From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776 (110 page)

All the deadly crosscurrents of a deeply troubled region came together in the Suez Crisis of 1956, an imbroglio that not only undermined U.S. policy in the Middle East but also opened deep fissures between the United States and its major European allies and handcuffed the administration in dealing with the simultaneous crisis in Hungary. The Suez Crisis originated in the broader struggle between Arab nationalism and European colonialism that heated up after Nasser's 1952 overthrow of the British puppet King Farouk. An admirer of Mosaddeq, the thirty-five-year-old army colonel was a master conspirator, compelling speaker, and fiery nationalist with ambitions for regional leadership and glory. The United States appreciated his suspicions of the colonial powers but worried about his neutralism. Dulles and Eisenhower at first sought to seduce him with promises of $400 million to assist with a pet project, the grandiose scheme for a mammoth dam at Aswan on the Nile River to produce hydroelectric power, control flooding, and promote Egyptian agriculture through irrigation.

The commitment to assist Nasser provoked an uproar in the United States. Southern congressmen seeking to protect vital cotton interests protested the use of economic aid to promote foreign competition. Supporters of Israel declaimed against assisting its mortal enemy. Militant
anti-Communists bitterly opposed rewarding neutralism. When Nasser tried to blackmail the United States by recognizing the People's Republic of China and threatening to seek aid from Moscow, an outraged Dulles seized the opportunity to renege on an offer that had become a diplomatic and political liability. "Do nations which play both sides get better treatment than nations which are stalwart and work with us?" the secretary thundered.
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Nasser in July 1956 stunned the world by using the U.S. action as an excuse to nationalize the British-run corporation that managed the Suez Canal, rationalizing that he needed the tolls to pay for his Aswan project and thus setting off a dangerous four-month crisis.

Nasser's bold move threatened Britain's oil supplies, jeopardized a vital lifeline to its interests in South and Southeast Asia, and struck directly at one of the proudest symbols of a once glorious empire. "The Egyptian has his thumb on our windpipe," Eden, now prime minister, exclaimed.
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Denouncing Nasser as a "Moslem Mussolini" who must not be appeased and fearing that defeat at his hands could force Britain out of the Middle East, Eden rebuffed U.S. pleas for patience. He rejected—as did Nasser—Dulles's frantic last-minute proposals to form an international consortium to run the canal and pay Egypt equitable compensation. He formed with France, which feared Nasser's threat to its North African colonies, and Israel, which had numerous grievances against the Egyptian, a secret military plan calling for Israel to attack Egypt across the Sinai desert and provide a pretext for British and French military operations to recapture the canal and get rid of Nasser. On October 29, 1956, Israel attacked, seizing the Sinai and Gaza without significant opposition. When Nasser, as expected, rebuffed European demands for withdrawal, Britain and France launched air and naval attacks against Egypt. Before they could achieve their major objectives, Nasser one-upped them, blocking the canal by sinking more than fifty ships loaded with concrete, rocks, and even beer bottles. An attack justified on grounds of keeping the canal in operation had precisely the opposite effect.
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The Suez-Sinai War set off the most serious crisis in America's relations with its major Western allies since the 1930s and raised the possibility of war with the Soviet Union. Eden later claimed that Dulles had given him a green light for military operations. In fact, each nation completely misread the other's position, and Eisenhower and Dulles were kept in the dark
about Allied military plans. The Americans had no use for Nasser. Dulles agreed with Britain that he should be "made to disgorge his theft."
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But they were shocked that their allies had resorted to war on the eve of the U.S. presidential election and furious that they had taken action that inflamed Arab nationalism and risked major Soviet gains in a crucial region. The Anglo-French offensive also prevented them from taking full propaganda advantage of Soviet military intervention in Hungary. "Foster, you tell 'em goddamn it, we're going to apply sanctions, we're going to the United Nations, we're going to do everything that there is so we can stop this thing," Eisenhower raged.
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The United States threatened sanctions against Israel. It refused to bolster British currency reserves and oil supplies—letting them "boil in their own oil," as the president put it, and permitting the pound sterling to plummet. Also caught off guard by Anglo-French military action, an equally enraged Khrushchev threatened—largely bluff—to unleash rockets against London and Paris. The Pentagon developed contingency plans for a general war for a cause the administration considered dubious. Desperate to repair damage with the Arabs and prevent Soviet intrusion into the Middle East, Dulles in a dramatic speech before the United Nations disassociated his nation from Britain, France, and Israel and proposed a cease-fire and withdrawal of all forces. He closed with a ringing attack on colonialism he said he would be proud to have as his epitaph. Britain and France gave in, in part from Soviet threats but mainly because U.S. pressures worsened an already serious economic situation in England, leaving them no choice.
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The Suez affair was one of the most complex and dangerous of Cold War crises. Walking a tightrope over numerous conflicting forces, Eisenhower and Dulles did manage to avert war with the Soviet Union and limit the damage to relations with the Arab states. On the other hand, America's relations with its major allies plunged to their lowest point in years. Washington and London each believed they had been double-crossed. The British and French resented their humiliation at the hands of their ally. Eden and Dulles's mutual hatred deepened—as "tortuous as a wounded snake, with much less excuse," an Eden still angry years later said of his by then deceased U.S. counterpart.
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An already volatile Middle East was further destabilized. Nasser remained in power—a fact
Dulles later privately lamented to the British. His noisy neutralism veered further eastward. Soviet premier Khrushchev mistakenly concluded that his rocket-rattling had carried the day—those "with the strongest nerves will be the winner," he boasted—thus emboldening him to further and even more reckless nuclear gambits.
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Amidst the wreckage of Suez and with an overwhelming electoral victory behind him, Eisenhower set out to craft a new strategy to protect U.S. interests in a vital region. He and Dulles backed off from mediation in the Arab-Israeli dispute, reasoning that with little hope of a settlement additional intrusion would only antagonize both sides. They rejoiced that European influence in the region was on the wane but feared the Soviets might fill the vacuum. They worried that Nasser and other Arab nationalists might create more instability that the Soviets could exploit. Presumably with Eisenhower's blessing, the CIA attempted unsuccessfully to overthrow the government of Syria, inflaming anti-U.S. sentiments in that country. It may have attempted to displace or even assassinate Nasser.
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But the main solutions were to bolster conservative, pro-Western governments in the region with economic and military assistance and deter Nasser and the Soviets with threats of military intervention. The administration lavished aid on Jordan and its boy king, Hussein. It put the greatest faith in Saudi Arabia and King Saud, son of the legendary Ibn Saud, some officials even hoping that as custodian of the holy places he might defuse Arab radicalism and isolate Nasser by becoming a sort of "Islamic pope." The modern U.S.-Saudi relationship took form during these years, but it did not have the effect Americans hoped for. Saud continued to rant against Israel and complain about the inadequacy of U.S. aid. Not a strong leader like his father, he drank heavily and became engaged in a bitter power struggle with his brother Faisal. By the end of the decade, the administration was exploring an accommodation with Nasser.
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To back up the threat of military intervention, Eisenhower and Dulles sought from Congress in early 1957 broad authority to send military forces to any nation threatened by a nation "controlled by International Communism." Democratic senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota warned of a "predated declaration of war," Oregon's Wayne Morse of a "chapter written in blood," but in tones reminiscent of Acheson in 1947 Eisenhower insisted that Soviet domination of the Middle East would "gravely
endanger all the free world."
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Ten years to the month after Truman requested aid to Greece and Turkey, Eisenhower secured from Congress $200 million in aid and blanket authority to intervene militarily in the Middle East. The so-called Eisenhower Doctrine took a giant step beyond its predecessor.

As before, it was easier to promulgate a doctrine than apply it. The administration continued to blur the distinction between indigenous conflicts and international Communism. As always, involvement in the Middle East brought a steep price and numerous trade-offs. Threatened by a radical nationalist rival, Jordan's pro-Western Hussein in the spring of 1957 used Cold War lingo to attract U.S. intervention. Eisenhower sent economic aid and in a modern act of gunboat diplomacy dispatched the Sixth Fleet to the eastern Mediterranean. Hussein remained in power, an apparent victory, but U.S. intervention heightened tension with Egypt and Israel and briefly threatened a general Middle Eastern war. A similar effort in Syria completely backfired. Soviet aid to the Syrian government provoked from Washington dire warnings of a Hitler-like threat to the Middle East. The United States again dispatched the Sixth Fleet to the region and tried to line up a coalition against Syria. But the CIA's bungled covert operation and U.S. indecision about intervention led potential allies to balk and in some cases even support Syria. When the dust settled, Egypt and Syria formed the United Arab Republic. Soviet influence grew.
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The United States sent troops to Lebanon under the Eisenhower Doctrine in the summer of 1958. Afflicted with deep-seated religious as well as ethnic and political divisions, Lebanon posed especially difficult challenges. When the Christian, pro-Western leader Camille Chamoun sought to extend his power, Muslim nationalists rebelled, and Chamoun appealed for U.S. aid. Eisenhower was wary of intervention, but the overthrow of the friendly Iraqi government at about the same time raised fears of a full-fledged Middle East crisis. Employing yet another analogy from the 1930s, the
New York Times
warned of a "Lebanese Anschluss."
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The administration feared that Nasser, Israel, and the Soviets might exploit the turmoil. Eisenhower speculated that Lebanon might be "our last chance to do something."
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After forcing Chamoun to step down, Eisenhower sent fourteen thousand marines to help stabilize Lebanon, the largest U.S.
amphibious operation since Inchon. Upon hitting the beach, the marines encountered vacationers rather than enemy soldiers. They remained until September and at least temporarily eased the crisis.

Short-term successes in Jordan and Lebanon could not obscure the perils and pitfalls of intervention in the Middle East. Eisenhower admitted that there was a "campaign of hatred against us" and the people were on "Nasser's side."
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After extensive study, the NSC similarly concluded in late 1958 that the Eisenhower Doctrine was already outdated. By permitting itself to be "cast as Nasser's opponent," the United States had helped him become the "champion" of Arab nationalism. Interventionism had cost the United States Arab goodwill, further destabilized the region, and played into Soviet hands. The NSC recommended that the United States continue to defend the crucial northern tier states. It must distance itself still further from European colonialism. It must also seek ways to improve relations with Nasser and win Arab support. The administration tried to do these things, but it was not easy in a short time to repair the damage of six years of interventionism. Under Eisenhower's direction, the United States had plunged much more deeply into the politics of a turbulent region and assumed commitments difficult to shed. "U.S. leaders found themselves caught in the Middle East," historian Peter Hahn has concluded, "unable to relinquish the responsibilities that they had accepted even as those responsibilities became increasingly difficult to fulfill. And they were caught in the middle of the Arab-Israeli conflict, unable to resolve a dispute that would generate instability for years to come."
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While bringing the Cold War to nearby South Asia, the United States also encountered intractable local issues and sometimes unbridgeable cultural divides. Americans might well have empathized with India, which, after gaining independence from Britain in 1947, became the world's most populous democracy. But from the outset, the two peoples approached each other from markedly different perspectives. Indian culture was built on a sense of give-and-take Americans never quite understood. To Americans, on the other hand, Hinduism was backward looking and bred confusion, otherworldliness, and passivity.
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Each nation had pretensions to moral superiority that rubbed the other the wrong way. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru deeply resented U.S. pushiness and airs of
superiority. He claimed not to understand "why a man with such strong muscles should publicly demonstrate his muscles all the time."
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Nehru's determination to remain neutral in the Cold War especially annoyed and alarmed Americans, raising fears that India might drift into the Communist "camp." India's frequent and shrill criticism of U.S. policies further riled leaders and citizens.

By contrast, American officials found much more to like in India's bitter rival Pakistan, the Muslim state carved out of the South Asian subcontinent in the partition that came with independence. Monotheistic Islam seemed much closer to Christianity. Pakistani leaders appeared much more vigorous, energetic, forthright, and warlike, in short more manly.
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Unlike India and primarily for its own reasons—to build the military strength necessary to fend off its much larger neighbor—Pakistan expressed willingness to stand with the United States in the Cold War. "Pakistan is a country I would like to do everything for," Vice President Richard M. Nixon exclaimed. "The people have less complexes than the Indians. The Pakistanis are completely frank even when it hurts."
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Not surprisingly, then, when the Eisenhower administration set out in 1953 to find allies, Pakistan stepped forward. It became a charter member of SEATO and the Baghdad Pact, making it, in the words of one wit, "America's most allied ally."
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Large-scale economic and especially military aid programs quickly followed.