Lessons of a failed intervention
By Mahir Ali
ON a midsummerââ¬â¢s day 50 years ago, the new president of Egypt was scheduled to make a speech in Alexandria. Only a handful of Egyptians had any inkling of the bombshell Gamal Abdel Nasser intended to drop during his discourse: namely that the North African country was assuming control of the company ââ¬â hitherto dominated by French and British interests ââ¬â responsible for operating the Suez Canal.
The canal, which links the Red Sea with the Mediterranean, had been constructed in the previous century, under colonial rule, by Egyptian workers who laboured in conditions not far removed from slavery. An estimated 120,000 of them had perished while working on the 120-mile artificial waterway, whose construction was overseen by a French company managed by Ferdinand de Lesseps.
On July 26, 1956, a small Egyptian task force had been ordered to listen to Nasserââ¬â¢s speech on the radio. The trigger for action was the presidentââ¬â¢s mention of de Lesseps. Just to make sure no one missed the reference, Nasser wove the Frenchman into his speech not once but thrice.
The takeover of the Suez Canal company proceeded smoothly enough. The three groups of Egyptians tasked with enforcing it went to the companyââ¬â¢s headquarters and announced it had been nationalised. They also told the mainly French and British employees that they had nothing to worry about: their jobs were secure. The strategy didnââ¬â¢t work in the medium term: either of their own volition or under pressure from their governments, the foreign managers, engineers and navigators deserted the Suez and Egypt had to come up with its own work force. It succeeded. The bulk of profits from the extremely lucrative Suez Canal operations no longer ended up in Paris and London.
Nasserââ¬â¢s nationalisation of the canal provoked two kinds of reactions. The Arab world, which had hitherto been wary of the colonels who had overthrown Egyptââ¬â¢s effete, pro-western monarchy in 1952, was electrified by the unanticipated body-blow against neo-colonialism. France and Britain were mortified. The idea of Arabs managing their own interests was anathema to both colonial powers.
The crucial third component of the axis was the young state of Israel, not yet half as powerful as it would become in the decade that followed, but eager nonetheless to spearhead aggression against its neighbours. Granted, the neighbours were none too friendly towards Israel either: the nationalists among them viewed it as an imperialist construct, and Israelââ¬â¢s role in the Suez fiasco would serve only to confirm that impression.
In the tripartite conspiracy to effect regime change in Cairo and reclaim the Suez Canal, France and Israel were as thick as thieves while Britain was a relative outsider, involved in the mission primarily because of its Conservative prime minister, Anthony Eden, who saw in Nasser a reincarnation of Hitler. Or Mussolini. Not many people knew it at the time, but Eden was a sick man on heavy medication; and to combat the side-effects of the medicines, he took more drugs. Some historians suspect this chemical cocktail interfered with his intellectual capacities and rendered him incapable of recognising the folly of his actions, against the advice of most civil servants as well as the intelligence agencies. Eden wasnââ¬â¢t, however, by any means the only British politician to harbour delusions of grandeur about the dwindling British empire.
Until then, as far as the British establishment was concerned, Israel was the likeliest target of a military intervention in the Middle East, primarily because of its raids into Jordan (with Ariel Sharon as the driving force). Suddenly, Israel was an ally, albeit a secret one. The plan was for Israel to invade Sinai, whereupon Britain and France would wade into the fray, ostensibly to separate the belligerents and secure the Suez. The idea was to install a friendlier regime in Cairo, although ââ¬â as in the case of Iraq nearly half a century later ââ¬â the western powers had not worked out in any great detail what they would do after the invasion.
Initially, things went according to plan for the aggressors. But only for a while. Eden had failed to convince the US president, Dwight Eisenhower, of the threat posed by Nasser. The US was not in the loop as far as the invasion plan was concerned, and Eisenhower was livid when he found out. The US and the Soviet Union both threw their weight behind a ceasefire call, and the war ground to a halt eight days after it had been launched in late October 1956.
Nasser, having survived, was immediately catapulted to the status of an Arab hero and although his dream of a pan-Arab state was never fulfilled, he remained the most potent symbol of Arab nationalism until the day he died ââ¬â even after the six-day disaster of 1967, when mass mobilisations across Egypt compelled him to rescind his resignation.
In the shorter term, a little more than a year after Suez, Nasser inaugurated the short-lived United Arab Republic with Syria. Some months later, Iraqi army officers overthrew their countryââ¬â¢s pro-British monarchy in a bloody coup, killing King Faisal II and Prime Minister Nuri Said. (Ironically, two years earlier, Eden had been hosting a dinner for Nuri Said on the night Nasser announced his decision to nationalise the Suez; the Iraqiââ¬â¢s advice to his host was ââ¬Åto hit him [Nasser] hardââ¬Â.) Five years later, the relatively progressive Iraqi regime of Abdul Karim Qassem was in turn overthrown in a coup reputedly supported by the US and spearheaded by the Baââ¬â¢athists, whose ranks included a brutal young thug by the name of Saddam Hussein al-Takriti.
The Jordanian monarchy barely survived in the face of nationalist pressures: British troops had to shore up King Hussein and his coterie. Lebanonââ¬â¢s pro-western government, meanwhile, was compelled to rely for its survival on US marines.
Britain and France reacted to their Suez humiliation in very different ways. The French prime minister, Guy Mollet, was holding talks with West Germanyââ¬â¢s chancellor Konrad Adenauer when Eden called to say he was bowing to US pressure by agreeing to a ceasefire. Adenauer reportedly launched a long anti-American tirade, telling Mollet, ââ¬ÅWe have no time to waste: Europe will be your revenge.ââ¬Â France eased out of Natoââ¬â¢s military command structure and has maintained a relatively independent foreign policy ever since. Britain, on the other hand, realising at long last that it was no longer a global power, allied itself firmly with the US ââ¬â a ââ¬Åspecial relationshipââ¬Â that may have reached its apogee with the deadly Blair-Bush combination.
Israel chose the same path, although it wasnââ¬â¢t until a decade later that its alliance with the US acquired lethal aspects. As borne out by the current aggression against Lebanon, things have now come to such a pass that when Israel behaves like a fascist bully, the US can no longer bring itself to dish out even the mildest form of censure. Instead, it speeds up arms deliveries. And the British prime minister does not dare to dissent significantly from the party line laid down by Washington.
The Suez anniversary has prompted comparisons between Tony Blair and Eden, given that the latter, too, lied to the British public and to parliament in order to cover up the truth about a sordid Middle Eastern misadventure, which he undertook in the face of considerable domestic opposition. There may be some wishful thinking involved in highlighting this parallel, given that Eden was compelled to make way for Harold Macmillan within weeks of the Suez affair ââ¬â even though written proof of the extent of his involvement in the conspiracy didnââ¬â¢t emerge until decades later.
For all that, given Blairââ¬â¢s determined appeasement of the US and now Israel, it may make more sense to place him in the same category as Neville Chamberlain. A clearer sense of historical realities ââ¬â in the context of the overall colonial experience, not just Suez ââ¬â may have deterred him from blundering into Iraq alongside the Americans. He appears, instead, to have fallen for the revisionist myth that British imperialist was, on the whole, a positive experience for those who bore its brunt.
One of the many ironies of the confrontation between the West and Arab nationalism ââ¬â which continued, in various guises, well into the 1970s ââ¬â was that many of the nationalists were as vociferously opposed to Islamist trends as the West is today. Nasser, for instance, looked upon the nascent Muslim Brotherhood as a cancerous growth. His preferred response, unfortunately, was ruthless repression, which involved gross violations of human rights and ultimately proved counterproductive. Deploying the force of alternative ideas against them would, in hindsight, probably have proved more fruitful. The fact remains that western organs from the CIA to Mossad encouraged and often funded religious fanatics as a counterweight to the nationalists, Hamas being one of the more recent examples of this phenomenon.
Thereââ¬â¢s a fair chance that Nasser will be turning in his grave over his portraits being borne aloft by demonstrators in Egypt alongside those of Hezbollahââ¬â¢s Sheikh Hasan Nasrallah. But perhaps the perpetrators of the Suez conflagration would be even more surprised to discover that so many of their follies are once more in vogue as an Anglo-American (rather than Anglo-French) combine tries in vain to subdue one occupied Arab country while seeking to introduce into another an international force aimed at alleviating Israelââ¬â¢s woes by doing its dirty work for it. As a Vietnam-era American folk song puts it, when will they ever learn?
By Mahir Ali
ON a midsummerââ¬â¢s day 50 years ago, the new president of Egypt was scheduled to make a speech in Alexandria. Only a handful of Egyptians had any inkling of the bombshell Gamal Abdel Nasser intended to drop during his discourse: namely that the North African country was assuming control of the company ââ¬â hitherto dominated by French and British interests ââ¬â responsible for operating the Suez Canal.
The canal, which links the Red Sea with the Mediterranean, had been constructed in the previous century, under colonial rule, by Egyptian workers who laboured in conditions not far removed from slavery. An estimated 120,000 of them had perished while working on the 120-mile artificial waterway, whose construction was overseen by a French company managed by Ferdinand de Lesseps.
On July 26, 1956, a small Egyptian task force had been ordered to listen to Nasserââ¬â¢s speech on the radio. The trigger for action was the presidentââ¬â¢s mention of de Lesseps. Just to make sure no one missed the reference, Nasser wove the Frenchman into his speech not once but thrice.
The takeover of the Suez Canal company proceeded smoothly enough. The three groups of Egyptians tasked with enforcing it went to the companyââ¬â¢s headquarters and announced it had been nationalised. They also told the mainly French and British employees that they had nothing to worry about: their jobs were secure. The strategy didnââ¬â¢t work in the medium term: either of their own volition or under pressure from their governments, the foreign managers, engineers and navigators deserted the Suez and Egypt had to come up with its own work force. It succeeded. The bulk of profits from the extremely lucrative Suez Canal operations no longer ended up in Paris and London.
Nasserââ¬â¢s nationalisation of the canal provoked two kinds of reactions. The Arab world, which had hitherto been wary of the colonels who had overthrown Egyptââ¬â¢s effete, pro-western monarchy in 1952, was electrified by the unanticipated body-blow against neo-colonialism. France and Britain were mortified. The idea of Arabs managing their own interests was anathema to both colonial powers.
The crucial third component of the axis was the young state of Israel, not yet half as powerful as it would become in the decade that followed, but eager nonetheless to spearhead aggression against its neighbours. Granted, the neighbours were none too friendly towards Israel either: the nationalists among them viewed it as an imperialist construct, and Israelââ¬â¢s role in the Suez fiasco would serve only to confirm that impression.
In the tripartite conspiracy to effect regime change in Cairo and reclaim the Suez Canal, France and Israel were as thick as thieves while Britain was a relative outsider, involved in the mission primarily because of its Conservative prime minister, Anthony Eden, who saw in Nasser a reincarnation of Hitler. Or Mussolini. Not many people knew it at the time, but Eden was a sick man on heavy medication; and to combat the side-effects of the medicines, he took more drugs. Some historians suspect this chemical cocktail interfered with his intellectual capacities and rendered him incapable of recognising the folly of his actions, against the advice of most civil servants as well as the intelligence agencies. Eden wasnââ¬â¢t, however, by any means the only British politician to harbour delusions of grandeur about the dwindling British empire.
Until then, as far as the British establishment was concerned, Israel was the likeliest target of a military intervention in the Middle East, primarily because of its raids into Jordan (with Ariel Sharon as the driving force). Suddenly, Israel was an ally, albeit a secret one. The plan was for Israel to invade Sinai, whereupon Britain and France would wade into the fray, ostensibly to separate the belligerents and secure the Suez. The idea was to install a friendlier regime in Cairo, although ââ¬â as in the case of Iraq nearly half a century later ââ¬â the western powers had not worked out in any great detail what they would do after the invasion.
Initially, things went according to plan for the aggressors. But only for a while. Eden had failed to convince the US president, Dwight Eisenhower, of the threat posed by Nasser. The US was not in the loop as far as the invasion plan was concerned, and Eisenhower was livid when he found out. The US and the Soviet Union both threw their weight behind a ceasefire call, and the war ground to a halt eight days after it had been launched in late October 1956.
Nasser, having survived, was immediately catapulted to the status of an Arab hero and although his dream of a pan-Arab state was never fulfilled, he remained the most potent symbol of Arab nationalism until the day he died ââ¬â even after the six-day disaster of 1967, when mass mobilisations across Egypt compelled him to rescind his resignation.
In the shorter term, a little more than a year after Suez, Nasser inaugurated the short-lived United Arab Republic with Syria. Some months later, Iraqi army officers overthrew their countryââ¬â¢s pro-British monarchy in a bloody coup, killing King Faisal II and Prime Minister Nuri Said. (Ironically, two years earlier, Eden had been hosting a dinner for Nuri Said on the night Nasser announced his decision to nationalise the Suez; the Iraqiââ¬â¢s advice to his host was ââ¬Åto hit him [Nasser] hardââ¬Â.) Five years later, the relatively progressive Iraqi regime of Abdul Karim Qassem was in turn overthrown in a coup reputedly supported by the US and spearheaded by the Baââ¬â¢athists, whose ranks included a brutal young thug by the name of Saddam Hussein al-Takriti.
The Jordanian monarchy barely survived in the face of nationalist pressures: British troops had to shore up King Hussein and his coterie. Lebanonââ¬â¢s pro-western government, meanwhile, was compelled to rely for its survival on US marines.
Britain and France reacted to their Suez humiliation in very different ways. The French prime minister, Guy Mollet, was holding talks with West Germanyââ¬â¢s chancellor Konrad Adenauer when Eden called to say he was bowing to US pressure by agreeing to a ceasefire. Adenauer reportedly launched a long anti-American tirade, telling Mollet, ââ¬ÅWe have no time to waste: Europe will be your revenge.ââ¬Â France eased out of Natoââ¬â¢s military command structure and has maintained a relatively independent foreign policy ever since. Britain, on the other hand, realising at long last that it was no longer a global power, allied itself firmly with the US ââ¬â a ââ¬Åspecial relationshipââ¬Â that may have reached its apogee with the deadly Blair-Bush combination.
Israel chose the same path, although it wasnââ¬â¢t until a decade later that its alliance with the US acquired lethal aspects. As borne out by the current aggression against Lebanon, things have now come to such a pass that when Israel behaves like a fascist bully, the US can no longer bring itself to dish out even the mildest form of censure. Instead, it speeds up arms deliveries. And the British prime minister does not dare to dissent significantly from the party line laid down by Washington.
The Suez anniversary has prompted comparisons between Tony Blair and Eden, given that the latter, too, lied to the British public and to parliament in order to cover up the truth about a sordid Middle Eastern misadventure, which he undertook in the face of considerable domestic opposition. There may be some wishful thinking involved in highlighting this parallel, given that Eden was compelled to make way for Harold Macmillan within weeks of the Suez affair ââ¬â even though written proof of the extent of his involvement in the conspiracy didnââ¬â¢t emerge until decades later.
For all that, given Blairââ¬â¢s determined appeasement of the US and now Israel, it may make more sense to place him in the same category as Neville Chamberlain. A clearer sense of historical realities ââ¬â in the context of the overall colonial experience, not just Suez ââ¬â may have deterred him from blundering into Iraq alongside the Americans. He appears, instead, to have fallen for the revisionist myth that British imperialist was, on the whole, a positive experience for those who bore its brunt.
One of the many ironies of the confrontation between the West and Arab nationalism ââ¬â which continued, in various guises, well into the 1970s ââ¬â was that many of the nationalists were as vociferously opposed to Islamist trends as the West is today. Nasser, for instance, looked upon the nascent Muslim Brotherhood as a cancerous growth. His preferred response, unfortunately, was ruthless repression, which involved gross violations of human rights and ultimately proved counterproductive. Deploying the force of alternative ideas against them would, in hindsight, probably have proved more fruitful. The fact remains that western organs from the CIA to Mossad encouraged and often funded religious fanatics as a counterweight to the nationalists, Hamas being one of the more recent examples of this phenomenon.
Thereââ¬â¢s a fair chance that Nasser will be turning in his grave over his portraits being borne aloft by demonstrators in Egypt alongside those of Hezbollahââ¬â¢s Sheikh Hasan Nasrallah. But perhaps the perpetrators of the Suez conflagration would be even more surprised to discover that so many of their follies are once more in vogue as an Anglo-American (rather than Anglo-French) combine tries in vain to subdue one occupied Arab country while seeking to introduce into another an international force aimed at alleviating Israelââ¬â¢s woes by doing its dirty work for it. As a Vietnam-era American folk song puts it, when will they ever learn?
