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Even as Dulles flew back to the U.S. proclaiming that the conference had made "solid gains," the French and British threw the case into the U.N. The two asked the Security Council to hold an urgent debate of Egypt's "unilateral" act as a "manifest threat to international peace and security."
No one expected that Russia, with its veto power, would let the Security Council take any action, either to undo or punish Nasser's seizure. The U.S. was surprised at the timing, but acquiesced. Said Dulles: "This is an interdependent world, and you cannot thrive and prosper if you deny the principle of interdependence." Taking the case to the U.N. was another way of airing the West's concern, of impressing the world with its urgency and of seeking a settlement by means rooted not in the jungle but in law.