British Diplomatic Oil Crisis: Contemporary Anglo-Saxon Geopolitical Rivalries in the Persian Gulf: Drawing a Lesson? Or Sir Anthony Eden‘s Delusion of Grandeur.

Despite
the United Kingdom’s economic weakness, and the need for co-
operation with the United States for the containment of the Soviet
Union, and protecting British interests in the Persian Gulf, as had
been said, until 1956 the Middle East was still a British sphere of
influence.

In 1956
the government of Egypt nationalised the Suez Canal. The
Suez Canal was the main route between Britain and her Empire, mainly
India. After India’s independence it became the leading route by
which two-thirds of the oil produced in the Persian Gulf was
shipped, and thus the Suez Canal was strategically important to
Britain, Western Europe, and the United States. Britain had
dominated Egypt since the 1880s and the canal zone was still in the
1950s important to her military presence in the eastern
Mediterranean.

Following
the nationalisation of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the
United States acquired a significant share in the 1954 oil
consortium, as was said in Chapter Five. During the Suez crisis, the
British Prime Minister, Anthony Eden, did not want an American
involvement in the dispute with Egypt, for the fear that it may lead
to further United States influence in the Middle East, as was the
case in the aftermath of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company’s crisis. In
1955 Eden had told the Cabinet:

Our
interests in the Middle East were greater than those of the
United States because of our dependence on Middle East oil, and our
experience in the area was greater than theirs. We should not
therefore allow ourselves to be restricted overmuch by reluctance to
act without full American concurrence and support. We should finance
our own policy in the light of our own interests in the area and get
the

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