The bare facts of the 1956 Suez crisis, which took place sixty years ago this week, are well known. Furious at Egypt's nationalisation of the Suez Canal, France and Britain hatched a bizarre conspiracy to use Israel to attack Egypt and take back the canal.
Under the plan, Israeli soldiers would not actually have to hold the canal against the Egyptian army, just hold on long enough for France and Britain to intervene and "separate" the warring sides. If it sounds hare-brained, it was, and rapidly fell apart, with the US siding with the Egyptians. But it was also an incredibly serious war: thousands of civilians were killed and wounded, as well as members of every military force on the ground.
The result is also well known: Britain and France limped out of the region, replaced by the United States. Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt's president, became a popular figure across the world. And, in the popular retelling at least, a new era of decolonisation was sparked across the world.
There is another aspect to the crisis, however, that is rarely discussed. The untold story of Suez is that the US could have genuinely forged a new diplomatic relationship with the Middle East, but kept getting drawn back into imperial intrigue. Suez could have been a turning point between the US and the Arab world, but neither Europe nor Nasser would accept it.
The root of the problem was power and politics. America under Dwight Eisenhower viewed itself in two ways: as the coming power after the battering the European powers took in the Second World War, and as the supporter of those who wanted to be free from colonisation.
In Egypt, those two desires were in tension. The latter desire would lead the US to back Nasser, who wanted to lead Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries out of the colonial era. But Nasser wanted Egypt to be genuinely free, not to simply replace the subservience to Britain with a reliance on America. At first, he sought to be neutral between the US and the Soviet Union – a policy that the US could not accept.
In the end, America could not accept an independent Egypt and certainly not one that had mass appeal, via Arab nationalism, far beyond its borders. Pan-Arabism was a serious threat to western imperialism in the region and in Nasser it had acquired a charismatic new face.
American strategists, politicians and pundits too often lament that the Middle East does not respond to US intervention in the way they wish it would. But that is because they are unable to accept the Arab world on its own terms. Transitioning from having power to being a partner is a hard act.
But the missed opportunities of Suez were not America's fault alone. There were politics that had little to do with Washington – but which America could not help but be influenced by and involved in.
After Suez, Nasser was celebrated across the Arab world, Africa and Asia. He became a figurehead far beyond Egypt's shores. With that public platform came the desire to expand his power, but also powerful enemies and rivals.
Abroad, Britain, France and Israel never forgot the humiliation of Suez and spent much of the 1960s arming Israel, culminating in the 1967 war. Within the Arab world, rivals grew: the short-lived experiment of the United Arab Republic, a union between Egypt and Syria, ended badly, creating in the Baath party in Syria a rival to Nasserism. Seeking to shore up his power, Nasser involved Egypt in the civil war in north Yemen. With each step, America became more deeply involved in the Middle East, again discovering the tension between anti-colonial values and imperial necessity.
Nasser, too, proved difficult to manage. Above all, Nasser in the 1960s wanted room to manoeuvre, courting the Soviet Union to balance the US, and seeing in his own personality and charisma the power to influence the Arab world. That made him believe he was indispensable to Egypt – he therefore centred the institutions of government on himself – and to any of his allies, be they Arab or American. That made it harder for the US to see Egypt as a reliable ally, because there was always the risk that Nasser would pursue his own policies, to the detriment of US interests.
After Suez, America had vast amounts of goodwill in the Arab world and in the wider developing world – that, indeed, was part of the reasoning for Eisenhower's actions. The US believed that Egypt could be its most powerful ally in the Middle East, tilting the entire region away from the Soviet Union. But the fundamental tensions were too great. For America to accept Egypt as an ally, it would have to accept Egypt as an equal, something the administrations of the 1950s and 1960s could not do. For Egypt, becoming America's ally would mean accepting some constraints in the name of political expediency, something Nasser found impossible.
The legacy of Suez remains a vital warning for powerful countries of the limits of power. But it is also a reminder that diplomatic openings come rarely – and when they do, a combination of personalities, politics and power can shut the door on brief chances for decades to come.
falyafai@thenational.ae
On Twitter: @FaisalAlYafai
