Middle East May 11, 2006 Suez ripples half century after crisis By Ronan Thomas An outspoken, youthful Middle Eastern leader takes on powerful Western adversaries seeking to isolate him. Grasping the mantle of national and regional power, his gamble is stunningly successful, but brief. Strategic calculation leads Western powers and their ally Israel to use military power in response. The result: shambles, recrimination, political downfall, imperial eclipse, and an entirely altered regional complexion. July marks the half-century since the 1956 Suez Crisis and Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser's resistance to the West. In 1956, Nasser, putative figurehead for Arab nationalism, seized and nationalized the Suez Canal, the Middle East's vital shipping artery. His ambition: to shake off British and French control of Egyptian assets at a time when both powers were entering an imperial endgame. Egyptian and pan-Arab euphoria was followed by swift naval, airborne and land assaults by Britain, France and (after secret negotiation) Israel. Egyptian military defeat was inevitable, but Western success illusory. The events of the crisis bear retelling, 50 years on, and not just for the historically minded, for parallels with today's Iran imbroglio are emerging. Most of the actors of 1956 are intimately involved. In 2006 another regional protagonist, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, has voiced Nasser-style defiance toward Western powers and Israel. Iran now appears set on nuclear power amid international opprobrium. It remains unclear whether development of Iranian nuclear weapons may be next. The row - exacerbated in recent months by Ahmadinejad's colorful outbursts - has now moved to New York. This week, the US, Britain, France and Israel are attempting to secure a draft United Nations Security Council resolution against Iran. Ahmadinejad is seeking ways to prevent sanctions against him while international media reports ponder the risks of new Western military intervention in the Middle East. Suez points to the risks indeed. Imperial endgame In 1956, the ambitions of one nationalist moved rapidly into crisis and into imperial shambles. Egypt had been a vassal state for the British since the latter gained control of the canal in 1875 and made Egypt a protectorate from 1882. It became nominally independent only in 1922. Britain's grip on the Suez Canal zone - the canal and several surrounding bases - had continued during World War II and on until 1952. That year, the compliant regime of King Farouk was brought down by a popular uprising led by the Free Officers' Group, of whom Nasser, Anwar Sadat and Abdel Hakim Amer were key figures. A new government was formed led by General Mohammed Naguib. Anthony Eden, Britain's recently appointed foreign secretary, sought to negotiate gradual British withdrawal from Egypt but with rights of return. Enduring postwar austerity at home, Britain's reliance on oil supplies through the canal was absolute. Recovering from war, two-thirds of Western European oil flowed through the Suez. But in 1954, Nasser saw his own opportunity and ousted Naguib. Acting from socialist convictions, he launched a crackdown on Muslim militants to consolidate his position. At the same time, Nasser's antipathy toward Britain hardened after that country negotiated the Baghdad Pact of 1955, a tripartite defense alliance with Turkey and Iraq (whose Hashemite regime was a key regional competitor for Egypt). The situation was soured further by the so-called Gaza raid of February 1955, sanctioned by Israeli leader David Ben Gurion, with Egyptian/Israeli/Palestinian clashes and infiltration increasing across Egypt's borders dramatically. Now active on the international diplomatic scene, Nasser launched wide-scale infrastructure development in Egypt, including modernization of the Aswan High Dam. His next move was critical: he negotiated a key arms deal with the Soviets - who were becoming more assertive actors in the Middle East. Events then moved rapidly. Britain responded to the arms deal by frustrating financing for the dam. With Cold War animosities and regional resentments rising, Nasser saw a priceless opportunity to bid for Egyptian economic independence. On July 26, Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal. Initially, Britain resorted to UN arbitration but, along with France, seethed at its humiliation. There were also other regional security concerns. France strongly suspected Nasser's complicity in attacks against it in Algeria; Britain felt the new Baghdad Pact - central to its Middle Eastern strategy - was under threat from a resurgent Egypt. And the issue became personal: Eden was obsessed with the notion that Nasser represented a new Adolf Hitler, not to be appeased under any circumstances. Secret negotiations at Sevres, near Paris, among Eden, French prime minister Guy Mollet and Ben Gurion secured a plan for Western intervention to solve the Egypt problem once and for all. But in so doing the participants made a crucial error. They kept the United States in the dark. On October 29, 1956, the military plan - "Operation Musketeer" - swung into action. An all-out assault to regain the canal and topple Nasser's regime began two days later, involving 45,000 British, 34,000 French and 175,000 Israeli troops (the latter invading Sinai by land). Over the following week, British and French air attacks began on Egypt, followed by a successful British airborne assault on El Gamil airfield. Amphibious landings at Port Said led to house-to- house fighting, while Nasser successfully blocked the canal by scuttling dozens of ships. The United States now flexed its muscles. President Dwight D Eisenhower, incandescent with rage at British/French/Israeli duplicity, feared the attacks might draw in the Soviets, then busy crushing resistance in Hungary. Turning up the diplomatic and economic heat, he forced Eden, Mollet and Ben Gurion to accept ceasefire and withdrawal on November 7. Casualties, killed or wounded, totaled 100 British, 43 French, 200 Israelis and more than 5,000 Egyptians. Within a year Eden and Mollet had resigned and Israel withdrew from Sinai. Ben Gurion continued in office until 1963. With cruel intensity, Suez showed that Western influence in the Middle East was passing from weakened 19th-century powers to the US, an assertive new player seeking to meet the global threat posed by the Soviet Union as the Cold War deepened. Snubbed by the US, British and French reputations never fully recovered in the Middle East. In Britain, Suez was a cataclysm, a byword for insider machination, obsession and national shame. British veterans of the crisis - many 19-year-old National Servicemen - had to wait until June 2004 for a campaign medal. Along with the fall of Singapore in 1942, it remains the worst humiliation in the long history of the British Empire. What was left of the empire did not long survive. For France - whose brilliant architect Ferdinand de Lesseps first conceived and built the canal in 1869 - the crisis constituted the midpoint of imperial decline after defeat in Vietnam at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, decolonization in Africa, and the final blow - the Algerian war of 1954-62. Notional winners emerged from the crisis. In the short term, Egypt had successfully called the bluff of former imperial masters and now basked in the afterglow. Beaten militarily, Nasser nevertheless emerged triumphant. Although he led Egypt with mixed success until the disastrous 1967 war against Israel and his death in 1970, he has remained a heroic figure in his country to this day. The United States and Israel were longer-term winners; their influence in the region was to grow exponentially in the succeeding decades. The rise of US and Israeli power and "special relationship" in the region advanced rapidly over the next 15 years, most particularly after the 1967 war. But there was a price to pay: both inherited the legacy of visceral regional resentments against Western imperialism, which persist poisonously to this day. Suez reminder In 2006 there are many reminders and lessons of the Suez episode still evident in the Middle East. The Suez Canal - casus belli of 1956 - continues to proffer its pivotal and traditional role. Civilian and military vessels cross day and night into the Red Sea and on to the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean. In the six months to January, the canal handled 11,000 vessels, at the rate of 60 million tons of shipping per month, earning Egypt about US$400 million each month (Suez Canal Authority). The canal (190 kilometers long) remains a routine transit point for warships sailing in support of coalition operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, to the US bases in Qatar and Djibouti and other destinations in the "war on terror". In the past three months, coalition naval task forces have all passed through the canal. US military websites in April showed the amphibious assault ship USS Nassau and support ships crossing the canal en route to the Persian Gulf and Iraq, operational areas for the US 5th Fleet. Also last month, Britain's formidable aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious was photographed sending high-profile 80th-birthday wishes to Queen Elizabeth II from the Red Sea. Its support vessels included a French frigate. There were also other echoes of the crisis last month. Reports suggested that Britain is set to conduct a major airborne operation into Afghanistan as it completes control of the southern province of Helmand. This "show of force", led by 650 members of Britain's Parachute Regiment, will aim to disrupt poppy production and signal British capability to Taliban forces. If launched, it would be the largest drop since Suez and recall the virtually identical assault on Egypt's El Gamil airfield of November 5, 1956. Elsewhere, military reports from Israel suggest that veterans of its Paratroopers Brigade hope to make a commemorative drop this summer to mark their successful action near the Mitla Pass in Sinai.