This is a question has been bothering me as someone who’s country was colonized by the British Empire. We were taught about it in schools and how it lost power over time but never how the USA came to take its place especially over such a short compared to the British Empire.
You’re right to quibble.
I’ll gesture towards “cementing” and “remained”, but your clarifications are important for people to bear in mind.
The collapse of the Ottoman Empire and Sykes-Picot also did a lot with this stuff, and the Suez Crisis is not the start or end of any story.
I look at the Suez Crisis more as a symbol of the shift in power. Maybe there is an example out there, but I can’t think of a similar humiliation that the UK had to deal with regarding having to pull out of a diplomatic crisis by the threat of a single ally/power since the Concert of Europe was implemented.
There is a lot to talk about regarding imperial powers in the Middle East, but I’m focusing more on the idea where power shifted from the UK to the USA.