Suez Crisis - Aftermath

Aftermath

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The imposed end to the crisis signalled the definitive weakening of the United Kingdom and France as global powers. Middle-sized powers were no longer free to act independently. Nasser's standing in the Arab world was greatly improved, with his stance helping to promote pan-Arabism. Although Egyptian forces had stood no chance against the three allies, many Egyptians believed that Nasser had won the war militarily. The Suez Crisis may have directly led to the 14 July Revolution in Iraq. King Faisal II and Prime Minister Nuri-es-Said were murdered within two years of their advice to Eden to "hit Nasser hard and quickly".

Egyptian sovereignty and ownership of the Canal had been confirmed by the United States and the United Nations. In retirement Eden maintained that the military response to the crisis had prevented a much larger war in the Middle East. Israel had been expecting an Egyptian invasion in either March or April 1957, as well as a Soviet invasion of Syria. The crisis also arguably hastened the process of decolonization, as many of the remaining colonies of both Britain and France gained independence over the next several years. Some argued that the imposed ending to the Crisis led to over-hasty decolonisation in Africa, resulting in civil wars and military dictatorships.

The fight over the canal also laid the groundwork for the Six Day War in 1967 due to the lack of a peace settlement following the 1956 war. The failure of the Anglo-French mission was also seen as a failure for the United States, since the western alliance had been weakened and the military response had ultimately achieved nothing. The Soviets got away with their violent suppression of the rebellion in Hungary, and were able to pose at the United Nations as a defender of small powers against imperialism.

As a direct result of the Crisis and in order to prevent further Soviet expansion in the region, Eisenhower asked Congress on 5 January 1957 for authorization to use military force if requested by any Middle Eastern nation to check aggression and, second, to set aside $200 million to help Middle Eastern countries that desired aid from the United States. Congress granted both requests and this policy became known as the Eisenhower Doctrine.

The Soviet Union made major gains with regards to influence in the Middle East. The American historian John Lewis Gaddis wrote about the aftermath of the crisis:

When the British-French-Israeli invasion forced them to choose, Eisenhower and Dulles came down, with instant decisiveness, on the side of the Egyptians. They preferred alignment with Arab nationalism, even if it meant alienating pro-Israeli constituencies on the eve of a presidential election in the United States, even if it meant throwing the NATO alliance into its most divisive crisis yet, even if it meant risking whatever was left of the Anglo-American 'special relationship', even if it meant voting with the Soviet Union in the United Nations Security Council at a time when the Russians were themselves were invading Hungary and crushing—far more brutally than anything that happened in Egypt—a rebellion against their own authority there. The fact that the Eisenhower administration itself applied crushing economic pressure to the British and French to disengage from Suez, and that it subsequently forced an Israeli pull-back from the Sinai as well—all of this, one might thought, would won the United States the lasting gratitude of Nasser, the Egyptians and the Arab world. Instead, the Americans lost influence in the Middle East as a result of Suez, while the Russians gained it.

Nikita Khrushchev's much publicized threat expressed through letters written by Nikolai Bulganin to begin rocket attacks on 5 November on Britain, France and Israel if they did not withdraw from Egypt was widely believed at the time to have forced a ceasefire. Accordingly, the prestige of the Soviet Union, which was seemingly prepared to launch a nuclear attack on Britain, France and Israel for the sake of Egypt soared to new heights all over Egypt, the Arab world and the Third World in general. Through Nasser in private admitted that it was American economic pressure that had saved him, nonetheless it was Khrushchev, not Eisenhower, whom Nasser publicly thanked as Egypt's savior and special friend. Khrushchev was later to boast in his memoirs:

Our use of international influence to halt England, France and Israel's aggression against Egypt in 1956 was a historic turning point ... Previously they had apparently thought that we were bluffing, when we openly said that the Soviet Union possessed powerful rockets. But then they saw that we really had rockets. And this had its effect.

Khrushchev took the view that the Suez crisis had been a great triumph for Soviet nuclear brinksmanship, arguing in both public and private that his threat to use nuclear weapons was what had saved Egypt. Khrushchev claimed in his memoirs:

The governments of England and France knew perfectly well that Eisenhower's speech condemning their aggression was just a gesture for the sake of public appearances. But when we delivered our own stern warning to the three aggressors, they knew we weren't playing games with public opinion. They took us seriously.

The great conclusion that Khrushchev drew from the Suez crisis, which he saw as his own personal triumph was that the use of nuclear blackmail was a very effective tool for achieving Soviet foreign policy goals. Thus began a long period of crises starting with the Berlin crisis of 1958 and culminating in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, where Khrushchev threatened to start World War III if he did not get his way. Equally important in explaining the Soviet diplomatic triumph in the Near East was Nasser's reaction to the Eisenhower Doctrine. Nasser never wanted Egypt to be aligned with one superpower, and instead preferred a situation where he was the object of rival American and Soviet efforts to buy his friendship.

After Suez, American Secretary of State John Foster Dulles perceived that there was a power vacuum in the Middle East, and thought the United States should fill it. Dulles's polices, which were to ultimately lead to the proclamation of the Eisenhower Doctrine were based on the assumption that Nasser and other Arab leaders shared the American fear of the Soviet Union. This was not in fact the case, and Nasser hated Israel far more than whatever reservations he might have about the Soviet Union, and in any case preferred a situation where both super-powers were competing for his favour instead of him becoming aligned with one superpower.

The Eisenhower Doctrine was regarded by Nasser as a heavy-handed American attempt to dominate the Middle East (a region that Nasser believed he ought to dominate), and led him to swinging behind the Soviet Union as the best counter-weight. It was only with the quiet abandonment of the Eisenhower Doctrine in a National Security Council review in mid-1958 that Nasser started pulling away from the Soviet Union to resume his favored role as the spoiler who tried to play both superpowers against each other.

The American historian Arthur L. Herman wrote about the aftermath of Suez in 2006:

Suez destroyed the United Nations as well. By handing it over to Dag Hammarskjöld and his feckless ilk, Eisenhower turned the organization from the stout voice of international law and order into at best a meaningless charade; at worst, a Machiavellian cesspool. Instead of teaching Nasser and his fellow dictators that breaking international law does not pay, Suez taught them that every transgression will be forgotten and forgiven, especially if oil is at stake.

As for Nasser, Israel moved to the top of his agenda. Attacking the Jewish state became the recognized path to leadership of the Arab world, from Nasser to Saddam Hussein to Iran's Ahmadinejad—with the U.N. and world opinion standing idly by. Nasser also poured money and arms into Arafat's Palestinian Liberation Organization, making it the world's first state-sponsored terrorist group. And again, the world did nothing.

This, in the end, was the most egregious result of Suez. Hammarskjöld had ushered in a new era of international gangsterism, even as the U.N. became an essentially anti-Western body. Its lowest point came less than two decades later, in 1975, when it passed a resolution denouncing Zionism as racism and a triumphant Yasser Arafat addressed the General Assembly with a pistol strapped to his hip.

Suez destroyed the moral authority of the so-called world community. Fifty years later, we are all still living in the rubble.