In terms of oil, Britain took a great deal out of the Middle East. From an altruistic standpoint, the return was small. But it is important to remember that British power there did not take the same form as in British colonies. The British could not order schools to be built or irrigation works to be started; they could, and did, advise such works.
They were the first power—the United States will be the second—to encounter the jarring fact that the improvements which a big oil company brings to a nation promote nationalism. In the end, peoples are not content with oil royalties, clean company towns, and new schools. They want all the money, not merely royalties, and they want to build the towns and schools themselves.
The decline of British power in the Middle East coincided with the entry into the area of a new power, Soviet Russia. One of the oddest aspects of the relations between the United States and the United Kingdom was the calm—almost the indifference—with which the administration in Washington viewed the entry of Russia into the Middle East. As late as November 1956, after the British had destroyed large numbers of Soviet aircraft and tanks in Egypt, the State Department was undisturbed by intelligence reports that Russia had agreed to make good the Egyptian losses with new arms shipments.
Because of their economic involvement in the Middle East, the British undoubtedly will persevere in their efforts to maintain influence in the area. Early in 1957 all the cards were stacked against them.
One advantage of a long and stormy experience in international affairs is that it allows a nation to look with equanimity on reverses. After the withdrawal from Egypt in December 1956, many Britons thought they would make a comeback in the Middle East. No argument, neither Arab enmity nor the advent of American and Russian power, could shake this belief. They did not mean, of course, that they would come back along the lines of nineteenth-century colonialism. The British recognize that the days of British rule from the citadel in Cairo are as dead as Thebes. But with that placid confidence which is one of their most irritating characteristics, they predicted that in the future, as in the past, they would play a major role in the area.
When I protested that this was not the view in Washington or, probably, in Moscow, a soldier-administrator laughed and said: "Oh they thought we were finished in 1940." But it is in the Middle East that British hopes and ambitions conflict directly with those of the United States. And relations with the United States are another story—or at least another chapter.
