Mission Suez

Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal on 26 July 1956. Here is a documentary, Mission Suez (CBC, 12 July 2006), about the nationalization and the British reaction against it.

The Americans should remember that the British didn't lose the Suez conflict due to a Soviet nuclear threat -- they lost it because Eisenhower -- angered by the fact that the British, together with the French and the Israelis, took the action against Nasser without first consulting him -- "threatened to withdraw support of the British currency" (David Fromkin, "Stuck in the Canal," New York Times, 28 October 2006).

If the Americans refuse to learn from history and continue to soldier on in the Middle East, wasting their treasure, depreciating the dollar, making oil prices higher, and endangering their own solvency as well as the world economy, maybe the Chinese and others should put America into receivership.