Second Thoughts on Suez

...The United States alienated its European allies and turned a deaf ear to the Hungarian people, whom American broadcasts had urged to resist their oppressors...

...The latter did not fail to note that America's principles seemed to dovetail incredibly well with her practical interests, such as oil...

...If it admitted only nations which respected the rights of man, how many members would it have...

...But the British and French were afraid of Nasser's Soviet airplanes, which the Egyptians were actually incapable of flying...

...they replied "Suez...

...The Anglo-French action decisively strengthened the group in the United States that leaned toward anti-colonialism...

...We cannot be expected to admire an international morality which spares atomic powers and condemns non-atomic powers, which does not distinguish between dictatorships and democratic regimes, which tolerates aggression provided it is hypocritical...

...For the first time, the Royal Navy was engaged in warfare without the approval of both major parties...

...How could the Kremlin permit a satellite to free itself and its people, in a free election, to expose the Communist hoax...

...In accordance with the demands of the missionary spirit and of democratic messianism, it was relying on the UN, excluding the use of force, and vowing to liberate the enslaved peoples...

...We cannot be expected to proclaim Israeli Prime Minister Ben-Gurion an aggressor because he attempted to wipe out the bases of the Egyptian fedayeen...

...Whereas in France those who opposed the Suez adventure from the start did nothing to prevent the operation from unfolding, its British opponents, Laborites and intellectuals, had harried the Government unceasingly and contributed to the capitulation of November 6. Following the cease-fire, the American leaders stepped up further their policy of cooperation with the United Nations and with Afro-Asian opinion...

...In any case, the Soviet quasi-ultimatum, the American reply, and United Nations pressure finally broke the resolution of the British Government...

...The United Nations, with Washington's blessing, has been transformed into a Soviet-Afro-Asian war machine against the remnants of the European empires...

...At least three divisions had been assembled...

...The United Nations today is a political organization through which the powers, great and small, take action which is guided not by lofty ideals but by considerations of self-interest...

...The Soviets had little difficulty in diverting attention from Hungary...

...The Russians were acting to maintain a regime of oppression and lies, making war on a people striving for independence and truth...

...Most irritating of all, the debacle was not caused by a lack of men and materiel, but by poor planning...

...A member of the French Resistance in World War II, he is author of The Century of Total War and several hooks on politics and sociology...

...The various governments protested their solidarity with Egypt, but did not enter the war...

...Israel was recognized by the UN, but the latter proved unable to force the Arab states to make peace, to prevent Egypt from waging guerrilla warfare in Israeli territory, and to provide Israel with any protection against the day when the Arabs or the Russians are prepared to attack with annihilating superiority...

...But the vigor of America's opposition to the Anglo-French policy gave the Russians an exceptionally favorable opportunity to intervene...

...Britain and France, in addition to the moral defeat of an almost unanimous vote in the United Nations, suffered the humiliation of apparently yielding to a Soviet ultimatum...

...New Delhi would have preferred not to know that the Soviet Union was also an imperialist power imposing its rule by force...

...From the moment the United States had its allies condemned in the UN, it had no further reason to stop midway...

...The British and French had no intention of enslaving the Egyptian people, and they were as sparing of human life as possible...

...In the Arab countries, everything went favorably...

...At the same time, however, it provided the American leaders with an additional means of pressure on Britain and France...

...all at once, the provocations against Israel and Nasser's bad manners were forgotten...

...And Israel, despite its dazzling military success, forfeited American sympathy (at least for a time) and was forced to evacuate the territory its soldiers had conquered...

...The British and French awakened still-smoldering resentments...

...The United States did not mobilize its UN supporters against the USSR as it did against Britain and France because it did not believe that to do so would accomplish anything in the Hungarian affair...

...But let us be frank: No one can expect even those of us who criticized the Anglo-French operation from the first day to come crawling to confess our errors and plead for forgiveness...

...Curiously enough, the politicians lightly accepted all the perils, while the military refused to chance any of them...

...At the UN, Egypt's case was more clear-cut than Hungary's...

...Russia has the right to employ force against Hungary...

...The landing was prepared as if a powerful defense had to be overcome...

...The international body serves today as the framework and instrument of President Eisenhower's pacifism...

...The ministers, it seems, had not convinced the admirals that speed was of the essence...

...Though it has no means of coercion at its command, it is expected to prevent solutions of problems by force of arms...

...Nor was that all...

...Gallic cynicism" will thoroughly understand the necessities imposed by the atomic equilibrium and the competition for the underdeveloped countries...

...By definition, the United Nations is not competent to pass judgment on the popularity of internationally recognized powers...

...Yesterday leaders of the Atlantic alliance, tomorrow the indispensable intermediaries between the Afro-Asians and Europeans...

...To those who cried "Budapest...

...The British and French were more guilty politically (unless they could defeat Nasser rapidly), because the ultimate consequences of their action were incalculable and because they were operating in a zone which lacked any sort of agreed demarcation line...

...The simultaneous outbreak of the Hungarian revolt and the Anglo-French "aggression" laid bare the moral contradiction between these two policies...

...Today, these true feelings are concealed more discreetly than ever, since the Egyptian dictator has won a political victory as a result of American-Soviet intervention...

...Britain and France were giving Moscow a free hand in Hungary...

...or else the operation could have been left entirely to paratroopers and air power...

...On the other hand, no one could foresee how far hostilities would spread in a region like the Middle East...

...The UN, it is true, facilitated the American intervention in Korea by providing legal justification for an action which an alliance between South Korea and the United States would have sufficed to legitimize...

...Soviet rule in Eastern Europe was shown up for what it really is...

...There was indignation against allies who had resorted to force without informing Washington, against the violation of the UN Charter, and against the terms of an ultimatum which was curiously hypocritical and cynical at the same time, I will not attempt to assess the relative amounts of emotion and design which entered into the policy followed by President Eisenhower and Acting Secretary of State Herbert Hoover Jr...

...Moscow's quasi-ultimatum, followed by the cease-fire, forced the United States to confront the danger, real or imaginary, of Soviet military intervention in the Middle East...

...The unleashing of hostilities in the Middle East, in the midst of the temporary success of the Hungarian Revolution, aroused an agonizing doubt which the most convincing arguments can never dispel...

...We cannot be expected to admire the conduct—quite reasonable, perhaps—of an organization like Aramco which, in order to assure its oil-exploitation rights, is prepared to take part in an anti-Semitic campaign...

...A brilliant success might have offset the consequences of the UN votes...

...They should not be surprised if their best friends, by objectivelv analyzing events, at last come to recognize American indifference to Europe's legitimate interests...

...Insofar as "atomic parity" precluded American intervention, the savage suppression of the Hungarian Revolution entailed no risk of a general war...

...at the same time, they were claiming the right to resume the traditional policy of force in the Middle East...

...But when the cease-fire came after a Soviet quasi-ultimatum, before the Canal Zone had been totally occupied, the British and French lost on every count...

...No one could claim not to know which was the legal government of Egypt...

...Nevertheless, the Hungarians themselves feared the worst as soon as they learned of the Anglo-French ultimatum...

...he had seized the property of the Suez Canal Company, was furnishing arms to the Algerian rebels, and was defying UN decisions concerning Israeli ships' passage through the Canal...

...they posed as defenders of the Arab nations, and the cease-fire was attributed to their influence more than to the UN decisions or Washington's urging...

...They express the truth nonetheless...

...For the H-bomb now protects Moscow not only against any military threat but, up to a point, against moral judgments...

...The Soviets had, to be sure, taken military measures once before to crush the Hungarian uprising, even before the Anglo-French ultimatum...

...Union withdraw its troops from Hungary, because it would not do so...

...Britain and France do not have that right in regard to Egypt...

...no one would deny that Israeli troops had crossed the border, that Britain and French planes had bombed airfields in the Suez Canal zone...

...Prime Minister Eden was apparently forced to bow to the majority of his Cabinet colleagues, who themselves spoke for the majority of British opinion...

...Unfortunately, contrary to all justice, half the world felt greater indignation over the Anglo-French expedition than over the use of tanks against the Hungarian freedom-fighters...

...In Hungary, the government which appealed to the UN against Soviet aggression was undeniably legal, but it had sprung from a revolution and was soon swept away by Soviet troops...

...Colonel Nasser was proclaiming his intention to wipe Israel off the map...

...Many people throughout the world remain unconvinced that the Russians would have crushed the Hungarian Revolution as they did if the British and French had not provided them with a pretext and a smokescreen...

...The UN is incapable of making India agree In a plebiscite in Kashmir or the Soviet Union admit observers to Hungary...

...Ben-Gurion, Eden and Mollet have been duly punished...

...This delay could have been reduced in one of two ways: At the same time that the Anglo-French ultimatum was issued, their fleet could have been approaching the landing site...

...The Prime Minister had not had the backing of his entire cabinet, and the latter lacked the backing of either the whole Conservative party or the whole nation...

...If Colonel Nasser was not to survive the defeat of his armies in the Sinai Peninsula and the Anglo-French ultimatum, three factors had to be calculated in advance: the reaction of the Arab states, the attitude of the United States in the UN, and the course adopted by Moscow...

...Now we must try to live together, that is, to re-establish the Western alliance before—if possible—restoring our friendship...

...They had decided to act, after all, against the advice of the leader of the Western coalition and against the rules of the United Nations...

...they were preventing the Hungarians from altering it...

...Throughout Africa and Asia, there was an immediate feeling of solidarity with Egypt, which only yesterday had suffered colonial domination...

...Perhaps, once the anger lias passed, it will admit that the worst error in polities is not to see the world as it really is...

...Military timidity ultimately exposed political folly...

...Unfortunately, it is part of the reality in which we live that, when United Nations legality and the exigencies of the atomic age enter the picture, the scale of merits and demerits is reversed...

...It is unimportant whether or not Henry Cabot Lodge actually said: "We are not demanding that the Soviet Raymond Aron is Professor of Political Science at the University of Paris and leading editorial writer for Figaro...

...With the help of Soviet "volunteers," Egypt could have unleashed a guerrilla war, while the UN General Assembly, backed by the Soviet, American and Arab-Asian blocs, would have made the Anglo-French position difficult diplomatically...

...The American reaction was more violent than expected...

...It thus ends by smoothing over conflicts without even trying to settle them...

...One cannot say with certainty under what conditions the Anglo-French expedition could have succeeded...

...Bulganin and Khrushchev are prominent among the judges, side by side with the smiling President Eisenhower and the respectable sovereigns of Saudi Arabia and Yemen...

...The United Nations today presents an edifying spectacle indeed...

...This article is abridged from Preuves, organ of the Committee for Cultural Freedom, lo which he is a frequent contributor...

...Colonel Nasser's army was trounced by that of Israel...

...The latter were well aware that American non-intervention was a precondition and perhaps a guarantee of Soviet non-intervention...

...the reply is twofold...

...during these tragic days...

...the rest cannot even assert their own interests We will not soon forget the first week of November 1956, the ten days which shook both the Soviet Empire and the Atlantic alliance, and from which all the protagonists emerged defeated...

...For its part, the United States had been pursuing a dual policy: In accordance with the demands of the atomic age, it was respecting the division of the world into zones of influence and saw no possibility of intervening effectively on the other side of the demarcation line...

...The Anglo-French action had to be judged by its results, hence condemned mercilessly if it misfired...

...The Russians were not altering the status quo...

...in every way, self-interest dictated that the maximum profit be drawn from the situation outside of Europe...

...It would also have revealed the true feelings of many in the Arab countries who were voicing solidarity with Colonel Nasser...

...Colonel Nasser has been saved by international justice, while Messrs...

...Hence, when one asks, "Was the Anglo-French action at Suez more or less reprehensible than the Soviet action in Hungary...

...Perhaps it will recognize the least understood lesson of this tragic decade: that a stale cannot employ means which are contrary to the spirit of its institutions...

...The fall of Nasser would probably have been necessary...

...Since the break had been made and Anglo-French opinion would be directed against the U.S...

...But this did not trouble the Americans in the slightest...

...Because of Soviet-U.S...

...And, of course, Messrs...

...rivalry for the allegiance of the uncommitted nations, the Americans are more sobcitous of Afro-Asian than of European opinion...

...Two days had been allotted for loading them aboard ship and three more for convoying them from Malta to Port Said...

...The Anglo-French operation, coinciding with the events in Hungary, may have laid bare "European cynicism," but it has also exposed the cynicism of world politics...

...In their eyes, this act amounted to a public Western "disengagement" from Eastern Europe...

...Because of atomic weapons, the United States is as united with the Soviet Union in the cause of peace as it is with Europe in the cause of freedom...

...Or, for that matter, expect the American leaders to confess the long series of errors which began with the insistence that Britain evacuate the Suez Canal zone three years ago and continued with the tragi-comedy of John Foster Dulles's relations with Colonel Nasser...

...This appraisal cast a sinister light on the propaganda of Radio Free Europe and even on the indignation against Anglo-French "aggression...

...A comparison of these two episodes should lead one to approve the expedition against Nasser while condemning the brutality of the Kremlin...

...If there was no coup d'etat in Cairo, even the occupation of the entire canal would not have guaranteed success...

...It should be noted, however, that for years American public opinion had been torn between the necessity of maintaining the Atlantic alliance and the necessity of preventing the so-called underdeveloped nations from falling to Communism...

...The actual landing was not to begin until the sixth day after "D-Day...

...A sort of unconscious racism caused the Asian leaders to resent the wrong done to their Egyptian "brothers" more intensely than the horror inflicted on the Hungarians, who were white, far away, and had been living under Communism for a decade...