More Must-See BBC...

The nation's political leader, eyeing another political leader in the strategic Middle East, becomes obsessed with two ideas: regime change and pre-emptive war.

Though warned against an attack by international allies and faced with mass protests by his own citizens, he ignores all advice he does not want to hear. Ordering his intelligence services to "sex up" phony evidence and entering into secret, illegal deals, he launches his war anyway...

The USA against Iraq in 2003? No, Britain against Egypt in 1956.

I just recently watched the fantastic 4-part BBC documentary from 2006, A Very British Crisis: Suez 1956. The fourth part, "The Other Side Of Suez," is a look at the crisis from the Egyptian point of view.

Since I've spent nearly 3 years in Egypt now, and have talked to Egyptians who lived thru the Suez Crisis, this series was really fascinating for me.

Quite a few people interviewed for the series draw parallels between Suez and our current Iraq disaster. Of course, the endings were very different. The Suez Crisis only lasted a few weeks, and immediately ended the political career of Prime Minister Anthony Eden.

Some parts are hilarious, in a horrible sort of way. For those who don't know much about it, the heart of the Suez operation was a secret deal between Britain, France and Israel. The British thought this would be a "gentlemen's agreement," and were horrified when they found out the French and Israelis had kept transcripts of the secret meetings. (Those transcripts were buried for 40 years.)

For Britain and France, the goal was to re-gain control of the Suez Canal, which Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized in July 1956. One of the British politicians in the series admits that they searched International Law books with a fine-toothed comb, trying to find a loophole to just invade Egypt and grab the Canal back. Unfortunately, they found that Nasser had a perfect right to nationalize the canal.

The strategy: Israel would cross the Sinai Desert and threaten to attack Egypt. Britain and France would then play the role of peacekeepers and enter Egypt "to keep the warring nations of Israel and Egypt apart."

This didn't fool anybody. Too bad they didn't have the WMD excuse...

The series is available from the Usual Internet Suspects.

No surprise here. :toast:

Julie