Lecture 5 Eisenhower: the Suez War of 1956 and the Eisenhower Doctrine

• In Shattered Gaza Town, Roots of Seething Split, NYT Feb. 4, 2009
• Gaza War Created Rift Between Israel and Turkey, NYT Feb. 5, 2009
• Israel Seizes Ship Bound for Gaza, NYT Feb. 5, 2009
• U.S. Faces Loss of Key Asian Base in Kyrgyzstan , NYT Feb. 5, 2009
• Iran Launches Satellite in a Challenge for Obama, NYT Feb. 4, 2009
• As Iraqis Tally Votes, Former Leader Re-emerges, NYT Feb. 4, 2009

• Senate Allies of Bush Work to Halt Iraq Vote, NYT Jan 31, 2007
• German Court Seeks Arrest of 13 C.I.A. Agents, NYT Jan 31, 2007
• Suicide Attack Is First in Israel in 9 Months, NYT Jan 30, 2007

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2006 and earlier:

• Egypt Urges Hamas to End Violence and Recognize Israel (NYT, Feb. 1, 2006)
• Former U.S. Official in Iraq to Plead Guilty to Corruption (NYT, Feb. 1, 2006)
• Paul Findley on the Bush Administration's anti-Arab bias (Feb 3, 2004)
• At Camp David, Advise and Dissent - Bush, Aides Grapple With War Plan (here is a great inside view of Bush Admin policy discussions on Sept 15, 2001)
• The Palestinian Vision of Peace By YASIR ARAFAT (Feb 3, 2002)

Legacy of Palestinian remnants including 700,000+ Palestinian refugees: about half of the current Palestinian population [CIA Factbook may be better source for Israel, West Bank, and Gaza Strip] remains in Israel and the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Cross-border tensions: Jordan - Qibya retaliatory raid by Col. Ariel Sharon, Oct. 1953; Gaza: fedayeen incursions into Israel.

The Eisenhower Administration (1953-61)

"I Like Ike"
Golf, National Security Council (founded along with CIA, Defense, indep air force in 1947, but new life under Ike...now Clinton has established Economic Security Council)

John Foster Dulles (Secretary of State, while brother Allen became director of the CIA): Northern Tier, Baghdad Pact (Feb. 1955) - pactomania!
Ike: ME critical to US security: "no region of the world received as much of my close attention and that of my colleagues as did the Middle East." ...impartiality re local arab-israeli but contain communism...vs oldfashioned colonialism...

IRAN: Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi - our Northern Tier.
ratified nationalization of Anglo-Iranian Oil Company..PM Mossadegh 4/28/51 and problems of "stolen oil"...
Operation Ajax Aug 19, 1953 athletes to the streets! The CIA "won" 25 more years of free-flowing oil from a "Free World" ally, but at what eventual cost?

SUEZ CRISIS of Oct 29, 1956 (cf Hungary): Britain, France, and Israel invade Egypt (map).
Background:

• rise of Gamal Abdul Nasser (1952-70),
• Lavon Affair (Israeli spies caught in Cairo blowing up USIS etc.),
• Gaza raid by Ben Gurion (Feb. 1955) and Nasser's search for arms, despite
• Anglo-French-US Tripartite Declaration of 1950.
• No US arms forthcoming, just Baghdad Pact,
• joined by Britain to keep its imperial ties with Iraq
• and finally Nasser goes to the Soviets in the summer of 1955 - the "Czech" arms deal - an even recognizes Communist China.
• So John Foster Dulles cuts off the financing for Nasser's High Dam at Aswan,
• and Nasser retailiates by nationalizing the Suez Canal (built by Ferdinand de Lesseps, now Nasser's code word) in July 1956 ...
• Traffic through the canal is not interrupted, and the USA encourages a Suez Canal Users' Association to keep the traffic flowing and arrange for the just compensation of the British and French shareholders of the Suez Canal Company (whose concession was anyway to expire in the 1960s)

Eisenhower was incensed by the tripartite aggression...and Dulles was rushed off to the hospital on Nov 3, 1956, in the middle of the crisis! Ike pushed the aggressors all back out of Egyptian territory, but promised Israel one gain, the free use of its new southern port of Elat (or Elath, Eilat...) on the grounds that the Gulf of Aqaba is an international waterway. Look at the geography (for it would be a cause of the June 1967 war - as well as the site of the suicide bombing of Jan 30, 2007, mentioned above):

• Israeli port of Elat (or Elath)
• Strait of Tiran
• Sharm al-Sheikh
• Gulf of Aqaba

By Christmas 1956 everyone had withdrawn except Israel from Gaza.
Feb 20, 1957 Ike to the country, threatening tax exempt status of private aid to Israel..
Issues of Israel access to Suez Canal, access to Aqaba/Elat: US supported Israel despite Saudi claim that Aqaba was an Arab waterway.

EISENHOWER DOCTRINE: to defend the Middle East against Communism without joining the Baghdad Pact.

• Jan 5, 1957 message to Congress..promising military as well as economic assistance to anyone requesting such aid, "against overt armed aggression from any nation controlled by International Communism." (remember Korea)
• The struggle for Syria, creation of the United Arab Republic (1958-61),
• Lebanese 1958 mini civil war, and
• Iraqi revolution of July 14, 1958
• how could the conservative Eisenhower Administration cope with rapid social and political change in the region?
• New working relationship with Arab nationism? With Saudi Arabia? With Iran? - Nixon Doctrine of 1969!

Department of Government, College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas at Austin.
Questions, Comments, and Suggestions to chenry@mail.utexas.edu