A glass Napoleon
ONLY a man with Napoleon’s vision would have seen the potential of linking the Mediterranean with the Red Sea by digging a canal.
During his campaign in Egypt (1798-1801), Napoleon saw a commercial advantage in shortening the trade route to India. A miscalculation by his engineers caused him to abandon the project. Sixty years later, in 1869, his compatriot — engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps — fulfilled Napoleon’s aim by completing that modern marvel: the Suez Canal.
Napoleon once lamented: “If it had not been for the English, I should have been emperor of the East.” Ironically, a century later, the British and the French were co-owners of the Suez Canal. When, in 1956, Egyptian President Gamal Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal, Israel, Britain and France launched a combined military invasion. Israel occupied the Sinai peninsula. Britain and France strafed Egypt and planted boots in the Canal Zone. The US and the USSR condemned the invasion and threatened sanctions. Britain and France, humiliated, had to withdraw.
British prime minister Anthony Eden contended that his action had been “to strengthen the United Nations”. He was demolished by Aneurin Bevan’s retort: “Every burglar… could argue that he was entering the house to train the police.” (Bevan’s remark finds echoes in US President Donald Trump’s foreign policy.)
Gulf states must prepare themselves for the worst.
Since then, the criticality of the Suez Canal has increased greatly. Ships use it to transport “30 per cent of the world’s shipping container volume, 7-10pc of the world’s oil and 8pc of liquefied natural gas [LNG]”. It is as vital as the Panama Canal is, or the Strait of Hormuz has now become.
Panama Canal, like the Suez, is a manmade waterway. It connects the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean, and joins Panama and the US in an uneasy political union.
The canal remained under US control from 1914 until 1999, when it passed to Panama. In January 2025, President Trump announced America’s intention of recovering control of the Panama Canal, threatening ‘economic and military action against Panama’ to ensure American “economic security”.
On the other side of the globe, the Strait of Hormuz — a natural cul-de-sac — is inordinately vital to world trade. Before the present conflict started, tens of thousands of ships and tankers passed through it, carrying 30pc of global oil trade and 20pc of global LNG. Today, Iran has applied a political stranglehold and choked oil and gas supplies to the world.
How long will this asphyxiation last? It could be days, even years. Remember: following the Israeli-Arab war in 1967, the Suez Canal remained blocked for eight years.
Over the past 40 years, the US and its allies have gradually established bases in the Middle East, within firing distance of Iran. Surrounded, threatened, Iran has retaliated. Gulf countries believed they were buying protection from it. They paid exorbitant premiums, for hollow comfort. As Nato countries have discovered to their cost, Trump’s America will defend its own interests wherever, but it will no longer patrol as the world’s policeman. Instead, it has chosen to become a rogue Al Capone.
Some dismiss Iran as a vulnerable disunited country. They should realise that Iran is larger than the UK, France, Germany, and Spain combined. It is about half the size of India. It has seen 5,000 years of civilisation, conquests, invasions, extravagant monarchies, and a version of democratic theocracy.
Trump by assassinating the ayatollah has provided Iran with a fresh martyr. Trump and his accomplice Netanyahu will go down in Shia Iran’s history as 21st-century Yazids.
The present conflict will claim more sacrifices than the ayatollah’s family, 154 Iranian schoolchildren, 84 Iranian cadet sailors aboard their unarmed ship, and more than a dozen US nationals killed so far.
The Gulf states must prepare themselves for the worst. The Iranians have struck their oil installations without attacking the local population, most of whom are in any case expatriates. Their next targets could be infrastructural amenities, even desalination plants. Gulf countries have over 400 desalination plants dotted along their coasts which face Iran. Water is as precious to the Gulf states as oil is central to their economies. Iran could revert them to the desert sheikhdoms they once were.
In starting another World War, Trump has opened a modern Pandora’s box, containing “all the world’s evils — such as disease, war, and misery”. He is convinced that a Christian God is on his side. “I am the instrument of providence,” Napoleon once said, “she will use me as long as I accomplish her designs,” adding somberly, “then, she will break me like glass.”
The writer is an author.
Published in Dawn, March 19th, 2026