The Suez Crisis

The two weeks I had off  (if you can call it that) for Easter, were mostly spent by reading up on the Suez crisis.




       The essay tittle
that I had to complete was...

 

‘The US government actually quite liked the British holding a dominant position in the Middle East. The 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine was unforeseen and the result of botched Anglo-American diplomacy during the Suez crisis’. Discuss.

  

These were my conclusions...

The debate on whether the US liked Britain holding a dominant position in the Middle East was illustrated through a number of factors such as, their ‘special friendship,’ Britain’s responsibilities and its location. These factors initially showed America liking Britain’s position. However, the correlation of views before and after the Suez Crisis revealed how America, after the Suez crisis, disliked Britain’s position due to its association with colonialism.  This implicated US interests such as anti-communist defence  and  possibly oil flow from good Arab relations. An anti-communist legislation called the Eisenhower doctrine was expected in response to Britain being connected to colonialism and its economy and military strength been weakened, also in order to fill the power vacuum. Contrary to this belief, the British did not anticipate the US to respond in this way, they had hoped the US would support Britain to maintain her position through the Baghdad Pact and thus share her responsibilities of the Middle East. 

Moreover, some Americans did not foresee the Doctrine because it failed to disclose how much US finance and resources were given, not to mention the speed at which it was finalised was unexpected. Overall the Eisenhower doctrine was largely unforeseen, but the American government were under the impression that at the end of the Suez crisis, the doctrine was necessary to prevent communism spreading to the Middle East. Finally, the Eisenhower Doctrine was seen as another method in preventing communism as well as an indirect aim to topple Nasser. From what can be gathered the doctrine was tailored to benefit the US more than other countries. Aiding King Saud to gain a dominant position in the Middle East would have outweighed Nasser and maintained oil flow as well as a good relationship between both countries.     

Typically the lecture that covered the Eisenhower doctrine was done after the Easter holidays. I was quite annoyed that I couldn't put in one more theory that Tony Shaw had mentioned:  America felt that they had to step in to control the mess that the British had made of the Suez Crisis.