The Way to Suez

Abstract

Post-war experiences in Palestine, Syria and Lebanon showed Britain and France that times were changing in the Middle East. The withdrawal of France from the Levant and her preoccupation with her internal stability and her North African empire left Britain alone in the area. In spite of the loss of India, the route through the Canal was now important for the preservation of Commonwealth links and trade, and for the passage of oil tankers. The oil industry, still in its infancy in 1939, had grown lustily in the latter part of the war, and international demands for its products had developed proportionately.¹ Although oil, by this stage, was an international concern rather than a purely British one, the protection of her interests was a powerful motive in determining policy. The great development of the Iraq fields and their vulnerable tentacles, the pipelines to the Mediterranean, made her anxious to see stable régimes in Iraq and Syria.