Brent Colton is a retired CIA operations officer now in the employ of the Creighton Corporation, a privately owned think tank that advocates various opinions on world issues, but it’s his clandestine job to solve the dirty problems for their private clients for a million dollar fee with no questions asked. When recovering stolen technology from a Vietnamese industrialist, Colton obtains evidence that he secretly partnered with a U.S. Senatorto rig the recent presidential election and elect him to the nation’s highest office.

WHY IKE’S RELUCTANT PLACING OF AMERICA INTO THE MIDDLE EAST STILL HAUNTS US TODAY
by Terry Heath, 2006

It’s been exactly fifty years since Dwight Eisenhower brought America into the bitter disputes between the numerous countries of the Middle East and we’re still meddling into those faraway affairs with no foreseeable end in sight a half-century and literally hundreds of billions of dollars in spent government expenditures later. So how did the secret actions of our long-time allies England, France and Israel force America’s 34th chief executive to intervene in early November of 1956 just when he was facing re-election as president by campaigning as a ‘peacemaker’ and trying to present a united front amongst the democratic western nations in condemning the Soviet Union in their crushing a rebellion being conducted at that same time by the freedom seeking citizens of their satellite country Hungary?

It was the Suez Crisis of late October, 1956 between Egypt and its recent nationalized takeover of the Suez Canal versus the interests of Britain, France and their secret partner Israel in a trumped up war to retake control of that vital waterway with the introduction of the United States under a reluctant Eisenhower into the situation that put us squarely into that region and forced us to become the dominant superpower in the Middle East where we still find ourselves today.

England Prime Minister Anthony Eden and France Premier Guy Mollet had devised a plan to take back control of the canal by having Israel attack Egypt through the Sinai Desert, then they would send their troops in to surreptitiously restore order as part of the 1950 Tripartite Declaration in which they and the U.S. had previously guaranteed the status quo in the region by restricting weapon sales to the countries there and going to the aid of any nation who was the victim of aggression. Yet the two nations cynically conspired with Israel to go behind Ike’s back to reclaim that important gateway between two of the world’s busiest seas that was needed by them for the delivery of oil to the western nations of Europe.

That unprovoked attack on Egypt by troops of Israel and the subsequent planned intervention by Britain and France to allegedly stop the war and re-take control of the canal from the Egyptians was supposed to restore the influence of those European countries in that region which had been on the decline for both powers there and all across the world in the aftermath of World War Two when the two financially strapped nations were being forced to liquidate their colonial holdings and give the residents of those faraway lands their belated independence.

Ike could have supported the actions of England and France in this scheme since he was still close to the leaders of those countries dating back to when he worked with many of these same figures as the European Allied Supreme Commander in World War Two. And he had continued America’s special relationship with Israel that began under Harry Truman in 1948 with that nation’s founding. So why did he go against those three countries in seeking a peaceful resolution to the war that went against the short-term interests of France and England and contributed to their decline in the 1960’s and ‘70’s?

Because he wanted to show that we were better at civility to our neighbors than the Soviet Union since he felt they were the true enemy we should have been facing down at that time.

He details in his memoirs the angst he was feeling when Secretary of State John Foster Dulles informed him of those three nations’ complicity on October 29, 1956 and that Israel was being the aggressor. He informed the British ambassador, “I feel it is incumbent upon both of us (the United States and Britain) to redeem our word about supporting any victim of aggression. In my opinion, the United States and the United Kingdom must stand by what we said.”

Then, in a cable sent to Prime Minister Eden the next day he stated why he couldn’t support England and France’s duplicity in this affair. ‘But the fact is that if the United Nations finds Israel as the aggressor, Egypt could very well ask the Soviets for help, and then the Mid East fat would really be in the fire.’

So an angered Eisenhower was forced to intercede to stop the skirmishes between the warring sides once world criticism and the Soviet Union’s threat to put their own troops into the region as unwelcome ‘peacekeepers’ threatened to derail his re-election chances against Democrat Adlai Stevenson in the presidential contest that was only days away. He had been criticizing the Soviets over their crushing the recent rebellion in their client state Hungary and could not let our allied countries be duplicitous with their actions in Egypt in pretty much the same manner. But we’re still there nine presidents later with no long-term workable plan to end the never-ending hostility between Israel and her Arab neighbors.

Before that 1956 war the United States had maintained a surprisingly low profile in the Middle East in the post-World War Two environment as they let the British be the major influence over the region while we concentrated on Europe and Asia in containing the spread of Communism. We did have a minor relationship with Saudi Arabia because President Franklin Roosevelt had met with King Ibn Saud during WW2 and in Iran where the CIA had instigated a coup in 1953 to put the Shah on the royal throne but had kept our distance on interacting with most Muslim countries in that area because of our recognition of Israel.

Therefore, that tiny Jewish country had only been in existence for eight years after defeating the Arab nations on its borders in its war of independence. Yet its Muslim neighbors were still pursuing plans of invading those ancient lands of Palestine and driving the Israeli citizens into the waters of the Mediterranean Sea in an attempt to re-conquer those biblical holy lands that have always been in dispute.

Egypt had nationalized the Suez Canal three months before in July, 1956 after the United States canceled loan guarantees to help pay for the construction of a dam on the Nile River at Aswan which had come to a shock to the world since that canal had previously been controlled for decades by England and before that by France. But the British wanted it back for their shipping needs. So a plan was developed by both nations to let Israel attack Egypt in the Sinai Desert to blunt the growing threat they feared from their west, then they would intervene in a phony humanitarian role by restoring order to get back the canal that was vital in the shipping of oil to Europe that was still in a re-building mode a decade after World War Two ended.

The Tripartite Declaration that had been previously signed by the United States, Britain and France guaranteed those three countries would make sure that peace remains in the Middle East. Yet England and France tried to take advantage of that agreement when Eisenhower was at the tail end of his re-election campaign and presumably most vulnerable to any controversy by hoping he would be limited on what he could and would say to criticize his friends. But they apparently underestimated his resolve that the war be stopped and the crisis solved diplomatically since he believed our side should act better than our opponents.

The conflict ended rather quickly in only a few days once Ike threatened economic sanctions against our two closest allies but Eisenhower gained nothing in the long-term for the United States from his desire that the right thing should be done and that the western powers should be more civilized than our then mutual enemy the Soviets. The Muslim countries in the region weren’t happy about our arrival on the scene, England Prime Minister Eden was forced to retire over the failure of the plan, the French scrapped their form of government within several years and brought back Charles De Gaulle from retirement as the new president of the Fifth Republic while the Egyptians turned toward the Soviet Union for economic and military aid that eventually resulted in a third war against Israel in June, 1967 and a fourth in October, 1973.

It’s been a half-century since Eisenhower was forced to place the United States into the political quagmire that is known as the Middle East to stop what he determined was the wrong war against the wrong enemy when the west at that time should have been focusing on containing Communism. But we’re still there three generations later. Was it meant to be that way?

Ike must have felt he had no choice but to intercede if we were going to show the rest of the world that the western way of political negotiation was superior to the Soviet method of resolving a problem with brute force. But did he have any other choice but the one he chose? Was there an alternative action he could have taken that would have benefited our interests and peacefully resolve the disputes between Israel and its Arab nations then that would have resulted in a long-term peace today? Unfortunately, for us presently around, Dwight Eisenhower wasn’t interested in obtaining an equitable solution for all sides in that region at that particular moment in his presidency but instead wanted to concentrate America’s effort in stopping the influence of Communism.

Here’s how Ike responded to Winston Churchill on November 27, 1956 to answer a letter the former British Prime Minister had sent his long-time friend a few weeks after the incident concluded once the president had a chance to reflect on the affair with some hindsight.

He writes ‘now I still believe that we must keep several facts clearly before us, the first one always being that the Soviets are the real enemy and all else must be viewed against that background of truth. The second fact is that nothing would please this country more nor, in fact, could help us more, than to see British prestige and strength rejuvenated in the Mid-East. We want those countries to trust and lean toward the Western World, not Russia. A third fact is that we want to help Britain right now, particularly in its difficult fuel and financial situation, daily growing more serious.’

The president concludes with ‘I continue to believe that the safety of the western world depends in the final analysis upon the closest possible ties between Western Europe, the American hemisphere, and as many allies as we can induce to stand with us. The only difficulty I have had in the particular instance is the fact that to me it seemed the action of the British Government was not only in violation of the basic principles by which this great combination of nations can be held together, but that even by the doctrine of expediency the invasion could not be judged as soundly conceived and skillfully executed.’

Oil was then the ultimate reason for the surprise attack on Egypt by Israel in an ill-advised plan to allow the British and French in getting back the Suez Canal to transport that crucial liquid life-blood to power the industrial economies of western Europe. We’re still in that same region today because of oil and our present need for still more of it clouds any judgment our current president or his immediate successors can offer for reaching a reasonable settlement to all the nations there.

Terry Heath California E-Mail readermail@terryheathbooks.com