Lion’s Last Roar, Eagle’s First Flight: Eisenhower and the Suez Crisis of 1956

2017/03/01 by Randall Fowler · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · Psychology · #Rhetoric and Communication Studies #Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts #International Relations and Foreign Policy #Rhetoric #Cold war #Presidential system #Middle East #Doctrine #Political science #Eagle #Intervention (counseling) #Law #Economic history #History #Theology #Philosophy #Politics #Psychology

paper · doi:10.14321/rhetpublaffa.20.1.0033

openalex publication_date 2017/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

Abstract The Suez Crisis address, given in response to the exigencies of the Cold War, marked a dramatic shift in presidential rhetoric regarding the Middle East. In this essay I build upon Richard Gregg’s analysis of this speech by demonstrating how President Dwight Eisenhower’s rhetoric broke from previously articulated rationales for American engagement with the region and subtly proposed a new understanding of U.S. responsibility for the region that has yet to be refuted. This speech should be understood as establishing premises in presidential discourse that have been used to mobilize support for American intervention in the Middle East from the Eisenhower Doctrine to the present.

Citations

• Woodrow Wilson and the Balfour Declaration

Cited by

• United Kingdom–United States relations [wikipedia]

Related

• Couscous Mussolini: US perceptions of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the 1958 intervention in Lebanon and the origins of the US–Israeli special relationship
• ‘A Puppet, Even Though He Probably Doesn't Know So’: Racial Identity and the Eisenhower Administration's Encounter with Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Arab Nationalist Movement
• Fainting Francis or Weeping Willie: The Construction of American Perceptions of Mohammed Mossadegh
• Suez 1956: A European Intervention?
• Nixon, Kissinger, and the Shah: The Origins of Iranian Primacy in the Persian Gulf*