Suez in a Cold War Middle East

American anti-communist priorities did not match the region's immediate political concerns, while Nasser used the rivalry between the superpowers to pursue Egyptian freedom of action. Washington hoped to make Egypt central to a Middle Eastern defence system, but Nasser saw the Baghdad Pact as strengthening rival Hashemite monarchies. The canal crisis also belonged to the history of the Egyptian Revolution, the Algerian War, the Arab-Israeli dispute, and an Arab Cold War in which neighbouring states competed with one another. These overlapping contests make a simple colonial-versus-anticolonial account inadequate.