United Arab Republic (UAR)

The United Arab Republic was the political union of Syria and Egypt under the presidency of Gamal Abdel Nasser, which existed from 1 February 1958 to 28 September 1961. It was the most ambitious practical experiment in pan-Arab political unity in the twentieth century, and its relatively rapid failure was a significant blow to the pan-Arab nationalist project. The union was initiated at Syrian insistence: Syrian politicians and army officers, alarmed by domestic instability and communist influence, approached Nasser in early 1958 and pressed for a merger. Nasser agreed, but insisted on full union rather than federation — both countries merging into a single state with a single president, parliament, and administration. The union proved problematic almost immediately. Egyptian administrators were regarded by many Syrians as condescending and as treating Syria as a colony. Egyptian economic policies were applied to Syria without sufficient consideration of Syrian conditions. Syrian Ba’athist politicians who had supported the union found themselves marginalised in the merged system. On 28 September 1961, a Syrian army coup ended the union and restored Syrian independence. The failure of the UAR contributed directly to the radicalisation of the Ba’ath Party’s military wing: the Military Committee concluded that ideological politics without military organisation was useless, and that the path to power ran through the control of armed force.