Addressing a Senate committee, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles discussed increasing tensions in the Middle East centered on Egypt's Suez Canal region. The Suez Canal, which stretches 101 miles across the Isthmus of Suez, connecting the Mediterranean and Red Seas, was first completed under the direction of French diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps in 1869. The canal rapidly became one of the world's most heavily traveled shipping lanes, and, in 1882, British troops invaded Egypt, beginning a forty-year occupation of the country and a seventy-five-year occupation of the Suez Canal Zone. During the early 1950s, Egyptian nationalists rioted in the Canal Zone and organized attacks on British troops. After lengthy negotiations, the British withdrew their troops in June of 1956. On July 26, 1956, Egyptian President Gamal Abdal Nasser nationalized the canal, formerly under joint Anglo-French control, and barred British, French, and Israeli shipping. In response, Israel launched an assault...