Editing Suez Crisis (section)

=== Nasser and Britain ===
British Prime Minister [[Anthony Eden]] was especially upset at the sacking of Glubb Pasha, and as one British politician recalled:
{{Blockquote|For Eden ... this was the last straw.... This reverse, he insisted was Nasser's doing.... Nasser was our Enemy No. 1 in the Middle East and he would not rest until he destroyed all our friends and eliminated the last vestiges of our influence.... Nasser must therefore be ... destroyed.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Mason |first1=Edward |title=The World Bank Since Bretton Woods |last2=Asher |first2=Robert |date=1973 |publisher=Brookings Institution |location=Washington |page=638}}</ref>}}
After the sacking of Glubb Pasha, which he saw as a grievous blow to British influence, Eden became consumed with an obsessional hatred for Nasser, and from March 1956 onwards, was in private committed to the overthrow of Nasser.<ref>{{Harvnb|Neff|1981|p=180}}</ref> The American historian Donald Neff wrote that Eden's often hysterical and overwrought views towards Nasser almost certainly reflected the influence of the amphetamines to which Eden had become addicted following a botched operation in 1953 together with the related effects of sustained sleep deprivation (Eden slept on average about 5 hours per night in early 1956).<ref>{{Harvnb|Neff|1981|pp=182–183}}</ref>

Britain was eager to tame Nasser and looked towards the United States for support. However, Eisenhower strongly opposed British-French military action.<ref>{{Harvnb|Alteras|1993|loc=ch. 7–8}}</ref> The United States, opposed to foreign intervention in Egypt, initially blocked British access to IMF help, pressuring the United Kingdom to withdraw its troops. When the British government, left with no choice, acceded to US demands, the [[International Monetary Fund|IMF]] extended its largest-ever loan to a member (an immediate $561 million drawing to replenish the UK's reserves, with an additional $739 million "stand-by" loan to be provided on an as-needed basis). Smaller loans were extended to France, Israel, and Egypt.<ref>
Eichengreen, Barry, and others, 'Cycles of Debt', In Defense of Public Debt (New York, 2021; online edn, Oxford Academic, 22 Sept. 2022), https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197577899.003.0009, accessed 16 Mar. 2024.
</ref> America's closest Arab ally, Saudi Arabia, was just as fundamentally opposed to the Hashemite-dominated Baghdad Pact as Egypt, and the U.S. was keen to increase its own influence in the region.<ref>{{Harvnb|Gaddis|1998|pp=168–169}}</ref> The failure of the Baghdad Pact aided such a goal by reducing Britain's dominance over the region. "Great Britain would have preferred to overthrow Nasser; America, however uncomfortable with the '[[Czech arms deal]]', thought it wiser to propitiate him."<ref>{{Harvnb|Kissinger|1994|p=528}}</ref>