Suez Crisis participated in later years, since Canada had spearheaded the idea of a neutral force). By 24 April 1957 the canal was fully reopened to shipping. Egyptian sovereignty and ownership of the canal had been confirmed by the United States and the United Nations. In retirement, Anthony Eden, the British Prime Minister at the time, maintained that the military response had prevented a much larger war in the Middle East. Israel had been expecting an Egyptian invasion in either March or April 1957, as well as a Soviet invasion of Syria. The crisis may also have hastened decolonization, as many of
The Falklands Play was not staged until 2002, when it was broadcast in separate adaptations on BBC Television and Radio. The play focuses on the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the British government's handling of the United Kingdom's largest Foreign Affairs emergency since the Suez Crisis of 1956, the diplomatic breakdown over the Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands (the Islas Malvinas to the Argentines). In particular, it charts the behind-the-scenes dealings within Thatcher's Conservative government and between it and its military and the United States and Argentine governments, in the diplomatic breakdown that gave way to war and an eventual British