Carroll Quigley - Tragedy and Hope - A History of the World in Our Time

In the meantime, Nasser was engaged in intensive intrigues against the three Arab dynasties of Iraq, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, all of whom were linked with the West. To increase their local popular support these dynasties had to adopt policies more independent of the West, or even anti-Western, in order to avoid the subversive influence on their subjects of Nasser’s wild talk about independence from the West. Most of these anti-Western actions took the form of anti-British actions. One of the chief of these was the dismissal by King Hussein of Jordan of General Sir John Glubb (so-called “Glubb Pasha”), who had trained and commanded the Jordanian “Arab Legion” for many years. This dismissal, in March 1956, left Jordan in a state of semidissolution and in grave danger of being partitioned by its Arab neighbors (Iraq, Egypt, Arabia), since the Arab Legion was one of the chief supports of the dynasty. It also gravely jeopardized British influence in Jordan.

To counteract this, the British tried to shift Iraqi troops from Iraq, where the government of Nuri al Said was still friendly to Britain, to Jordan where they could be used to support King Hussein and perhaps be used to prevent the anticipated pro-Nasser and anti-British outcome of the Jordan election of October 1956. For the same reason, the British prime minister, Sir Anthony Eden, adopted an increasingly anti-Israeli attitude, which culminated late in 1955 when he suggested that the Israeli frontier be redrawn to give some disputed areas to Jordan. Since Israel was already under great threat from both Egypt and Jordan, it continued to rearm in 1956, and made perfectly clear that it would oppose in any way it could any union of the Arab states and especially any move to unite the Iraq and Jordan armed forces or to put them under Egyptian command.

In this tense situation Dulles suddenly upset the balance by withdrawing the United States offer of financial aid for the Aswan Dam. This decision of July 19, 1956, was answered on July 26th, fourth anniversary of the expulsion of King Farouk, by Nasser with the sudden nationalization of the Suez Canal Company so that its profits could be used by Egypt to finance the High Dam.

July to October 1956 was a period of mounting crisis in the Near East as all the principal states concerned mishandled the difficult situation with gross incompetence.

There can be no doubt that Egypt had the right to nationalize an Egyptian corporation such as the Suez Canal Company, and the only concern of the outside world was the twofold one that the owners of record be adequately compensated and that the transit operations through the Canal be efficiently conducted for all shipping. From the beginning the British took their stand on other grounds, maintaining, incorrectly, that the company was not an Egyptian corporation but an international organization, that the Egyptians could not operate it at all, and that Britain would use force, if necessary, to prevent Nasser from obtaining control of the Canal. France supported Britain, chiefly because it wished to strike at Nasser for his assistance to the anti-French rebels (the FLN) in Algeria. Israel supported these two, while following a completely independent policy, because it was increasingly convinced that its survival as a state depended on its ability to break out of the growing encirclement of the Arab states.

Dulles, having precipitated the crisis, sought to placate both sides, refusing to support Britain’s arguments yet unwilling to abandon it in public. Accordingly, as usual, Dulles spent most of his efforts trying to find some verbal formula which would gloss over the differences. Though he refused to support Britain and France for fear this would drive Nasser toward Moscow, he was unable to support the Arab states because he needed France and Britain in the American struggle with the Soviet Union. As a result, his ambivalent and changeable actions and statements alienated both sides.

While the controversy raged, in public, in secret conferences, and at the United Nations, the Canal continued to operate with about a third of the dues’ (including those of American ships) being paid to the new Egyptian Canal authority and the rest going to the old company. The British insisted that the Egyptians were incapable of operating the Canal, and to prove the point recalled all British-controlled pilots and technical operators on September 15, 1956, and at the same time challenged the effectiveness of the new administration by presenting a large number of English and French ships for passage. This attempt was based on biased information accepted by Whitehall from the old Suez Company. It proved, in fact, to be wide of the mark, for the remaining “Egyptian” pilots successfully conducted fifty ships through the Canal in one day. Substitute pilots were obtained at very high wages by advertising throughout the world.

The solution of this technical problem left only the second problem-compensation to the former owners. Because Egypt had the funds to make payment, the practical and legal crisis should have been ended. But Britain and France were still determined to force Egypt to accept some type of international control of the Canal, and many in both countries were determined to humiliate Nasser and bring about his downfall in order to end his intriguing against the two former imperial Powers in the Arab world, especially in the oil-rich Near East and in Algeria. For this reason the two old allies continued to press for an international Canal authority and to prepare their own armed forces in the Near East to compel internationalization. While conferences were still going on, in the United Nations and elsewhere, the showdown was precipitated, somewhat earlier than London and perhaps Paris had expected, by Israel.

During the Suez crisis, the quite separate problem of Israel had become more intense, with increasingly frequent Arab raids on Israel and more violent Israeli reprisals. The situation was made more complex by French support and rearmament for Israel, in the face of continued British support for Jordan and Iraq. Israel felt certain that a complete victory for Nasser in the Canal crisis would encourage him to organize a general Arab attack on Israel. Nasser’s troublemaking proclivities, even during the Canal crisis, were revealed when the French captured an Egyptian ship smuggling seventy tons of arms to the Algerian rebels on October 18th. Two days before, a secret Anglo-French conference in Paris discussed the situation and probably decided that the two Great Powers would intervene by an attack on Egypt, under the pretext of restoring order, if an Arab-Israeli war began. They probably expected this movement some time in November, and were not fully ready when it began on October 29th.

The Jordan election of October 21, 1956, was a victory for the anti-Western, pro-Nasser activist parties pledged to revise the Anglo-Jordan alliance. Two days later, Egyptian and Syrian military missions arrived in Jordan and at once set up a joint Egyptian-Jordanian-Syrian military command with an Egyptian designated as commander in chief for any future hostilities with Israel. On the same day began the Soviet armed intervention in Hungary to repress the Budapest insurrection. On the following day Egyptian raiders began to penetrate into Israel, and Israel’s mobilization began. Four days later, on the 29th, Israel attacked Egypt, and at once began a spectacular advance across the Sinai Desert toward the Suez Canal and Cairo.

The nine-day Israeli Sinai campaign was a brilliant military success. Individual Egyptians and small units often fought fiercely, but the command was incompetent, morale was almost totally absent, and training was equally bad. Whole units fled like sheep, and much of the newly acquired heavy equipment was abandoned unused. On October 30th a joint Anglo-French ultimatum was sent to Israel and Egypt, ordering them to stop all warlike action, to withdraw their forces at least ten miles from the Canal, and to permit a temporary occupation of three Canal points, Port Said, Ismailia, and Suez, by Anglo-French forces. Israel accepted the ultimatum until it was clear that Egypt would not. The latter was attacked by British planes shortly after the ultimatum expired on October 31st, but Allied paratroops did not drop before November 5th, and the seaborne Anglo-French invasion of Egypt did not begin until November 6th.