked what was the greatest mistake of his presidency, and replied, "Suez". Certainly many Americans now see Eisenhower's rebuff over Suez, which pushed Britain into the arms of the French and the Israelis, as a self-inflicted wound on American policy. That undermined the whole Western position in the Middle East, destroyed the friendly monarchy of Iraq and had a negative effect that lasts to this day.
Middle Eastern oil was as essential, in 1956 as now, to the economy and security of the United States, Europe and world trade. So long as Britain had influence in the Middle East, Britain would remain a real world power. Yet Britain could not maintain that influence without American support. Nasser's nationalisation of the canal was a direct challenge to the West.
. . .
The world community had an essential interest in the free flow of oil through the canal. That could have been secured only by joint Anglo-American action. Eisenhower decided against such action . . . The Suez Crisis was indeed the end of the Empire, but it was a blunder of American policy, for which the United States is still paying a very high price.
Another outcome of the Suez Crisis, already mentioned, was the establishment of the UN’s peacekeeping capability, the effectiveness of which has decreased precipitously in recent decades. The UNEF deployed in Suez was the brainchild of Canada’s Minister of External Affairs, Lester B. “Mike” Pearson, for which he won the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize.
An excellent brief account of the Suez Crisis can be found here in a US State Department journal.
