Egypt and the Middle East

Cold War Conflicts HIST 1301 | History Egypt and the Middle East The Middle East, which was mostly under British rule, had received little attention from the United States before to World War II. But after the war, regional issues that partially resulted from British actions and policies threatened to bring Iranian and Arab leaders closer to the Soviet Union. The United States was concerned about this potential, which prompted efforts to establish diplomatic ties with Middle Eastern states. Iran, Egypt, and the recently established state of Israel turned out to be the countries of most interest. Following World War II, Iran initially came under American scrutiny as the Soviet Union showed no desire to relinquish its possession of the nation. The United Kingdom had continued its involvement in the region after the war, mostly including oil extraction. When nationalist Mohammad Mossadegh took office as prime minister of Iran in 1951, he began the process of nationalising British businesses' oil reserves. The United Kingdom and pro-Western Iranian elites who backed British interests protested this action. Mossadegh was deposed in 1952 by the proWestern ruler of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Still, he had to restore him after widespread public outcry. Iran had a border with the Soviet Union, and Mossadegh's actions persuaded both the United States and the United Kingdom that he supported communism. The United States was persuaded to act by British allegations that Iran was a Soviet satellite state, even though it is improbable that he meant for Iran to become such. Mossadegh was deposed once more in August 1953 in a coup orchestrated by the CIA and the Iranian military, which backed the Shah. He was detained and taken to prison. After World War II, British activities prepared the way for new war in the Middle East. Arthur James Balfour, the foreign secretary of Britain, stated in 1917 that his country would back the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. Jews from Europe had flocked to the area in large numbers throughout the 1930s, and as their numbers grew, so did the violence between them and Arabs, who wanted the construction of an independent Arab state and a halt to Jewish immigration. The British government asked the UN to settle the matter after World War II, when Jewish survivors of the Holocaust sought safety in Palestine. After visiting the area in 1947, the UN Special Committee on Palestine suggested splitting the area into two states: one for Jews and one for Arabs. Both factions hold Jerusalem in high regard, and it was planned to put the city under "international trusteeship." The UN General Assembly approved Resolution 181, the committee's recommendation, in November 1947.In Palestine, the UN resolution sparked a civil war. After the British left the area in May, Jews and Palestinian Arabs fought each other with the help of Arabs from other parts of the Middle East who had formed the Arab Liberation Army. Approximately 250,000 Arab Palestinians left areas under Jewish authority. The head of the Jewish settlement in Palestine, David Ben-Gurion, declared the creation of the state of Israel on May 14, 1948, as the last British soldiers withdrew from the area. The new state was formally recognised by both the US and the USSR. While Israel's Arab neighbours did not, they said that Israel's Arab population was entitled to self-determination. Israeli troops launched an air strike on Tel-Aviv on the evening of May 14, and soldiers from Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Transjordan (now known as Jordan) invaded the nation the next day. Ten months passed during the First Arab-Israeli War, which Israel won in March 1949. It had not only maintained its existence but had taken over much of the land that a UN commission in 1947 had suggested be set aside for Arab settlement. Thousands of Arabs fled Palestine, which is now a part of Israel, to settle in nearby nations. Many in the Arab world were shocked by the Arab states' defeat by Israel, despite their superior armaments. The Free Officers Movement in Egypt was a group of largely middle-class junior officers who were critical of their government for its shortcomings. Gamal Abdel Nasser, one of the officers, swiftly gained notoriety by attributing the defeat on official corruption. Nasser, like other nationalists in the movement, wanted to see the UK relinquish its power over Egypt, its former colony. He led a gang of army officers in a coup that overthrew Egypt's opulent monarch King Farouk on July 23, 1952, and took over the country. One of Farouk's shortcomings was his dependence on an unofficial cabinet that was primarily made up of foreigners; during the conflict with Israel, one of these individuals had supplied the Egyptian troops with faulty guns. Despite not being the cause of Egypt's defeat, they came to represent the feeble and dishonest aspects of Farouk's administration. The insurgent commanders started a land reform programme and enacted a constitution that established Egypt as a secular state. The United Kingdom agreed in separate agreements to give up its sovereignty in Sudan and remove its military from the Suez Canal zone by 1956, years ahead of schedule as required by an existing treaty. Egypt's new authorities likewise took steps to terminate British influence in their country. In addition to undermining British influence in the Middle East, Nasser, who took office as Egypt's prime minister in 1954, wanted his nation to lead the Arab world—a goal that Iraq also pursued. The Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO) was established in 1955 when the United Kingdom signed the Baghdad Pact, joining Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Pakistan in a military alliance that appeared to undermine both of Nasser's objectives. This was seen by Nasser as a hint that the West wanted to elevate Iraq over Egypt as the head of the Arab world. In an effort to undermine Western and Israeli interests, Nasser supported Algerian rebels trying to overthrow French control and financed cross-border attacks on Israel by Palestinian Arab guerrilla fighters and Israeli exiles residing in Egypt. In order to acquire regional dominance over the United Kingdom and to keep Nasser from going to the Soviet Union, the United States had attempted to establish cordial ties with him. But the United States declined to arm Egypt and withdrew its pledge of assistance to build the Aswan Dam across the Nile in July 1956, after he failed to guarantee that American weaponry would not be used to attack Israel. Nasser therefore looked to the Eastern Bloc. The guns were provided by Czechoslovakia, and the dam's construction was subsequently subsidised by the Soviet Union. Following his election as Egypt's president the previous month, Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal on July 26, 1956, and shut it off to Israeli ships. Israel began its invasion of Egypt on October 29. Britain and France followed suit on November 5, setting off the Suez Crisis. Both the US and the USSR insisted on a rapid stop to the invasion, and the UN adopted a resolution requesting a cease-fire. The Soviet Union issued threats to strike London and send soldiers to Egypt. President Dwight Eisenhower of the United States threatened to put economic sanctions on France, Israel, and the United Kingdom if they would not cooperate, fearing that this would give the Soviet Union cover to interfere. Israel withdrew along with the other two, but only after receiving assurance that it would be permitted to utilise the Straits of Tiran to pass via the canal for shipping. To protect Egypt's border with Israel, a UN peacekeeping force was stationed on the Sinai Peninsula. The US's position in the Middle East was altered by the Suez Crisis. The United States realised that Soviet participation in the region was feasible after previously having limited involvement. Eisenhower wanted to stop this, therefore in 1957 he announced the Eisenhower Doctrine, according to which the US would use force to support Middle Eastern regimes who were in danger of being toppled by "International Communism." The governments of friendly nations like Lebanon also received financial and military support from the US. Israel's and the West's retreat from Egypt strengthened Nasser's position as the self-declared head of the Arab world and advanced his goal of creating the pan-Arab state. He moved one step closer to that goal in 1958 when Egypt and Syria united to form the United Arab Republic. Turkey had amassed soldiers along the Syrian border the year before, thinking that its neighbour Syria was on the verge of a communist takeover. The United States had promised to defend Turkey after the Soviet Union said that it would back Syria in the case of a Turkish invasion. While the crisis was avoided when Turkey pulled its forces out, Syria suggested uniting with Egypt to guard against outside meddling and the growing influence of the Syrian Communist Party. Following a coup in Syria in 1961, the two countries split apart. At the request of Lebanon's Christian president, Camille Chamoun, the United States imposed the Eisenhower Doctrine in 1958 by deploying around fifteen thousand troops to the country to defend his administration against political rivals, some of whom were procommunist. The overwhelming Sunni Muslim population in Lebanon spearheaded the opposition; they had backed Lebanon's entry into the United Arab Republic when Chamoun had declined. For three months, American soldiers stayed in Lebanon as Chamoun completed his tenure. The Second Taiwan Strait Crisis was sparked by China's belief that it could continue bombing Jinmen and Mazu without facing retaliation due to the United States' focus being diverted. After the Second Arab-Israeli War, also known as the Suez Crisis, ended, the area saw a return to relative calm, although Palestinian guerrillas continued to launch attacks against Israel from bases in Egypt and Syria. Tensions were high since people were frequently their targets. After airstrikes between Syrian and Israeli aircraft in April 1967, Egypt withdrew the UN peacekeeping mission from the Sinai Peninsula and gathered soldiers there, mistakenly thinking that Israel was getting ready to attack Syria. Israel viewed Egypt's closure of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli vessels on May 22 as an act of war. Israel started the Third Arab-Israeli War on June 5 by attacking Egypt as a preemptive move, practically wiping out the Egyptian air force and entering the nation via land. Israel captured land from both Jordan and Syria, thwarting their attempts to assault, in addition to Egypt. The war was named the Six-Day War because the fighting ended almost as quickly as it started. Israel's borders was significantly expanded after gaining control of the Golan Heights from Syria, the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt, and the West Bank (of the Jordan River) from Jordan. Airstrikes, shelling, and guerilla warfare between Egypt and Israel persisted for several years after Israel's triumph in 1967. Anwar Sadat, the new president who took office in 1970 after Nasser's death, wanted to reverse the territorial losses the Arab states had incurred in 1967 and bring an end to the struggle. Despite the fact that Nasser had gradually brought Egypt closer to the Soviet Union, Sadat drove out the Soviet advisors in 1972. He also started negotiations with Israel's main supporter, the United States, in an attempt to permanently end hostilities between the Arabs and Israelis. Sadat, however, insisted on Egypt regaining control of the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip before any peace talks could begin. On October 6, 1973, when many Israeli soldiers were off duty, Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish liturgical calendar, was observed. Egypt and Syria, who wanted the Golan Heights returned, launched a surprise attack on Israel. Once more, Israel emerged triumphant. On October 25, the United Nations imposed a cease-fire. Since Israel had not lost any of the area it had seized, Sadat was compelled to pursue more diplomatic means of regaining Egyptian territory in the years that followed.