The lesson of Suez has not yet been learned

The Scotsman – United Kingdom; Jul 27, 2006
George Kerevan

THIS week, 50 years ago, the Egyptian leader Gamal Nasser announced
to cheering crowds that he was nationalising the Suez Canal. This
sparked off a chain of events that led inexorably to Britain, France
and Israel invading Egypt. There are good reasons why the anniversary
of this extraordinary little war is being underplayed half a century
on, except of course in Egypt.

For one, having invaded Egypt and captured the canal, the Brits were
forced into instantaneous and ignominious retreat after America’s
President Eisenhower threatened to sink the pound. The British prime
minister, Anthony Eden, whose idea the whole adventure had been,
was humiliated and soon driven from office.

The Israelis drew the sensible conclusion that they could only rely
on themselves for security. Meanwhile, Nasser, whose utter military
incompetence had just lost him the first of many wars, turned defeat
into political victory and became the hero of the Arab masses.

Now that British troops are back in the business of invading Arab
states, and Israel is slugging it out with Hezbollah in Leb-anon, are
there any lessons we can still learn from the Suez debacle? The main
one is that the use of force has to be very well judged, otherwise
you end up in a bigger mess than when you started.

Looking back on Suez in 1956, it is obvious that the British hadn’t
a clue what their own end game was. Having captured the canal,
it suddenly became blindingly obvious that there was no neat exit –
except the first boat home. Were we hoping somebody nicer than Nasser
would just pop out of the woodwork, or were we going to bring back
King Farouk from exile?

That’s not to say we should romanticise Gamal Nasser, who happily
recruited ex-Nazis – actually, they were anything but ex – to help
run his military, in the hope of throwing the Jews into the sea. And
Nasser’s pan-Arab nationalism was premised on ignoring the rights
of the ancient ethnic minorities of the Middle East – Jews, Assyrian
Christians, Armenians, Druze and Copts.

But in retrospect, Nasser seems to have been more bluff than
action. Without Suez, we might have turned Egypt into another India –
wary of the West, non-aligned but not a threat. Especially if we’d
accepted Egyptian ownership of the canal and funded the Aswan Dam. As
it was, when Nasser died in 1970, Egypt quietly slipped back into
the western orbit.

Here’s my worry about what’s happening in Lebanon today: like Suez,
we don’t have a political end game for when the shooting stops. Britain
waded into Egypt in 1956 with no idea how to get out. Lebanon in 2006
is different in that Israel did not start the fight. But I fear the
Israelis are making it up as they go along, which is just as risky.

Hezbollah is the armed proxy for the Iranians, who now dominate
politically the crescent running from south Lebanon through Syria to
Shiite Iraq. The Israelis, whether you like it or not, are trying to
give Hezbollah and the Iranians a bloody nose before they get too
bumptious and start making use of their strategic hold over a big
chunk of the world’s oil.

It was inevitable that Hezbollah would eventually provoke the Israelis
into defending themselves. Once the die was cast two weeks ago,
when Hezbollah unilaterally started firing rockets and kidnapping
Israeli hostages, the Israelis had little choice but to go in and
do something about it. The problem, as I see it, lies in the tactics
the Israelis have been forced to employ.

WITH aid from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Hezbollah has turned
south Lebanon into a series of minefields and fortifications, forcing
the Israelis to resort to air strikes to wear the enemy down rather
than embark on a costly frontal assault. Unfortunately, even with
precision-guided bombs, this is next to impossible to achieve, never
mind the fact that the Israelis lack the local intelligence to know
where Hezbollah elements are hiding. As a result, we have seen a lot
of buildings blown up, and hundreds of thousands of people fleeing as
refugees. But, as of yesterday, Hezbollah’s capacity to fire rockets
seemed unimpaired.

Hezbollah cannot be let off the hook through an unconditional
ceasefire. That would hand it a victory we will live to regret in
Iraq as well as Israel. But equally, Israel cannot have extended time
merely to drop more bombs in the hope that they hit something.

Israel has not grasped the significance of the changes in the Middle
and Near East brought about by the rise of Iran. The game is no
longer one of Israel using its military strength against a divided
and incompetent Arab world. It is now facing a new Persian Empire,
which is an altogether more dangerous foe, especially if Tehran
acquires nuclear weapons. Israel cannot win that fight alone.

Which is why there has to be a political solution to the Lebanese
crisis as soon as possible, and that has to come from America. It
should be the most important thing on President Bush’s agenda. I fear
it is not.

The Lebanese state has to be persuaded to disarm Hezbollah. Syria has
to be pressured into breaking with Iran (in return for discussions
over the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights). The Arab world – which is
no friend of Hezbollah or Iran – needs to be convinced that if it
supports Hezbollah being neutralised, America and Britain will put
a Palestinian state at the top of their agenda.

Suez in 1956 was a military success and a political failure. Lebanon
2006 is running the risk of being both a military failure and a
political one.