Iraq v the Suez Crisis-Regime change, 1950s-style

[malaise]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5212448.stm

<snip>
Half a century on from the Suez crisis, the contemporary echoes are unmistakable.

In 1956 the Western powers were Britain and France. The Arab ruler was President Nasser of Egypt.

Both felt threatened by his dramatic decision to nationalise the company which operated the Suez Canal.

The British Prime Minister, Anthony Eden, regarded the canal as the "jugular" of the British empire.

The French resented the help Nasser was giving the Algerian insurgency.

The two European powers reached a secret agreement with Israel to attack Egypt, regain the canal and overthrow Nasser.

US halted intervention

But it all went disastrously wrong.

The American President, Dwight Eisenhower, was furious with his British ally for keeping him in the dark - and forced the three aggressors to halt their attack and withdraw from Egyptian territory.

Nasser emerged an Arab hero, Eden's career ended in ruins - and the whole affair confirmed the demise of Britain and France as global powers.

Then and now historians find the comparison between Egypt in 1956 and Iraq in 2003 irresistible - even if the differences are as obvious as the similarities.

Was the action of the Western powers legal? In neither case did the argument of self-defence really hold up.

Were they sincere in going to the United Nations in search of a diplomatic solution - or had they already made up their minds to go to war?