Political Crossfire Forums

[DSwain]

Was reminded today that it's fifty years ago almost to the day that Gamal Abdul Nasser, president of Egypt, seized the Suez Canal. Britain and France were appalled and determined to do something about it. By October, Britain, France and Israel had invaded Egypt without informing the US of their plans. Britain, near bankrupted by a furious United States, had to withdraw from Egypt with the French in tow. British PM Anthony Eden had to resign, the Suez Crisis split Britain and showed the world that the age of Britain and France as major world powers was over. Nasser became a figurehead in the developing world for the struggle against the West.

I won't go into the detailed history of the whole sorry story - too much to tell and I'm sure that many of you know about it already and probably know more than I do - however, have posted a few background links below

http://www.economist.com/world/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7218678
http://www.britains-smallwars.com/suez/suez-index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis

My question is - were there any 'good guys' in all this? Each nation involved could claim to be the 'white hats' - but no country came out of the crisis well.

1) Egypt - seized and nationalised a foreign-owned asset in order to finance public works BUT encouraged terrorism and Arab nationalism throughout the region.
2) Britain / France - were responding to what they saw as unprovoked and illegal aggression in a part of the world crucial to world security BUT acted dishonourably and shabbily in backroom dealings with Israel and additionally, was the invasion legal?
3) The US - responded to what it saw as the illegal acts of two of its closest allies by pulling the rug on the UK and France BUT were they only doing this out of pique and to allow them to berate the Soviets for Hungary?

IMO, there are no heroes in this piece but rather only villains and I must say that the greatest villains were the Americans. Believe me, that's hard for an unabashed Atlantacist like me to say. But the Americans showed a quite unbelievable naivity in the whole episode - that coupled with betrayal. They hobbled their closest allies and delivered an unbelievable coup to Nasser and the Soviets. In the chess game that was the Cold War, to shaft your allies in such a way was inexcusable. Issue condemnations of the invasion for domestic political reasons, for sure - but to actively try to bring down the British economy as a way to stop Britain acting in what we felt to be a matter of great national interest was appalling.

I'm sure there'll be other Suez threads come October, thought I'd get the ball rolling.

[thundertaker]

From what I've heard, Nasser offered compensation for the nationalisation. And as with the Panama Canal today, they would have been pretty stupid to deny access to the canal to the Navy of the Nation that had just relinquished ownership of the Canal.
On the other hand, it was pretty shabby of the Americans to stab us in the back like that. Still, we got our own back later when Harold Wilson said 'FU' in response to a request by the Americans to deploy British troops in Vietam, which may have cost them the war. So I call that quits......

[Pleonasmus]

The Egyptians, were the "good guys". They took back part of there teritory that had been stolen from them and siezed a contsruction that had been build by there proletariat but was being used to make the elites of another country wealthy and powerfull. Nasser was a great man and if his dream of Pan-arabic nationalism hadn't been atacked by all the worlds great powers the modern middle east might have been a peacefull and prosperous region.

[Spider]

Yes, a dark day, particularly for the US. :(

I also have trouble finding a "good guy" in all of this, however, but the Egyptians did have a small point, I believe...

[antonio62]

There weren't really any good guys. The strategy used was completely daft. If they were going to attack Egypt they should have at least used a good strategy.

[Nico]

If there is a good guy, it to me is the Egyptians. Colonial powers ran their country and used their blood to further commerce. Something like 120,000 egyptians died digging the canal through their own land. If anyone has paid for ownership, they have, in land they own and human cost.

Nationalisation is the reserve of most states, but wars only get fought when a small country decides to nationalise something, see mossadeq.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5168698.stm

"The first thing to do was to inform (the staff) that 'we guarantee your safety, your family's safety and we also guarantee all your salaries, premiums and everything and we moreover request you to continue working for the Suez Canal, nobody will be fired'.


"Egypt paid all the head shareholders of the Suez Canal company the full value of their shares in the money market in Paris the day before nationalisation so I didn't really feel myself that we are taking something for nothing and this is the reason why I didn't blame myself."