The Invaders are Stopped

The operation to take the canal was highly successful from a military point of view, but was a political disaster due to external forces. Along with Suez, the United States was also dealing with the near-simultaneous Soviet-Hungary crisis, and faced the public relations embarrassment of criticizing the Soviet Union's military intervention there while at the same time avoiding criticism of its two principal European allies' actions. Perhaps more significantly, the United States also feared a wider war after the Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev threatened to intervene on the Egyptian side and launch attacks by "all types of weapons of destruction" on London and Paris.

Thus, the Eisenhower administration forced a cease-fire on Britain and France which it had previously told the Allies it would not do. The U.S. demanded that the invasion stop and sponsored resolutions in the UN Security Council for a cease-fire to stop the invasion. Britain and France, as permanent members of the Security Council, vetoed the resolutions in the UN Security Council. The U.S. then appealed to the United Nations General Assembly and proposed a resolution calling for a cease-fire and a withdrawal of forces under the terms of Uniting for Peace (UfP). The General Assembly held an emergency session and passed the UfP resolution. Britain and France withdrew from Egypt within a week.^[20]

Part of the pressure that the United States used against Britain was financial, as President Eisenhower threatened to sell the United States reserves of the British pound and thereby precipitate a collapse of the British currency. After Saudi Arabia started an oil embargo against Britain and France, the U.S. refused to fill the gap, until Britain and France agreed to a rapid withdrawal.^[21] There was also a measure of discouragement for Britain in the rebuke by the Commonwealth Prime Ministers St. Laurent of Canada and Menzies of Australia at a time when Britain was still continuing to regard the Commonwealth as an entity of importance as the residue of the British Empire and as an automatic supporter in its effort to remain a world power.

The British government and the pound thus both came under pressure. Eden was forced to resign and announced a cease fire on November 6, warning neither France nor Israel beforehand. Troops were still in Port Said when the order came from London. Without further guarantee, the Anglo-French Task Force had to finish withdrawing by December 22, 1956, to be replaced by Danish and Colombian units of the UNEF.^[22] The Israelis left the Sinai in March, 1957.