United Arab Republic
The United Arab Republic was a sovereign state in the Middle East from 1958 to 1971. It was initially a short-lived political union between Egypt and Syria from 1958 until Syria seceded from the union following the 1961 Syrian coup d'état. Egypt continued to be known officially as the United Arab Republic until it was formally dissolved by Anwar Sadat in September 1971.
The republic was led by Gamal Abdel Nasser as the Egyptian president. The UAR was a member of the United Arab States, a loose confederation with the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen, which was dissolved in 1961. It was a brief pan-Arab union.
History
Origins
The United Arab Republic was established on 1 February 1958 as the first step towards a larger pan-Arab state, originally being proposed to Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser by a group of political and military leaders in Syria.Pan-Arab sentiment traditionally was very strong in Syria, and Nasser was a popular heroic figure throughout the Arab world following the 1956 Tripartite Aggression. There was thus considerable popular support in Syria for union with Nasser's Egypt. The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party was the leading advocate of such a union.
In mid-1957, Western powers began to worry that Syria was close to a Communist takeover; it had a highly organized Communist Party and the newly appointed army's chief of staff, Afif al-Bizri, was a Communist sympathizer. This caused the Syrian Crisis of 1957 after which Syrians intensified their efforts to unite with Egypt. Nasser told a Syrian delegation, including President Shukri al-Quwatli and Prime Minister Khalid al-Azm, that they needed to rid their government of Communists, but the delegation countered and warned him that only total union with Egypt would end the "Communist threat". According to Abdel Latif Boghdadi, Nasser initially resisted a total union with Syria, favoring instead a federal union. However, Nasser was "more afraid of a Communist takeover" and agreed on a total merger. The increasing strength of the Syrian Communist Party, under the leadership of Khalid Bakdash, worried the Syrian Ba'ath Party, which was suffering from an internal crisis from which prominent members were anxious to find an escape. Syria had a democratic government since the overthrow of Adib Shishakli's military government in 1954, and popular pressure for Arab unity was reflected in the composition of parliament.
On 11 January 1958, the Syrian Chief of Staff Afif al-Bizri headed a Syrian delegation composed of military officers which came uninvited and unannounced to Cairo. The delegation was received by Egyptian Chief of Staff Abdel Hakim Amer and petitioned for a Syrian-Egyptian union. Only Syrian advocates of unity, including Salah al-Din al-Bitar and Akram al-Hourani had prior knowledge of this delegation; Quwatli and Azm were notified a day later and considered it tantamount to a "military coup".
Nasser's final terms for the union were decisive and non-negotiable: "a plebiscite, the dissolution of parties, and the withdrawal of the army from politics". While the plebiscite seemed reasonable to most Syrian elites, the latter two conditions were extremely worrisome. They believed it would destroy political life in Syria. Despite these concerns, the Syrian officials knew it was too late to turn back. Caught between Western and Soviet pressures, the members of the elite in Syria viewed the merger with Egypt as the least bad option to insulate from either side. They believed that Nasser's terms were unfair, but given the intense pressure that their government was undergoing, they believed that they had no other choice.
A plebiscite was held on 21 February 1958, with Egyptians and Syrians voting in favor of the merger. The result was announced on 22 February and Nasser was declared the new president of the United Arab Republic.
Egyptian and Syrian leaders signed the protocols, although Azm did so reluctantly. Nasser became the republic's president and very soon carried out a crackdown against the Syrian Communists and opponents of the union. This included dismissing Bizri and Azm from their posts.
Early history
Advocates of the union believed that Nasser would use the Ba'ath Party for ruling Syria. Unfortunately for the Ba'athists, it was never Nasser's intention to share an equal measure of power. Nasser established a new provisional constitution proclaiming a 600-member National Assembly with 400 members from Egypt and 200 members from Syria, and the disbanding of all political parties, including the Ba'ath. Nasser gave each of the provinces two vice-presidents, assigning Boghdadi and Abdel Hakim Amer to Egypt and Sabri al-Asali and Akram al-Hourani – a leader of the Ba'ath – to Syria. The new provisional constitution of 1958 was adopted.Though Nasser allowed former Ba'ath Party members to hold prominent political positions, they never reached positions as high in the government as did the Egyptian officials. During the winter and the spring of 1959–60, Nasser slowly squeezed prominent Syrians out of positions of influence. In the Syrian Ministry of Industry, for example, seven of the top thirteen positions were filled by Egyptians. In the General Petroleum Authority, four of the top six officials were Egyptian. In the fall of 1958, Nasser formed a tripartite committee, consisting of Zakaria Mohieddin, al-Hawrani, and Bitar to oversee the affairs in Syria. By moving the latter two, both Ba'athists, to Cairo, he neutralized important political figures who had their own ideas about how Syria should be run within the UAR.
In Syria, opposition to union with Egypt mounted. Syrian Army officers resented being subordinate to Egyptian officers, and Syrian Bedouin tribes received money from Saudi Arabia to prevent them from becoming loyal to Nasser. Also, Egyptian-style land reform was resented for damaging Syrian agriculture, the Communists began to gain influence, and the intellectuals of the Ba'ath Party who supported the union rejected the one-party system. Mustafa al-Barudi, the Syrian Minister of Propaganda, stated that 'the smallest member of the retinue thought that he had inherited our country. spread "like octopuses" everywhere.' Nasser was not able to address problems in Syria completely, because they were new to him, and instead of appointing Syrians to run Syria, he assigned this position to Amer and Abdul Hamid al-Sarraj.
In Egypt, the situation was more positive, with a GNP growth of 4.5 per cent and a rapid growth of industry. In 1960, Nasser nationalized the Egyptian press, reducing it to his personal mouthpiece.
Foreign relations
The union was interpreted by the other nations of the world as a major threat to Jordan. Syria was seen as a source of instigation and shelter for Jordanian plotters against King Hussein. Egypt's own status as a state unfriendly to Western influence in the region added to the pressure. Hussein responded by proposing to Faisal II of Iraq a Jordanian-Iraqi union to counter the UAR; such a union formed on 14 February 1958, as the Arab Federation. Jordan and Iraq agreed to establish a unified military command with a unified military budget, 80 per cent of which was to be provided by Iraq and the remaining 20 per cent by Jordan. Troops from both countries were exchanged in the arrangement.In nearby Lebanon, President Camille Chamoun, an opponent of Nasser, viewed the creation of the UAR with worry. Pro-Nasser factions in the country were mostly Muslims and Druze, while the Christian Maronite population generally supported Chamoun. These two sides began clashing, culminating in a civil war by May 1958. The former favoured merging with the UAR, while the latter feared the new country as a satellite of Communism. Although Nasser did not covet Lebanon, seeing it as a special case, he felt obliged to back his supporters through giving Abdul Hamid al-Sarraj the task of sending them money and light arms, and training officers.
On 14 July 1958, Iraqi army officers staged a military coup and overthrew the Kingdom of Iraq – which had just previously united with Jordan to form the rival Arab Federation. Nasser declared his recognition of the new government and stated that "any attack on Iraq was tantamount to an attack on the UAR". The next day British special forces and US marines landed in Lebanon and in Jordan, respectively, to prevent the two countries from opening up to pro-Nasser forces. To Nasser, the revolution in Iraq opened the road for Arab nationalism. Although most members of the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council favoured joining Iraq with the UAR, the new prime minister Abdul Karim Qasim disagreed. Said Aburish states reasons for this could have included Nasser's refusal to cooperate with and encourage the Iraqi Free Officers a year before the coup – or Qasim viewed Nasser as a threat to his supremacy as leader of Iraq.
Later in July, the American government convinced Chamoun not to seek a second term. This allowed the election of Fouad Chehab as Lebanon's new president. Nasser and Chehab met at the Lebanese–Syrian border and Nasser explained to Chehab that he never wanted unity with Lebanon, but only that the country not be used as a base against the UAR. This meeting resulted in the end of the crisis in Lebanon, with Nasser ceasing to supply his partisans and America setting a deadline for retreating from the area.
After the overthrow of its Hashemite monarchy in 1958, Iraq became the Arab state most supportive of the UAR. Iraq sought to join the union; however, in 1959 Qasim cancelled the unity talks. After Qasim's overthrow in 1963 the union idea resurrected with the proposal of Egypt, Iraq, and Syria reforming the UAR. A new flag was proposed, with three stars symbolizing the three states constituting the proposed union. However, the plan for a tri-partite union never materialised. Iraq continued to use the three-star flag and later adopted it as the national flag. This three-star flag remained Iraq's national flag until 2007.