Empires rise and fall. They do not last forever. Imperial declines follow a gradual shifting of the economic tides, but are also punctuated and defined by critical tipping points. There are many differences between the Suez Crisis in 1956 and the US war on Iran today, but similarities in the larger context suggest that the United States is facing the same kind of “end of empire” moment that the British Empire faced in that historic crisis.
In 1956, the British Empire was still resisting independence movements in many of its colonies. The horrors of British Mau Mau concentration camps in Kenya and Britain’s brutal guerrilla war in Malaya continued throughout the 1950s, and, like the United States today, Britain still had military bases all over the world.
Britain’s imperial domination of Egypt began with its purchase of Egypt’s 44% share in the French-built Suez Canal in 1875. Seven years later, the British invaded Egypt, took over the management of the Canal and controlled access to it for 70 years.
After the Egyptian Revolution overthrew the British-controlled monarchy in 1952, the British agreed to withdraw and close their bases in Egypt by 1956, and to return control of the Suez Canal to Egypt by 1968.
But Egypt was increasingly threatened by Britain, France and Israel. Through the 1955 Baghdad Pact, the British recruited Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan to form the Central Treaty Organization, an anti-Soviet, anti-Egyptian alliance modeled on NATO in Europe. At the same time, Israel was attacking Egyptian forces in the Gaza Strip, and France was threatening Egypt for supporting Algeria’s war of independence.
Egypt’s President Nasser responded by forging new alliances with Saudi Arabia, Syria and other countries in the region, and, after failing to secure weapons from the US or USSR, Egypt bought large shipments of Soviet weapons from Czechoslovakia.
Upset with Egypt’s new alliances, the United States, Great Britain and the World Bank withdrew their financing from Egypt’s Aswan Dam project on the Nile. In response, Nasser stunned the world by nationalizing the Suez Canal Company and pledging to compensate its British and French shareholders.
British leaders saw the loss of the Suez Canal as unacceptable. Chancellor Harold Macmillan wrote in his diary, “If Nasser ‘gets away with it’, we are done for. The whole Arab world will despise us… and our friends will fall. It may well be the end of British influence and strength forever. So, in the last resort, we must use force and defy opinion, here and overseas”.
British Prime Minister Anthony Eden hatched a secret plan with France and Israel to invade Egypt, seize the Canal and try to overthrow Nasser. The US rejected military action against Egypt, and President Eisenhower told a press conference, on September 5, 1956, “We are committed to a peaceful settlement of this dispute, nothing else.” But the British assumed that the US would ultimately support them once combat began.
Israel invaded the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula, and then Britain and France landed forces in Port Said at the north end of the Suez Canal, under the pretense of protecting the Canal from both Israel and Egypt.
But before Britain and France could fully seize control of the Canal, the US government intervened to stop them. The US began selling off its British currency reserves and blocked an emergency IMF loan to Britain, triggering a financial crisis. At the same time, the USSR threatened to send forces to defend Egypt and even hinted at the possible use of nuclear weapons against Britain, France and Israel.
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