When Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal 50 years ago, it started a chain of events whose results are still being felt today.
by Melvin Rhodes
The late U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower reportedly once said his biggest regret was "Suez."
The event he was referring to began 50 years ago, on July 26, 1956, when the Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the British-and French-owned Suez Canal.
A few months later, British, French and Israeli forces were all involved in a conflict against Egypt. Militarily, they won. But President Eisenhower, against the advice of his cabinet, refused to support them. When subsequent British economic problems threatened a run on the British currency, a requested IMF loan had to be approved by the United States. Eisenhower refused and Britain had to withdraw.
The loss of the Suez Canal very quickly led to the dismantling of the British Empire. Within a decade almost all of Britain's colonies had gone, mostly replaced with unstable, often despotic, dictators that lined their own pockets at the expense of their own people.
The British learned through the Suez crisis that they could not do anything independently of the United States; the French learned never to trust America.
The Arabs were emboldened by Suez. Arab nationalist movements spread throughout the region, resulting in the overthrow of moderate, pro-Western monarchs like King Faisal II of Iraq in 1958, whose country had a functioning parliamentary system. His violent overthrow led eventually to Saddam Hussein's reign of terror, U.S. and British intervention and a war that is seemingly without end.
Disillusioned with Arab nationalist leaders like Gamal Abdel Nasser and Saddam Hussein, many, if not most, of the peoples of this unstable region are now turning increasingly to Islamic fundamentalism, further destabilizing the area.
