June 2, 2005

Suez Canal and whatnot
Lem

i decided to add my two cents' worth to this discussion here. i've been reading up on middle east politics in the 20th century for school (and because although i'm american, i'm really lebanese) and according to my (British) textbook, the british/french invasion at the time of the suez canal crisis was less a matter of wanting to keep the canal open than wanting to limit nasser's power. the americans stopped funding britain because they saw the invasion as britain trying to revive its empire; and america always acted (acts?) staunchly against imperialism, so they stopped funding the brits in order to stop the invasion (the imperialist movements). also, along with the british and french, the israelis were involved, and that's just not good...as everyone knows, the arabs and israelis never got along. i could go on and on, but i'll refrain.

also, it was a cold war crisis because the ussr was backing egypt, and if they had control of the suez canal through egypt, things would not go well with the allies. sorry i'm not very coherent...