A Modest Proposal

The Suez crisis, from its genesis in July through its present monstrous condition, has been a thorough moil of wrongheadedness on all sides. Egypt is breaching its agreement, the U.S. in insisting on doing nothing, and now Great Britain, France, and Israel in doing the wrong thing have all added their bits. But the passing of moral judgment in hindsight does not solve the problem.

The greatest possible danger is that the United States will do nothing. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the eating of this particular pudding is being done right now. All last summer and through the fall, Eisenhower and Dulles decided to let the pudding steam, hoping that time would settle it in the end. Dulles tried the user's association which was neither practicable nor even based at all upon the realities of the situation. When it fell through, he gave up. For obvious reasons the French, British, and Israelis have not given up. In the present crisis, American blustering disinterest is not enough.

President Eisenhower in his soothing speech Wednesday evening advocated turning the whole problem over to the United Nations. But at the same time he withheld one of the things which could have inspirited the General Assembly last night--that is, the guarantee of American troops, if they were found necessary and advisable. Although American troops may never be used, the threat of their use is necessary to encourage the General Assembly to take strong action and to convince the British and French that they must cooperate. The use of American troops in Suez would be, indeed, unfortunate, but unless the President of the United States takes the initiative in organizing intervention, nothing will be done.

Secretary Dulles' resolutions last night have been no more help than the President's calming reassurances. Certainly, the Israelis must return to Israel and fire must cease. But the threat that the General Assembly will stay in session until these things occur is the emptiest one since Chiang Kai-shek intimated that he might reconquer the Chinese mainland.

The President and his Secretary are in effect not using the United Nations at all. If Eisenhower accepts the principle of intervention established in Korea, then he must act immediately in the United Nations, whether, as he says, the aggressors are friend or foe. Vague mouthings at a time like this are almost worse than nothing, for they will only make the United Nations seem even more ineffectual than usual. If the President does not give full support to the United Nations now, he is actually killing it, for he is brazenly announcing to the world that its international assembly will never be anything more than the tool of Western interests. Supporting the United Nations means taking forceful action; it means that:

1. The General Assembly must pass a resolution censuring the British, French, and Israelis for action in bad faith with the Nnited Nations. It must make clear that none of these countries has claim to control of Suez and that their actions are inexcusable violations of international law. The countries condemned may resent such a resolution, but it is necessary to reassure Egypt that the United Nations is not merely a tool of the colonial powers.

2. The General Assembly must pronounce a deadline for a ceasefire.

3. Troops, preferably neutral ones like the Italians, and Swedes, must be flown into the Suez area with all speed, their purpose being to fight neither the British nor the Egyptians, but to maintain order. Even with United Nations troops in control, however, it is highly unlikely that the British and French will agree to stay out (or get out, if they moved in last night) of the area. For this reason, a United Nations task force could only hope to neutralize the situation until an agreement can be reached.

4. The cessation of hostilities is a difficult problem, but a lasting agreement among the four nations seems next to impossible. Especially since the bombing of Cairo and the rupture of diplomatic relations, it is hard to imagine Nasser (or any Egyptian) sitting at the same conference table with any of the offenders. Something fantastically imaginative will be necessary to soften the rigidity of both sides. One possibility might be a meeting of leaders of the great powers in Cairo, as soon as it seems safe or feasible. We do not mean that President Eisenhower should float like Cleopatra down the Nile on a bubble-top barge, nor that Egyptians should be induced to shout "Aisha Khrushchev," through the streets of Cairo, nor that Pandit Nehru should stage a passive demonstration. But the collective action of these figures would not fail to make a very strong impression upon the belligerents. This plan may seem wild and hallucinatory. But, in this case, it matches the situation.

5. As part of the hypothetical agreement, the United Nations must urge both parties to accept it as the the protector and administrator of Suez. This solution would require some hard swallowing from Nasser, but it is the only one which would possibly be acceptable to Great Britain, France, and Israel. Nasser would undoubtedly be upset, but, considering the continued flow of oil from Lebanon and Syria and the general Arabian fear of Nasser's domination, it unlikely that the rest of the Middle East would really mind.

6. As well as internationalizing the canal, the United Nations should take this opportunity to establish an effective patrol of Israeli-Arab borders. Otherwise, the border incidents which have acted as a catalyst to the recent explosion would only begin again.

All of these proposals, of course, sound ultraliberal, idealistic, and just chock full of principles. The usual reaction is to judge anything of this sort as merely youthful, and therefore impractical and worthless. But, in a case as grave as the present one, a little idealism may prove extremely pragmatic. For one thing, the application of a few principles is necessary to fumigate an incredibly smelly situation. And the United Nations at this point seems an instrument through which suddenly for the first time the United States and Russia can work together. Because of the momentarily transformed relations between Russia and the United States which this crisis has wrought, things are not as hopeless as they might have been. An excellent opportunity presents itself to remold world alignments, to inject an element of mutual confidence into world diplomacy, and to strengthen the United Nations. Poland and Hungary have shown that bipolar conception of contemporary world history no longer fits the facts. Russian support of the United States in the United Nations has buoyed this hope. While the metal is hot, President Eisenhower must help to forge bonds of East-West cooperation to replace the blackjacks currently being laid about.