I THOUGHT THE Manchester Guardian was unfair to assume, when
the Prime Minister made his broadcast a month ago, that he was drawing a parallel between Suez and Munich : it seemed to me to be much more probable that the parallel was with Hitler's occupation of the Rhineland. The Guardian, I see, is now arguing that the Rhineland parallel is also mis- leading. The two cases seem to me to be remarkably similar. Like Hitler, Nasser has written a forward-looking biography saying between the lines (and often explicitly) what his inten- tions are. The elimination of Israel and the assumption of leadership of the Arab world represent the eastward aims; to the south, Nasser obviously hopes for a pro-Egyptian move- ment in the Sudan which will justify him 'liberating' the Sudan- ese; and afterwards he will wish to secure that strategic neces- sity, the source of the Nile. As far as dreams of conquest go, the difference between the two men is only of scale. But I agree with the Guardian that the closeness of the parallel is not necessarily a justification for rushing into war. The argument for dealing with Hitler when he went into the Rhineland is that the operation would then have been quick, effective and almost painless. Was that true of Suez?
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