A Strange Ending • 267Settlement of the Suez Canal Issue
The early Nasir regime was determined to settle the Egyptian question once
and for all. With heavy pressure put on Britain by the US, which hoped to
bring Egypt into a Middle Eastern anticommunist alliance comparable to
NATO, Anglo-Egyptian talks resumed. Britain finally agreed in 1954 to leave
its Suez Canal base, the largest military installation outside the communist
bloc, but on terms that would let British troops reoccupy the canal in case
of an attack on any Arab League country or on Turkey, presumably by the
USSR. British civilian technicians might also stay in the Canal Zone. Some
Egyptian nationalists balked at these conditions, as earlier they had opposed
Egypt's concession that the Sudanese people might decide by a plebiscite
between union with Egypt and complete independence. They voted for in¬
dependence, despite the blandishments of the Egyptian officers. Nasir was
widely accused of being a fascist or an imperialist lackey. The communists
even called him Gamal Abd al-Dulles (referring to the US secretary of state),
but on 18 June 1956, the last British soldier left the Suez Canal base. For the
first time since 1882, no British troops remained in Egypt.
A STRANGE ENDINGEgypt's independence struggle should have ended then, but it did not. In
October 1956 British and French paratroopers landed at Port Said and reoc-
cupied the Suez Canal, while Israel's army pushed westward across the Sinai
Peninsula. The full story is recounted later in the text, but a few points
should be addressed here. The British government that ordered the invasion
was led by the man who had negotiated the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty and
its 1954 replacement—Sir Anthony Eden. He attacked Egypt because Nasir
in July 1956 had nationalized the Suez Canal Company—the symbol of
Egypt's subjugation to foreign powers, but also the lifeline of the British
Commonwealth and of the European oil-consuming nations. The world's
superpowers, the US and the USSR, joined forces to pressure the British,
French, and Israelis to stop their attack and to pull out of Egypt's territory.
Meanwhile, the Nasir government expelled thousands of British subjects
and French citizens from Egypt and seized their property, thus ending much
of what remained of Western economic power within the country. Nasir had
finished the struggle for Egypt's independence, but at a cost of much West¬
ern anger against his regime and his country.