Anglo-French-Israel call America's bluff; Suez Crisis

Nasser losing the Suez Canal, losing Port Said/Port Suez (and likely Ismailia) to Franco-British forces, and being able to threaten Cairo, a lot of his support is going to evaporate.

Middle East leaders quite frequently survive military defeats. Nasser himself survived 1967 even though the Suez Canal wasn't reopened until 1975, long after his death. Gadaffi survived the loss of the war with Chad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_War Saddam Hussein survived the failure of his 1979 invasion of Iran and his loss of Kuwait in 1991. It took the Americans actually physically occupying Baghdad to end his rule. The British and French weren't willing to do that with Nasser in 1956. Their objective was to make him fall--yet they weren't wiling to engage in an all-out war to do so--not even all-out bombing, let alone a seizure of Cairo. This attitude betrays an underlying weakness in the British and French which the Egyptians understood--just by keeping Nasser in power, they could win a "victory." And again, you have to ask, who is going to overthrow him? He had purged the military quite effectively. And the old politicians were discredited.

And remember that the operation had been controversial in the UK from the beginning. It wouldn't become more popular with petrol rationing reinstated (sabotage of the pipelines), with more British casualties, with publicity about Egyptian civilian casualties, etc.
 
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Middle East leaders quite frequently survive military defeats. Nasser himself survived 1967 even though the Suez Canal wasn't reopened until 1975, long after his death. Gadaffi survived the loss of the war with Chad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_War Saddam Hussein survived the failure of his 1979 invasion of Iran and his loss of Kuwait in 1991. It took the Americans actually physically occupying Baghdad to end his rule. The British and French weren't willing to do that with Nasser in 1956. Their objective was to make him fall--yet they weren't wiling to engage in an all-out war to do so--not even all-out bombing, let alone a seizure of Cairo. This attitude betrays an underlying weakness in the British and French which the Egyptians understood--just by keeping Nasser in power, they could win a "victory." And again, you have to ask, who is going to overthrow him? He had purged the military quite effectively. And the old politicians were discredited.

And remember that the operation had been controversial in the UK from the beginning. It wouldn't become more popular with petrol rationing reinstated (sabotage of the pipelines), with more British casualties, with publicity about Egyptian civilian casualties, etc.

Nasser's position was already precarious even before the crisis and he needed a popularity boost and needed it desperately. Nationalizing the Suez Canal gave him that. Seeing the French and British take not just the canal, but the three major cities (Port Said, Port Suez, and Ismailia), is going to give a lot of Egyptians pause as to whether or not they could really handle two major European powers who are now threatening northeastern Egypt and Cairo with America sitting out on the sidelines and the Soviets embroiled in their own affair in Hungary and unable to provide any kind of real aid. Is it possible that Nasser could survive Suez? Sure, absolutely, and it's possible to see him clinging to power in a post-successful Suez crisis Egypt. But in the wake of that kind of humiliation, especially when he's drummed up that kind of fervor, I don't think he'll survive for very long. My guess is he'll get removed by junior officers in exchange for Naguib, though it's possible if the US and USSR sit out, the Anglo-French march on Cairo and do it themselves.

The operation may have been controversial in Britain, but seeing that kind of success going for them is going to wash away a lot of the doubts. It wouldn't be too hard for the British to paint Nasser as a madman who's willing to use civilians as cannon fodder in his own megalomaniac plans. Those failures would frustrate the war effort in Egypt and I don't think it's too far a stretch to see a palace coup to replace Nasser with someone like Naguib and try to end the conflict.
 
But in the wake of that kind of humiliation, especially when he's drummed up that kind of fervor, I don't think he'll survive for very long.

He drummed up a lot of fervor in 1967, lost the war--and survived.

And there is no evidence that he was in danger of being overthrown before the nationalization. His land reform and dispossession of the old political-business class were popular, he had crushed the Muslim Brotherhood and the Communists, and had purged the military. No doubt his having put loyalty over military competence in the selection of officers had bad consequences for performance in war but it made it very difficult to overthrow him.

Indeed, the British attempts to find officers disloyal to Nasser were almost a comedy of errors:

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https://books.google.com/books?id=MGZaDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT112
 
When you get down to it, it really seems like Nasser was the one calling France's, the UK's, and Israel's bluff.

It just wasnt politically viable to violently subdue a foreign people anymore.

Egypt couldn't possibly win a total war. If the invasion coalition treated Egypt the way say, the UK treated the Boers 50 years before, they would have been crushed. However, the invasion coalition couldn't convince thier own peoples to allow a total war.

Attitudes had changed.
It didnt matter that Nasser was brazenly violating the rules of war.
The rules of war were outdated by the changed attitudes of the public.

I'm used to thinking of the sorts of leaders who use thier own people as shields as scum, but when you look at it in context...

In a way, Nasser seems to have found a way to secure his country's dominance over it's own historic territory with minimal cost in lives and resources lost.
 
Damn, Nasser was good with how he played it.
Truth be told, Ike probably saved the Anglo-French-Israeli forces from long term embarrassment by giving them an out.
 
As a Canadian as well (US-CAN dual citizen), I can sympathize. But I think it would be interesting to explore Canadian politics without Pearson and how it develops.

Maybe? Arab nationalism was also highly linked to pan-Arabism, which might be dropped in favor of Baathism. So you could potentially see a merger between Syria and Iraq.

Baathism is a pan-Arab ideology advocating a single Arab state through the leadership of a vanguard party. An Iraqi-Syrian union is unlikely as Syria would be wary of being the weaker partner, even more so if the UAR goes ahead and fails as it did in OTL.
 
Baathism is a pan-Arab ideology advocating a single Arab state through the leadership of a vanguard party. An Iraqi-Syrian union is unlikely as Syria would be wary of being the weaker partner, even more so if the UAR goes ahead and fails as it did in OTL.

Thank you for the correction, I appreciate it.
 
Nasser himself survived 1967
The popularity Nasser had in 1956 and in 1967 are very different. Nasser was ambivalent to the Egyptian people in regards to popularity in 1956. If the confrontation with France, Britain and Israel goes south for him, well, Naguib already had a lot of grievances against Nasser and he did have a good amount of influence, another dictator might coup Nasser (most likely Naguib himself).
 
Also like i asked before, what would the Commonwealth do? Only New Zealand and Australia backed them up. So what would happen in a favorable suez crisis for britain, considering the other members of the commonwealth outright went against britain or just twiddled their thumbs and did nothing?
 
The popularity Nasser had in 1956 and in 1967 are very different. Nasser was ambivalent to the Egyptian people in regards to popularity in 1956. If the confrontation with France, Britain and Israel goes south for him, well, Naguib already had a lot of grievances against Nasser and he did have a good amount of influence, another dictator might coup Nasser (most likely Naguib himself).

No, Naguib did not have "a good amount of influence" by 1956. His supporters had been purged from the military and the bureaucracy. His attempts to restore democracy were seen as an attempt to restore the old parties (like the Wafd) and a corrupt and unpopular political and economic elite whose power had been broken by Nasser's combination of repression and reforms. He was, quite simply, yesterday's man.
 
No, Naguib did not have "a good amount of influence" by 1956. His supporters had been purged from the military and the bureaucracy. His attempts to restore democracy were seen as an attempt to restore the old parties (like the Wafd) and a corrupt and unpopular political and economic elite whose power had been broken by Nasser's combination of repression and reforms. He was, quite simply, yesterday's man.
Amer and several other Generals had a plan to install Naguib into power if things went south. Amer was by no means not an influential military figure.
 
No, Naguib did not have "a good amount of influence" by 1956. His supporters had been purged from the military and the bureaucracy. His attempts to restore democracy were seen as an attempt to restore the old parties (like the Wafd) and a corrupt and unpopular political and economic elite whose power had been broken by Nasser's combination of repression and reforms. He was, quite simply, yesterday's man.
Also like i said Nasser wasnt exactly the great popular president in 1956 like he was in 1967. The people would have against him if things went awry.
 
Amer and several other Generals had a plan to install Naguib into power if things went south. Amer was by no means not an influential military figure.

It s true that when Amer first learned of the invasion, he expressed pessimistic views to Nasser. But after being rebuked by Nasser, he quickly yielded. https://books.google.com/books?id=s7lvDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA48 Had Amer indeed been planning a coup, it is inconceivable that Nasser would have allowed him so much power from 1956 to 1967.
 
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