In July 1956, the international order was disrupted by the Suez Crisis,
a complicated imbroglio marked by the intersection of European decolonization,
the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Cold War, and the growth of U.S. power. The emergency culminated
in October, with a war in Egypt that briefly threatened hostilities on a global scale.
The crisis began on July 26, when Egyptian Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal
Company after the United States and Britain refused to provide his country economic aid.
Nasser seized the British- and French-owned firm not only to avenge the Anglo-U.S.
denial of economic aid, but also to demonstrate his independence from the
European colonial powers and to garner the profits the company earned in his country.
British and French leaders threatened to use force to compel Nasser to restore their
control of the canal company. Citing the importance of the maritime trade
that plied the waterway and the profits the Western governments earned from operating it,
British Prime Minister Anthony Eden observed that the Egyptian has his thumb on our windpipe.
During the ensuing three-month stand-off, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower sought
to avert a military clash and settle the canal dispute with diplomacy.
He feared that an Anglo-French military strike would spawn anti-Western nationalism across
the region and give the Soviet Union an opportunity for political gain.
Eisenhower directed Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to defuse the crisis through
public statements, negotiations, two international conferences, establishment of a Suez Canal Users
Association (SCUA), and deliberations at the United Nations. By late October,
however, these efforts had proved fruitless, and Anglo-French preparations for war continued.
Meanwhile, Great Britain and France secretly colluded with Israel to launch a tripartite attack
on Egypt. Under the plan, Israel would invade the Sinai Peninsula, while Britain and France would
issue ultimatums ordering Egyptian and Israeli troops to withdraw from the Suez Canal Zone.
When Nasser (as expected) rejected the ultimatums, the European powers would occupy
the Canal Zone and depose Nasser. Under this ruse, Israel invaded the Sinai on October 29.
Within days, Israeli forces approached the Suez Canal and the European powers
issued the contrived ultimatums and launched air strikes against Egypt.
U.S. officials failed to anticipate the collusion scheme before Israel initiated hostilities.
They were distracted by a war scare between Israel and Jordan, by anti-Soviet unrest in Hungary,
and by the impending U.S. presidential election. They also believed the
assurances of friends in the colluding governments that no attack was imminent.
Although caught off-guard by the outbreak of hostilities, Eisenhower took steps to end the war
quickly. He imposed sanctions on the colluding powers, achieved a UN ceasefire resolution,
and organized a United Nations Emergency Force, known as UNEF, to disengage the combatants.
Yet before Eisenhower s diplomacy had effect, the crisis moved into a dangerous phase.
British and French paratroopers landed along the Suez Canal on November 5 and
Soviet leaders threatened to intervene in the fighting and to retaliate against London
and Paris with weapons of mass destruction. Intelligence reports that Soviet forces were
concentrating in Syria for intervention in Egypt alarmed U.S. officials,
who sensed that the turmoil in Hungary had left Soviet leaders prone to impulsive behavior.
Prudently, Eisenhower ordered the Pentagon to prepare for world war even as he increased
pressure on the colluding powers to desist. Shaken by the sudden prospect of global conflict,
the president also moved quickly to avert it. He applied political and financial pressures
on the belligerents to accept, on November 6, a UN ceasefire deal that took effect the next day,
and he endorsed efforts by UN officials urgently to deploy UNEF to Egypt.
Once the ceasefire took effect on November 7th, tensions gradually eased. UNEF soldiers arrived
in Egypt on November 15 and were positioned between the belligerents. British and French
forces departed Egypt in December, and Israeli forces withdrew from the Sinai in March of 1957.
UNEF troops remained in Egypt as a buffer against Egyptian-Israeli
hostilities until Nasser ordered them to leave in May of 1967.
The Suez Crisis had a profound impact on the balance of power in the Middle East and on the
responsibilities that the United States assumed there. It tarnished British and French prestige
and authority among Arab states and hastened the pace of European decolonization in Africa
and Asia. It also led to the resignation of Prime Minister Eden in January 1957.
Nasser, by contrast, not only survived the ordeal but secured a new level of prestige
among Arab peoples as a leader who had defied European empires and survived a military invasion
by Israel. The region s remaining pro-Western regimes seemed vulnerable to Nasserist uprisings.
Although Nasser showed no immediate inclination to become a client of the Soviet Union,
U.S. officials feared that the Soviet threats against the European allies
had improved Moscow s image among Arab peoples.
The Suez Crisis also instigated a new level of U.S. involvement in the Middle East.
Concerned by the decline of European influence and rise of Soviet involvement,
the United States declared the Eisenhower Doctrine in early 1957, pledging to distribute economic
and military aid and, if necessary, use military force to contain communism in the Middle East.
Under the Eisenhower Doctrine, the U.S. government immediately dispensed tens of millions of dollars
in economic and military aid to Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Libya.
The doctrine guided U.S. policy toward political crises in Jordan, Syria, and
Lebanon in 1957 and it provided the foundation for U.S. military intervention in Lebanon in 1958.
The Suez Crisis stands as a watershed event in the history of Middle East diplomacy.
By undermining traditional Anglo-French hegemony, exacerbating the problems of
revolutionary nationalism personified by Nasser, stoking Arab-Israeli conflict,
and offering the Soviet Union a pretext for penetrating the region, the crisis drew the
United States toward substantial, significant, and enduring involvement in the Middle East.