AH Challenge: Suez Crisis-ish in Panama

Is it possible for something like the Suez Crisis of 1956 to happen over the Panama Canal, and have it involving the US? Furthermore, would it be ASB to have the United States be as embarrassed on the world stage as the French, English, and Israelis were in 156?

Operation Just Cause does not count in this challenge, as I want this contain as many parallels to the Suez Crisis and possible and involve the Panama Canal.
 
Supposedly (this is according to wiki, but they're giving Noriega, The New York Times and Chicago Tribune as sources) the Panamanians had planned to sabotage the Canal if the Torrijos-Carter Treaties didn't pass Congress. I think that would be the closest possible parallel, since the US military presence there and Panama's comparative military weakness would have made an equivalent of Nasser's takeover of the Suez Canal unworkable.
 
You'd have to have the Panama Canal owned by someone other than Panama. Gran Colombia? It's a bit bigger than Egypt population-wise, so militarily it wouldn't be an utter walkover like Just Cause, and there's potential for a Bolivarian strongman to take over and nationalise the Canal. However, there are problems:
It's an early POD.
Gran Colombia might end up owning the canal all along- there needs to be a way to avoid this, and the usual Central American corruption results in Gran Colombia breaking up.
US embarrassment is quite tricky, as the economic issues aren't there- unless you do it in the present day and have GC be allied with China?
 

CalBear

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Is it possible for something like the Suez Crisis of 1956 to happen over the Panama Canal, and have it involving the US?

No

Furthermore, would it be ASB to have the United States be as embarrassed on the world stage as the French, English, and Israelis were in 156?

...

Yes.

The difference between the two are so great there is no chance of a similar process.

The U.S. would also not bother with using an Israeli replacement if it was going to take it. It just would.
 

That might be a bit hasty, don't you think?

Having read up on Desert Eagle, I have no doubt in my mind that the United States under the Carter administration could have turned a Panama operation into a militarily successful, prestige-destroying operation similar to Suez in OTL.
 
Only way I see this happening would be if de Lesseps had succeeded in completing the canal through Colombian Panama in the 1880s, which means this scenario belongs on the pre-1900 board. Anyway, in this case, the canal would be held by an Anglo-French consortium (Monroe Doctrine be damned) like the Suez. Perhaps at some point the Brits and the French decide to turn over control to the Colombians, and the US tries to seize the canal to prevent this?

Still, there can't be any comparison between the two situations. Though the Anglo-French and Isreali forces succeeded in their mission of retaking the Suez, they were forced to withdraw due to the weight of American disapproval and the threat that lay therein. Who's strong enough to make the US cower??!! Ooh... the Soviet Union... Perhaps the Brits and the French make common cause with the Russians and force the US to back off under threat of nuclear war? Makes sense, the Russians would definitely have a great incentive in insuring that the Canal was an open waterway under a neutral power.

I don't know if this all is quite ASB, but it's mighty farfetched.
 

CalBear

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That might be a bit hasty, don't you think?

Having read up on Desert Eagle, I have no doubt in my mind that the United States under the Carter administration could have turned a Panama operation into a militarily successful, prestige-destroying operation similar to Suez in OTL.

No.

No I don't.
 

CalBear

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Only way I see this happening would be if de Lesseps had succeeded in completing the canal through Colombian Panama in the 1880s, which means this scenario belongs on the pre-1900 board. Anyway, in this case, the canal would be held by an Anglo-French consortium (Monroe Doctrine be damned) like the Suez. Perhaps at some point the Brits and the French decide to turn over control to the Colombians, and the US tries to seize the canal to prevent this?

Still, there can't be any comparison between the two situations. Though the Anglo-French and Isreali forces succeeded in their mission of retaking the Suez, they were forced to withdraw due to the weight of American disapproval and the threat that lay therein. Who's strong enough to make the US cower??!! Ooh... the Soviet Union... Perhaps the Brits and the French make common cause with the Russians and force the US to back off under threat of nuclear war? Makes sense, the Russians would definitely have a great incentive in insuring that the Canal was an open waterway under a neutral power.

I don't know if this all is quite ASB, but it's mighty farfetched.

So we end the world over the Panama Canal?

I was hoping for something a little more dramatic.

:D
 
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