The politics of accommodation: Canada,the Middle East,and the Suez Crisis,1950–1956

Suez: The essential context

It was certainly not obvious in the early 1950s that Canada would eventually embrace the Middle East as an important object of its diplomacy. Despite the active role that Canada had played at the UN over the partition of Palestine and the creation of Israel in 1947, the Liberal government of Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent remained removed from the Middle East and its intractable problems. The region was geographically distant from Western Europe and the familiar North Atlantic cocoon, where Canada’s traditional political, security, economic, and cultural interests lay. The Middle East’s post-colonial unrest created disturbing ripples at home. The inconclusive debate over the status of Jerusalem upset the Catholic hierarchy in French-speaking Quebec, whose voters regularly supplied the Liberal government with its parliamentary majority. “Keep one eye on Jerusalem,” Pearson told his officials, “and the other on Quebec.” ³ As the 1950s advanced, Arab nationalist movements in Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria posed their own problems. They were supported by liberal French Canadian intellectuals, who opposed French policy and forced Ottawa to choose between its anti-colonial ideals and its North Atlantic ally, France. ⁴

Nor was Canada’s minuscule trade with the region likely to become an incentive for a more active Middle East policy. In the six years from 1949 to 1955, Canada’s exports to the area barely averaged CAD$30 million annually, falling to $12 million or .007 percent of total Canadian exports in 1955. ⁵ While much of this trade was routine, the government fretted about the steady stream of requests from both Arabs and Israelis for Canadian arms and their potential impact on the regional balance of power. Frustrated by their efforts to differentiate between defensive and offensive weapons, ministers and officials crafted cautious compromises that satisfied no one, handing their critics “a good stick with which to beat the government.” ⁶

Canada’s diplomatic presence in the Middle East was weak. Apart from an assistant trade commissioner based in Cairo, Canada had no diplomatic missions in the region in the early 1950s, an absence keenly felt by the officers most directly concerned. Canadian diplomats found themselves “handicapped” by the lack of regional representation, and argued that Canada

should have direct contact with governments and peoples of the Middle East and base its policy on adequate information secured from independent sources rather than having to rely on analyses supplied by interested parties or by independent observers whose viewpoint is not Canadian. ⁷

This step did not presage a substantial increase in Canada’s involvement in the region. As the number of tit-for-tat Arab raids and Israeli reprisals mounted in late 1953, Canadian officials remained conscious of their analytical shortcomings and were disinclined to take sides. “Our information is not always free from bias and doubt,” they cautioned, warning Foreign Minister Pearson that “any assessment must be hedged with reservations.” ⁹

Caution defined Canada’s regional policies the following year as well. Pressed by Washington in early 1955 to express his support for the new Baghdad Pact, which united Britain and several Arab states in an anti-Soviet alliance, Pearson reluctantly agreed. In doing so, however, he made it clear to NATO’s North Atlantic Council that “the Middle East lies outside our real defence interests and the commitments we would be willing to accept.” ¹⁰ Ottawa later underlined this point by rejecting an invitation to join the US, France, and Britain in monitoring arms shipments under the Near East Arms Coordinating Committee. While Canada had routinely consulted these powers on its Middle East arms sales since 1950, the invitation raised alarm bells in the Department of External Affairs. Its top official, Jules Léger, reminded his minister that membership carried a “considerable risk of implying special commitments with respect to the Middle East … [and] might undoubtedly restrict our freedom of action.” ¹¹ Pearson agreed, leaving Mideast arms control in the hands of the Great Powers.

Suez: The politics of accommodation

Without overriding interests in the Middle East, Pearson and his officials were more prepared than the major Western powers to embrace strategies that would isolate the region as a source of Cold War conflict. Their approach to the Middle East copied their “hands-off” approach to the Cold War in Asia. Stalin’s death in 1953, the Geneva Conference on the Korean War and Southeast Asia in the spring of 1954, and the July 1955 summit in Geneva, where Western leaders met with their Soviet counterparts for the first time since 1945, convinced Canadian policymakers that it was possible to negotiate with Moscow. ¹² Pearson himself confirmed this in October 1955, when he became the first NATO foreign minister to visit the USSR. The Canadian enjoyed his talks with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, whom he described as “blunt and volatile as only a Ukrainian peasant, turned one of the most powerful people in the world, can be.” ¹³ Pearson told his colleagues that Khrushchev was “incapable of not saying what he actually believed and … was perfectly frank in his statements that the Russians did not want war.” Moscow, the foreign minister concluded, was ready to seek a peaceful modus vivendi with the West. ¹⁴

Unlike many Western observers, Pearson did not interpret growing Soviet interest in the Middle East as evidence of communist aggression, but as a less threatening manifestation of a “traditional Russian drive to get into that part of the world.” ¹⁵ Nor did Canada’s foreign minister worry that the Arab world was likely to fall easy prey to Moscow’s attractions. During a quick visit to Cairo en route home from Asia in October 1955, Pearson met the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, and was charmed. Nasser was an “impressive and attractive personality” and gave “an impression of sincerity and strength, without any trace of arrogance or self-assertion.” ¹⁶ The Canadian minister dismissed US and British suggestions that Nasser challenged Western interests. ¹⁷ Instead, Nasser represented a vibrant Arab nationalism, whose profound opposition to European colonialism would make it difficult for either the West or the Soviet Union to influence developments in the Middle East. As Pearson told a Princeton University audience earlier that year, “the yearning and effort of the people of the Islamic world, of India, and of South-east Asia [was] … exciting and full of promise for the world.” ¹⁸ It would not be suppressed.

Pearson’s most influential advisers in External Affairs shared these views about the Soviet Union. The dangerous instability introduced into the Middle East in November 1955, when the existing Arab–Israeli balance of power was abruptly overturned by a large Czech arms sale to Egypt, confirmed their view that the West needed to seek a broad regional settlement with Moscow. The Anglo-American effort to keep the Soviet Union out of the Middle East with sweetheart arms deals and economic aid for the Arabs had clearly failed and was likely to embroil the West in a distracting struggle with Moscow. Norman Robertson, High Commissioner in London and one of the country’s foremost diplomats, warned Pearson accordingly in March 1956:

I feel affairs in the Middle East have developed to a point at which there is little prospect of stabilizing the situation without some degree of Soviet cooperation. They have demonstrated that they have the power to upset that area, and we should try to make them take some responsibility for keeping order in it. ¹⁹

While a Great Power arrangement concluded outside the UN would offend Canada’s multilateral sensibilities, Holmes saw parallels between the present situation in the Middle East and earlier Cold War crises in Southeast Asia. The Great Power agreement reached at the Geneva Conference in 1954, he pointed out, had produced a successful ceasefire in Indochina. A similar arrangement would not end Moscow’s inclination to interfere irresponsibly in Mideast affairs, although it “might establish some kind of international discipline over competitive co-existence in the area.” It was even possible that the UN might monitor a Great Power arrangement, perhaps supervising regional arms transfers or channelling aid disbursements. ²¹

Robert Ford, head of the department’s European division, echoed these views. One of the department’s consummate realists, Ford grounded his analysis in Russian history and culture, which he knew well, and became the architect of Canada’s policy of constructive engagement with Moscow following Stalin’s death. While Ford and Holmes differed on some points—Ford placed the Arab–Israeli clash in its full post-colonial context—they were united on the only realistic solution: “The Big Three have failed to solve the problems in the Middle East without Russia; it seems inconceivable that they could do so now that the Soviet Union is an active participant,” wrote Ford. “I think the only course is to invite the Russians to participate with the Western Big Three in trying to solve at any rate the major problem—Arab–Israeli relations.” ²² Ford too was hopeful that a great power settlement would eventually involve a role for the UN.

Pearson was intrigued by these ideas and encouraged both Britain and the US to begin talking with Moscow. British Prime Minister Anthony Eden, to whom Khrushchev paid an official visit in March, worried that the USSR was unaware of how unstable and dangerous the Middle East really was. He did not dismiss Pearson’s proposal out of hand, but neither did he champion it. ²³ The reaction from the US was sharply critical: it had used American diplomat Robert Murphy and then UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld in unilateral efforts that spring to broker an Arab–Israeli peace settlement without the Soviet Union. When Pearson mentioned his ideas to Dwight Eisenhower, the American president cut him off mid-sentence, insisting that “Nasser was a problem” and that he was “weak and fearful.” ²⁴ US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was equally hostile when Pearson broached the subject a few months later at the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in May 1956. ²⁵

Suez: The crisis

Washington’s determination to treat the unrest in the Middle East as simply part of a larger Cold War struggle frustrated Canadian policymakers in the spring and early summer of 1956. They remained attached to their view that a regional settlement depended on a UN-sanctioned great power agreement, even as Dulles pushed Pearson in a contradictory direction and pressed him to sell Israel a squadron of F-86 jet fighters.

When Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal on 26 July, however, the initial Canadian reaction reflected the prevailing view in Ottawa that the Middle East was primarily a Great Power responsibility and that the crisis should be taken up by the UN Security Council, where Moscow would be given a chance to exert its proper influence. Told of Nasser’s actions on 27 July, High Commissioner Norman Robertson urged Lord Home, the Secretary of State for Commonwealth relations, to bring the matter promptly to the Security Council. An Oxford-educated anglophile with close connections throughout the senior levels of the British government, Robertson added the hope that Britain “would not be too quick to gather too many spears to its own bosom.” ²⁶

Pearson and St. Laurent shared Robertson’s concern. On 28 July, Eden sent St. Laurent and the other Commonwealth prime ministers a tough and uncompromising message: “We can not allow [Nasser] to get away with this act of expropriation and we must take a firm stand.” ²⁷ Eden’s assumption of Canadian support irked the French Canadian prime minister, while his obvious determination to bring Nasser to heel alarmed Pearson. Canada’s foreign minister was particularly worried by Eden’s implied threat of force and his unrealistic expectation of American support. ²⁸ Anxious to preserve its standing in London, Ottawa held its fire. Instead, St. Laurent sent a restrained reply to the British prime minister, endorsing Robertson’s views as his own. ²⁹

Even this mild Canadian response angered Eden and his officials. Sir Archibald Nye, the British high commissioner in Ottawa, thought that

the Canadian reaction to the Suez situation hasn’t been very satisfactory from our aspect [sic]. I think at first they failed to grasp its importance; when they did their reaction—instinctively and perhaps subconscious [sic]—was ‘how do we keep clear of this mess’ and not ‘what can we do to help.’ ³⁰

Although deeply skeptical of Britain’s aggressive posture, Ottawa was sympathetic to London’s claim that the international community had a stake in the canal’s operations and it tried to be helpful. St. Laurent agreed to meet a British request to freeze Egyptian assets in Canada, even though the government had no legal basis for doing so. ³³ Ottawa also gave public support to British efforts to convene a conference of canal users in mid-August, while privately it was less enthusiastic. Pearson considered it unlikely that Nasser would agree to British demands for genuine international control of the canal, moving the British one step closer toward the use of force. As this possibility loomed larger, the question of Canada’s reaction became a concern in London. On 15 August, Robertson met with British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd, who asked him directly “whether, if we had to use force we could expect the support of the Canadian Government.” Robertson’s answer was simple: “No.” ³⁴

Eden erupted with anger. “I think this should be taken up with the Canadian government,” he wrote; “it is far worse than anything US Govt has ever said.” Lloyd counselled patience and dismissed Robertson as unimportant, a “strong” UN man, whose views were not representative of Ottawa’s. With breath-taking arrogance, Lloyd suggested that Britain avoid consulting Canada to spare it the embarrassment of having rejected the use of force too quickly: “May there not be some danger of their giving us an answer which they might be sorry for later if and when some new aggression by Nasser … makes the use of force the definite and immediate issue?” Eden agreed, adding that he saw “no advantage in asking Mr. Robertson his opinions any more.” ³⁵ Clearly, Ottawa was no longer, if it ever was, a factor in British calculations.

Britain’s refusal to consult seriously with Canada reinforced Ottawa’s reluctance to become too involved in a regional crisis that Canadian policymakers continued to see as a Great Power responsibility. Defence Minister Ralph Campney assured a Vancouver audience in early August that the crisis was “primarily a European matter … not a matter of particular concern to Canada. We have no oil there. We don’t use the canal for shipping.” ³⁶ Moreover, by the summer of 1956, Canada’s foreign minister was fully absorbed in his work as chairman of a NATO committee examining the alliance’s future. Ottawa watched from a distance as Eden’s confrontation with Nasser played out in the summer and fall of 1956. Pearson was pleased with the results of the London Conference and reassured by Nasser’s decision to meet with the five-person delegation headed by Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies. Though doubtful that Menzies would be successful, he thought this step toward talks meant that “the situation had eased a good deal,” and he told his political colleagues in late August that “he doubted if really serious trouble would occur.” ³⁷

The respite was short-lived. In a meeting with Selwyn Lloyd a few days later, Pearson was alarmed by the foreign secretary’s continued determination to bend Nasser to London’s will. This was Pearson’s first face-to-face meeting with a participant in the crisis and the encounter was not reassuring. British diplomacy was “not being very skilful,” he told St. Laurent, and was characterized by “a lack of imagination and skill.” The “perplexing” result was “a lack of direction and sureness of touch.” ³⁸ Pearson made sure that the Canadian position was unambiguously clear at a NATO council meeting two days later in Paris. The West, he insisted, “must … rule out the use of force” and submit the dispute to the UN Security Council, where it might be worked on by the Great Powers most immediately involved. ³⁹

Canadian worries mounted in the fall as Menzies played out his hand in Cairo and Dulles advanced his ill-advised plan for a Suez Canal Users’ Association (SCUA). The new organization’s birth pangs immediately revealed a yawning gulf between US and Anglo-French views over the use of force to back up its mandate. Pearson was unimpressed and further irritated at the continued refusal of the three Western powers to bring the dispute to the UN. ⁴⁰ He carefully avoided anything to do with SCUA, warning Ottawa that Canada “should be very careful in this interim period in saying or doing anything which would give the impression that Canadian association or support is something that can be taken for granted.” ⁴¹

London and Paris finally asked the Security Council to rule on their dispute with Egypt in September, but Canadian misgivings persisted. “Far from seeking a solution,” observed R.A. MacKay, Canada’s permanent representative to the UN, “France and the UK … seem bent on humiliating Nasser.” ⁴² MacKay’s suspicions were soon confirmed. Soon after the Israeli attack on Egypt on 29 October, Britain and France demanded a ceasefire; when the fighting continued, they moved to seize control of the Suez Canal, catching Canada completely off guard. Deeply distressed by the British action, Robertson reported to Ottawa that he had been “given no inkling” of London’s plans and “not the slightest intimation that anything extraordinary was planned.” ⁴³ The high commissioner spent the whole day of 30 October trying to see key British officials, but met only closed doors and busy telephones. ⁴⁴

The reaction in the Department of External Affairs was “stunned and uncomprehending.” ⁴⁵ St. Laurent, who learned of the Anglo-French assault from the press, was outraged. Belatedly, a cable arrived from Eden explaining that France and Britain could not stand by while a war between Israel and Egypt blocked the Suez Canal. If war did break out, London and Paris would issue a call for a ceasefire; if none was forthcoming, they would take military action to make both sides retreat from the canal. This would be risky, added Eden, but “I know that we can look for your understanding and much hope for your support in our endeavours.” ⁴⁶ St. Laurent threw the telegram at Pearson, asking, “What do you think of that?” ⁴⁷

The British action fundamentally changed the nature of the Suez Crisis for Canada, and Pearson knew it. Apart from the danger that war might spread throughout the Middle East, three aspects of the British decision to intervene alarmed Ottawa because they struck at institutions that represented core Canadian interests in the postwar world. First, the decision to act while the Security Council was still considering Egypt’s complaint against Israel was a direct challenge to the UN’s authority. Whatever its shortcomings, the UN in 1956 was a vital forum for Canadian diplomacy. Second, the Anglo-French action would alienate India and divide the Commonwealth, the loose association of states from the former British Empire that Canada relied on to navigate the complex shoals of the post-colonial world. Third, and most important, Ottawa feared the impact of the Anglo-French gambit on relations between the US and Britain. A break between Canada’s two closest allies would obviously weaken NATO, striking at the heart of Canada’s national security interests. St. Laurent’s reply rejected completely Eden’s rationale for acting as he had. ⁴⁸

London was “aghast” at the tone of St. Laurent’s missive. ⁴⁹ A former secretary of state for Commonwealth relations described the telegram as “blistering.” ⁵⁰ Arnold Smith, a senior official at Canada’s high commission in London, reported that “the bitterness about the Canadian attitude on Suez was as great as that against the Americans.” ⁵¹ But there was little time for recrimination as the UN’s deliberations moved from the Security Council, where Britain and France could hide behind their Great Power veto, to the General Assembly, where debate on a US motion calling for a ceasefire and an immediate withdrawal was slated to open on the afternoon of 1 November. Anxious to salvage the British position, restore the UN’s prestige, and heal the breach in the North Atlantic alliance, Pearson made immediate plans to go to New York.

Before leaving Ottawa, Pearson met with his colleagues to review his plans. Given the mounting pressure on France and Britain, he thought Paris and London would welcome a proposal calling for an immediate ceasefire, a general conference to find a Middle East settlement, and a temporary UN police force along the Arab–Israeli borders to keep the peace. ⁵² Pearson’s interest in a UN police force was not surprising. He had championed the idea as a youthful diplomat at the Canadian Legation in Washington during the mid-1940s and in the early days of the Korean War, when he tried to turn the US-led UN corps into a permanent UN police force. After briefing cabinet, Pearson asked Robertson to seek Britain’s reaction to a plan to call upon the General Assembly to create an “adequate UN military force to separate the Egyptians from the Israelis.” ⁵³

When Pearson arrived at UN headquarters that afternoon, a buzz of excitement swept through the crowded building, as UN delegates stopped Canadian diplomats to ask, “What’s he got? We hear Mike’s got a proposal. It’s high time. Can he do it?” ⁵⁴ Pearson, who had served continuously as Canada’s foreign minister since 1948, was then at the height of his international influence. A leading architect of NATO and the postwar Commonwealth, he had shaped many of the procedures that defined the UN. By the mid-1950s, he had developed a network of friends and contacts that spanned Western Europe and encircled the newly independent countries of Africa and Asia. His affability and liberal idealism hid his keen grasp of the hard realities of international politics. Negotiation was his genius, and, in the words of one friendly reporter, he excelled in “finding out how one side felt, then playing it back to the other, and vice versa.” ⁵⁵

On his arrival in New York, Pearson learned that Britain was ready to “hand over” the Suez Canal “to a UN force strong enough to prevent the renewed outbreak of hostilities between Egypt and Israel.” ⁵⁶ This slight concession was enough. Pearson pressed Dulles, with whom he consulted closely, to amend the US resolution so that it included a reference to a possible peacekeeping force. Doubtful that there was sufficient time to recraft his motion and worried that any delay might provoke a harsher resolution from the Soviet Union and the Afro-Asian states, Dulles refused. ⁵⁷ During the debate on the American motion, Pearson sat quietly until the small hours of the morning. Rising at 3 a.m. to explain Canada’s abstention, he argued that the American resolution calling for a return to the status quo was not enough; what was needed was a “UN force large enough to keep these borders at peace while a political settlement is being worked out.” ⁵⁸

After lunch with the secretary-general, who doubted that Pearson’s idea would work, the minister returned to Ottawa to update the prime minister and cabinet. Canadian policymakers were in broad agreement on the force’s main attributes: it should report directly to the secretary-general; it should be allowed to act without the consent of the parties concerned; and it should employ modern self-contained units to create a robust force, which was “compact, mobile, [and] hard-hitting.” ⁵⁹ They differed, however, over its composition. The Canadian mission in New York, more attuned to Afro-Asian opinion, excluded the invading French and British troops; Pearson insisted that they should constitute the UN force until a “more permanent police force could be provided.”

Although Pearson clearly intended to give London and Paris some helpful UN cover, his plan ran into trouble at home. Nervous cabinet ministers from English Ontario echoed the criticisms of the opposition Progressive Conservative Party and its allies, who denounced the government for its failure to back Britain. “The Canadian government,” declared the Toronto Globe and Mail, “added nothing to its prestige—or to Canada’s—by its conduct at this week’s emergency session of the UN General Assembly.” ⁶⁰ But St. Laurent backed Pearson strongly. “Do as you think best,” he reportedly said. “I will support you here.” ⁶¹ At an early morning meeting on 3 November, ministers approved Pearson’s two-stage proposal, under which a largely Anglo-French force would immediately enter the region to keep the peace, while waiting for a “longer term UN police force.” ⁶²

The US was skeptical, but with no other plan in sight, encouraging. Deputy Secretary of State Herbert Hoover Jr., who temporarily replaced the ailing Dulles, urged Pearson to press on, but warned that the current plan provided too much cover to Paris and London and would be seen by the Afro-Asian bloc as an effort to “legitimize” their assault on Egypt. ⁶³ In response, Pearson secured his government’s approval for a second resolution that asked the UN secretary-general and a five-member committee to draw up plans for a police force drawn from “national military forces immediately available.” It would oversee the ceasefire called for in the General Assembly’s ceasefire resolution of November 2.

This was more “promising,” although the State Department still raised two substantial objections: first, it insisted that any UN police action must have the consent of the parties involved; and second, Washington opposed the reference in the Canadian draft to “national military forces immediately available.” The reaction in London was more uncertain. On the basis of the second Canadian proposal, Lloyd told Robertson that he thought Britain could support the resolution with a few “minor” amendments. Indeed, Lloyd had even given Robertson the impression “that the resolution was welcome and that … they might even be able to vote for it.” ⁶⁴ Wanting an amendment that would effectively have the UN guarantee a settlement of the Suez problem, Eden hesitated. He was not opposed to the resolution, but he refused to support it until he had studied it in conjunction with two US motions that established peacemaking machinery for Suez and Palestine. ⁶⁵

Pearson was briefed on the American and British reactions to his resolution on his arrival in New York, late in the afternoon of 3 November. He immediately met with the US permanent representative, the imperious Henry Cabot Lodge. Lodge handed Pearson a draft resolution of his own, appropriately typed in the UN’s pale blue. Inspired by the Canadian draft, the US resolution was simpler, giving the secretary-general 48 hours to craft a UN emergency force that would oversee a ceasefire with the consent of the parties involved. Pearson undoubtedly realized that this was a much different text from the one shown to Eden. Despite the irritation of British ambassador Sir Pierson Dixon, who justifiably felt betrayed, Pearson agreed “in a flash” to support the US resolution when Lodge assured him that Paris and London “could” not oppose it. ⁶⁶

Within minutes, the new “Canadian” resolution was circulating through the UN, with the minister’s “leg-men” hustling hard to secure a large majority of votes from all quarters. It was ultimately assured passage when Pearson and Arthur Lall, the head of the Indian delegation (which had its own resolution demanding the immediate withdrawal of the invading forces), agreed to support each other’s resolutions. Even so, the pressure in the UN General Assembly was enormous and as the gathering dragged on past midnight, Pearson surprised his colleagues by lighting a cigarette. Asked if he smoked, Pearson replied, “I really don’t, but I’ll be taking dope soon if we don’t soon get this show on the road.” ⁶⁷ And soon it was. The UN General Assembly adopted the Canadian resolution early in the morning of 4 November. Within 48 hours, the UNEF had begun to take shape, and London and Paris had agreed to a ceasefire. The worst phase of the crisis was over.

The implications of the Suez Crisis for Canadian foreign policy were extensive and enduring. Canada’s role in the creation of UNEF and its subsequent participation in the force made peacekeeping, especially at the UN, a major preoccupation for Canadian foreign policy until the 1990s. It provided Canada with a distinct and useful global role that went beyond its status as a junior partner in the US-led Western alliance. Between 1956 and 1989, Canada participated in 13 UN “blue helmet” missions, boasting that it “never refused a mission.” ⁶⁸ “Peacekeeping was impossible to resist,” argues historian Norman Hillmer, “fitting the government’s international objectives and appealing to a public anxious to believe that Canada could be the world’s conscience, untainted by power politics and considerations of narrow or selfish interests.” ⁶⁹

The crisis also had a lasting impact on Canada’s ties with its two major Western allies, Britain and the US. Suez destroyed the close and easy familiarity that had sustained Anglo-Canadian relations since Canada began to pursue its own diplomatic course in the 1920s. “I fear,” observed Sir Saville Garner, who took up his duties as British high commissioner in Ottawa in November 1956, “that the Canadian Government will never again accept our judgment so readily as they have been prepared to do in the past.” ⁷⁰ He was right. More important, the crisis at last turned Britain irrevocably toward continental Europe, leaving Canada alone to work out its future as a North American nation. Inevitably, this meant closer economic, political, and cultural relations with its overwhelming neighbour, the US.

Finally, Suez and its aftermath transformed Canada’s role in the Middle East from a distant outsider to a small regional actor. Participation in the UNEF, which lasted until Nasser ordered the force out in May 1967 and was renewed after the Yom Kipper War in 1973, gave Canada a stake in the region’s affairs and a minor say in its unending peace processes during the 1970s and 1980s. That role is mostly gone now, the victim of cutbacks in Canadian peacekeeping operations during the 1990s and the sharp changes in the international environment since 9/11. But another legacy of Suez persists. The crisis brought the Middle East into Canada, where its “diaspora politics” created a political minefield that limits policy options and raises questions about the likelihood of Canada ever again playing a leading role in a Middle East conflict.