Nasser announces the nationalisation of the Suez Canal: 26 July 1956 Posted on: 26 July 2016
The UK and the US shared common strategic interests in the region, but their analyses and policies were not identical and there were important differences in their tactical and diplomatic approaches. Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser (Stevan Kragujević, CC BY-SA 3.0)
Chilcot Report on the Iraq enquiry, vol. I, p. 24.
The announcement sixty years ago today by President Gamal Abdel Nasser that he was taking the Suez Canal into Egyptian ownership provided the ‘inciting incident’, as screenwriters say, for a crisis that still haunts British politics. Enraged by Nasser’s defiance, fearful the Canal would be closed to British oil supplies, frustrated by the slow response of the military and intelligence organisations, thwarted by international politics, the British Government embarked with France and Israel on a flawed plan to force Nasser’s capitulation and Egyptian regime change that ended not just in failure but—for Prime Minister Anthony Eden in particular—in humiliation and loss of office. But why did Nasser’s announcement have such a profound and far-reaching effect? The context reveals a series of preconceptions and misperceptions, particularly on the part of the British and American Governments. Existential threat, neo-colonialism or regional power play? Britain’s response to the nationalisation of the Canal was based on deep-rooted preconceptions that by 1956 were increasingly open to challenge. The Middle East was seen as a strategic land bridge between Europe, Asia and Africa and key to British security, particularly in the Cold War context of the Soviet Union’s regional ambitions. Nasser’s actions and orchestration of anti-British agitation throughout the Arab world and beyond threatened what was seen as an accepted position of authority for Britain in Egypt. Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd, after meeting Nasser in March 1956, told the Cabinet the Egyptian leader would not work with the West or promote an Arab-Israeli settlement, and Britain should realign its policy accordingly. Britain’s oil supplies and trade routes to the southern hemisphere and Far East depended on free passage of the Canal; the British did not believe Egypt capable of running the Canal unaided, nor that it would be kept open to international traffic. Nasser’s announcement on 26 July seemed to pose an existential threat.
42
