Dialogues in Arab Politics: Negotiations in Regional Order

Michael N. Barnett

Columbia University Press

Fall 1998

5. The Ascent and Descent of Arabism, 1956–1967

 

Nasser helped to define what counted as an Arab state in good standing, the types of norms to which it should adhere, and how those norms might relate to the desired regional order. As the leader of a new generation of Arab politicians he possessed the rare ability to shape the political agenda and challenge the rules of the game. The Baghdad Pact was only the beginning. Having successfully challenged the legitimacy of strategic alliances with the West, he would soon associate himself with Arabism’s ultimate goal of unification. By February 1958 Nasser could add to his list of distinctions and titles his new position as head of the United Arab Republic, the Arab world’s first unity agreement.

To what did this development owe? Certainly not to Nasser’s principled commitment to unification. Nasser’s pre-1958 speeches and policies contain hardly a trace of a unification spirit; in fact, he had assiduously discouraged such unification sentiments. Nor can we attribute Egypt’s willingness to unify with Syria to any earlier groundswell of support for unification among the Egyptian people. Nor was there any strategic imperative that might have moved Nasser in this direction; indeed, he would gain few material advantages by attempting to govern the unruly Syrians that might not be more easily accomplished through more conventional foreign policy controls. Instead, Nasser’s willingness to unify with Syria derived from symbolic entrapment. Although he privately feared that this agreement would lead nowhere good, he felt that he had no choice but to follow his words with deeds. Nasser was not only a creator of the political agenda, he was also a creature of it. As a hero who occupied a role in Arab politics, he would soon be captured by the normative expectations of that role, and to deny the role would be to deny the very fabric of his leadership.

The unification agreement that began with such promise ended in 1961 amid mutual exchanges of betrayal, name calling, and recrimination. Another round of unification fervor took hold in 1963, but its balance sheet contained one stillborn political agreement and even greater acrimony and venom. Arab leaders professed their devotion to unification while publicly denouncing the sincerity of their rivals’ commitment in the most unsavory and unflattering terms. These exchanges and charges resulted in mutual suspicion and growing differentiation between the same Arab states that harped on the theme of Arab unity. Many of the same Arab officials and intellectuals who once demanded unification now began to retreat toward statism and sovereignty, to the safety and sanctity of their borders, and to assert the authenticity of their particular identities as they continued to pledge themselves to the Arab nation.

The result was that by 1964 the rules of the game in Arab politics had begun to shift toward norms of Arabism that were consistent with sovereignty. Claiming that Arabs were one family that should live under one roof had unleashed a whirlwind of turmoil, resulting in a greater willingness to embrace a version of Arab nationalism that was consistent with sovereignty and to begin to stress the legitimacy of their territorial identities. That symbolic exchanges produced this new set of normative arrangements among Arab states and encouraged states and their societies to more closely identify with the territorial status quo contrasts with the more established explanations for the demise of unification: the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and state formation. Unification had receded from the Arab agenda, and Arab states had embraced a more centrist conception of Arab nationalism before the 1967 war. Nor were long-term structural processes associated with state formation directly connected to these regional developments; symbolic exchanges that played themselves out around the dialogue about unification created a new normative environment for Arab politics.

An immediate consequence of the rivalry among the radical states over unification was the reappearance of the Arab-Israeli conflict atop the Arab agenda. Palestine, and not unification, now became the principal way that Arab states attempted to establish their credentials and challenge their rivals. The “era of summitry”—beginning in January 1964 and ending in September 1965—symbolized the move by Arab states to set aside the debate about unification, embrace sovereignty, and shift their focus to Israel. As Arab leaders increasingly used Palestine to strut their credentials and challenge those of their rivals, they became increasingly vulnerable to symbolic sanctions regarding their commitment to Arabism as defined by the Palestine conflict. For these and other reasons the era of summitry collapsed as Syria coaxed Nasser away from his two-year détente with the conservative Arab states by challenging his commitment to Palestine. Nasser took the bait, pledged his commitment to justice in Palestine, and renewed his rivalry with the conservative Arab states. Symbolic competition took hold as Syria, Egypt, and Jordan competed through words and deeds to demonstrate which was most opposed to Israel. This deadly game of outbidding and symbolic entrapment concluded with an unwanted war with Israel.

 

Suez, Arabism, and the West

Although the debate about the Baghdad Pact made it more difficult if not highly unlikely that Arab states (other than Iraq) would align with the West, it was not until the Suez War that the West earned in spades its insecurity-provoking reputation. In this respect much is rightly made of the Suez War. But the Suez War might be better understood as symbolizing the end of one era and the beginning of another, reinforcing tendencies and social forces already present. In any event, the story of the Suez War can be told briefly. ₁ Egypt and Britain had been involved in a decadeslong struggle over control of the Suez Canal, which Britain suspected was finally settled to their mutual advantage with the Suez Canal treaty of October 1954—which gave Britain control of the canal’s operations and a healthy share of its revenues. ₂ Soon after the conclusion of the treaty Nasser opened discussions with the United States and the Soviet Union over which would provide him with the more generous assistance package for his planned Aswan High Dam. The Soviets and the Americans soon found themselves in a bidding war for the right to provide the assistance and to claim Nasser for their camp. These negotiations continued through the first part of 1956, when John Foster Dulles, the U.S. secretary of state, doubting Nasser’s sincerity and tiring of the haggling, abruptly ended negotiations and told Nasser that his chances of getting Western assistance were virtually nil. The manner in which Dulles ended the negotiations led Nasser to conclude that the United States was intent on humiliating him; he now began to contemplate nationalizing the canal and, finding no immediate objections, determined to do just that. ₃

Nasser nationalized the canal on July 26, 1956. The speech contained some common themes, including the pronouncements that the canal was not simply Egyptian but was also a symbol of Arab independence; that Egypt was restoring not only Egyptian sovereignty over the canal but also Arab pride and power after centuries of colonialism and imperialism. The speech was vintage Nasser, using various symbols to connect Arab nationalism, Egyptian power, and him. The centrality and drama of the moment, and Nasser’s mixture of joy and anxiety, were symbolized by his spontaneous outburst of laughter in the middle of his speech, a highly unusual event that represented a personal and national expression of relief and catharsis. ₄ Egypt and the rest of the Arab world widely and wildly applauded Nasser and his actions. Even his regional rivals were forced to put on their best faces, acknowledge the boldness of the move, and cable their congratulations. ₅ Nasser had already established himself as the new leader of Arab nationalism, and audacious acts—beginning with his opposition to the Baghdad Pact and continuing with his arms deal with the Soviets and the nationalization—only solidified his credentials.

Nasser knew that nationalizing the canal would not endear him to the West. ₆ England, France, and Israel now determined that they had a common enemy in Nasser and might profitably join forces—literally. By all accounts British prime minister Anthony Eden was nearly apoplectic over the nationalization. ₇ Eden—fearing that Nasser was nothing short of an Arab Hitler who had an insatiable lust for power and lived only to torment Britain and its Arab allies—believed that Nasser would listen only to force. Britain thus began to contemplate military action to recapture the canal and put Nasser in his place. France’s ire against Nasser derived from his support of the Algerian rebels. Convinced that removing Nasser would deal the rebels a major blow, France now decided to accept the military, political, and diplomatic risks associated with a war against Egypt. ₈ Israel had its long-standing grievances against Nasser, mainly involving Nasser’s failure to end the fedayeen raids coming from the Gaza strip and his closing of the Strait of Tiran earlier that year, and Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion hoped that a quick strike against Egypt would cause Nasser to change his policies, open the sea lanes to Israel, and clear the fedayeen from the area. ₉ Israel, France, and England each had a vendetta against Nasser and believed that a successful military campaign would change Nasser’s strategic calculations, if not sever Egypt’s head.

On October 29 the Israeli army swept through the Sinai and advanced on the Suez Canal. Britain and France’s declaration that they were landing their troops to separate Egypt and Israel and protect the Suez Canal on behalf of the international community was the barest of covers for their military intervention. ₁₀ France and Britain encountered little military opposition from Egypt but vocal condemnation from the international community, aggressive gestures from the Soviet Union, and, more ominously, diplomatic and economic threats from the United States. They limped home from Egypt, replaced by the first use of United Nations peacekeeping forces, and Israel hesitated but eventually retreated from the Sinai a few months later under considerable pressure from the United States.

Several consequences of the Suez War were exactly the opposite of what Britain and France had intended. Far from arresting the decline of the British Empire, Britain’s militarized response only hastened it. Far from winning the West any friends, the West was now persona non grata, and the Soviet Union stepped into the power vacuum. Far from bolstering the conservative forces in the region and ending Nasser’s brilliant career, the attack by the old colonial countries in concert with Israel against Arab nationalism’s heart and soul only undermined the attackers, elevated Nasser’s prestige, and swelled the ranks of his disciples in the Arab world.

The overall effect of the Suez War was to shift the tide of regional politics toward Nasser and his brand of Arab nationalism, completely vindicate Nasser’s line that the West could not be trusted, and wholly undermine the credibility of any politician who was viewed as remotely sympathetic to the West. ₁₁ Syria, which only a few years before had been somewhat suspicious of Nasser and sympathetic to the West, now did a full turn leftward and was firmly in Nasser’s camp, strengthened its ties to the Soviets, and became the home of the most serious Communist movement in the region. ₁₂ The spirit of unification also reappeared. Although there was some discussion of unification before the Suez War, these discussions had played a minor role in Egyptian-Syrian relations (and even in Syrian politics of the period). ₁₃ That would now change. The Suez War catalyzed both domestic turmoil in Syria and unification fever. ₁₄ Such developments contributed to and were exacerbated by another crisis the following summer when the United States, watching a growing radicalization of Syrian politics and growth of the Communist Party, attempted to engineer a pro-U.S. coup in Syria. Nasser responded by sending his troops outside Egypt for the first time in a symbolic show of support. ₁₅ The demand for unification and the radicalization of regional politics took another step forward.

Saudi Arabia, which was allied with Egypt because of their common opposition to the Hashemite monarchies, now became ever more suspicious and fearful of Nasser’s growing power, particularly as Nasser flirted with rewriting the regional rules of the game and Saudi Arabia found it had its own Free Officers movement. Therefore, while Saudi Arabia remained aligned with Nasser publicly, privately it began to express greater concerns about Nasser’s growing power, contemplate how it could best shield itself from him, stress its Islamic credentials, and distance itself from Egypt and toward the West, though with a method and style that would retain its distance from Iraq. ₁₆

Lebanon faced a major political crisis as a consequence of the war because the government refused to sever relations with Britain and France. As a result, Lebanese premier Abdullah Yafi resigned, asserting that Lebanon should adopt the same responses to the crisis as the other Arab states and that its failure to do so would only arouse further suspicion of Lebanon’s place in the Arab world. ₁₇ Many Lebanese were sympathetic to Nasser’s message before October 1956, and the Suez War only swelled and intensified their numbers and further weakened the credentials of conservative politicians. ₁₈

King Hussein, though historically aligned with the West, weathered the storm because he had demonstrated greater allegiance to Nasser during the past year. In early 1956 he had publicly refused to sign the Baghdad Pact and pledged his commitment to Nasser’s concept of neutrality. And then in October he concluded a military agreement with Nasser as Arab-Israeli tensions were rising and it appeared that Israel’s army was heading east and not west. ₁₉ Hussein took the additional step of offering his services to Nasser upon hearing the news of the invasion. But Jordan’s Arab credentials remained suspect so long as it remained allied with Britain. Because Hussein refused to break relations with Britain as it had with France because of the financial costs, ₂₀ the pressures on the palace persisted. Then Jordanian prime minister Sulayman al-Nabulsi announced that Jordan would “in principle, accept the Arab grant offered by Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, in place of the Arab and British grants to the National Guard and army, respectively,” and take the necessary steps to abrogate the Anglo-Jordanian agreement, an unequal treaty concluded under special circumstances and recently violated by Britain. ₂₁ On January 19, 1957, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt signed the Arab Solidarity Agreement in Cairo. ₂₂ Although Hussein put on his best face in public and warmly toasted the agreement, he was less enthusiastic in private and confessed that regional and domestic pressures left him no choice. ₂₃

Still, Hussein was not out of the woods. Throughout 1957 he was subjected to a series of attacks from abroad. But far more disturbing and ominous were the attacks from home. Briefly, from the time of the Suez War through April 1957 Prime Minister Nabulsi was actively attempting to bring Jordan into the nationalist camp, touching off a political crisis and struggle for political control between the king, who saw himself as the defender of Jordan’s sovereignty and orientation toward the West, and a prime minister who was intent on integrating Jordan into Arab nationalism. ₂₄ In an interview with the New York Times on December 15, 1956, Nabulsi proclaimed that “Jordan cannot live forever as Jordan. Jordan must be connected militarily, economically, and politically” with other Arab states. ₂₅ Hussein ended this flirtation with Arab nationalism in April 1957 when he disbanded the cabinet, moved against an attempted coup, and took the domestic reins. ₂₆ Although still insecure in the region and at home for the remainder of the year, Hussein retained control through domestic and regional maneuvers designed to contain his enemies and keep them off balance.

Iraq’s Nuri al-Said, Britain’s chief Arab ally, suffered much from the invasion, and his fate was largely sealed by the British he so favored. As tensions mounted on the Israeli-Jordanian border during the month of October, Egypt increased its media barrage against Iraq. Oddly borrowing from the title of Emile Zola’s famous essay defending Captain Alfred Dreyfuss, Egyptian interior minister Salim Salim penned an article entitled “I Accuse,” in which he charged that Nuri al-Said had turned his back on the Arab world, handed imperialism an entry, was a lackey of the British ambassador, and gave the Baghdad Pact its very name. ₂₇ Iraq attempted to break out of its isolation and demonstrate its Arabist credentials by concluding an agreement with Jordan that would allow Iraqi troops to be stationed there, ostensibly to defend the Arab nation against an Israeli attack, though actually designed to shield Iraq from its regional critics. ₂₈ Nuri al-Said’s dwindling prestige virtually evaporated when Iraq’s chief ally, the one to which it clung for security, invaded Egypt in concert with Israel. ₂₉

Nasser showed no mercy for the weak. In a speech immediately following the war Nasser recounted how the various Arab leaders had phoned to offer their troops to Egypt and the Arab nation; the lone leader not on Nasser’s roll call of honor was Nuri al-Said. ₃₀ Later Cairo criticized Iraq’s “neutrality” in the war, declaring this a sure sign of imperialism’s success against the Arab nation and that the Baghdad Pact represented an unsuccessful attempt to destroy the Arab countries. ₃₁ Syria was equally merciless in its attacks on Nuri al-Said, claiming that the Baghdad Pact meant that Iraq had helped Israel and the imperialist countries to carry out their campaign against the Arab nation. ₃₂ And just when matters could not get worse for Said, they did. On November 17 Syrian officials announced that they had uncovered a plot by Iraq to overthrow the Syrian government and bring to power a pro-Iraqi regime. As fate would have it, the coup was planned for the very day that the Suez War began, inextricably tying Said to the invasion and Israel. ₃₃

Said attempted to defend himself by calling for calm and by undertaking a series of countermeasures that included severing diplomatic ties with France, reminding his listeners of Iraq’s historical contributions to the Arab nation, and sending a division to Jordan. ₃₄ This was not enough to halt the deteriorating domestic scene and to salvage his Arab credentials. So Said imposed martial law on October 31, suspended Britain’s participation in the Baghdad Pact (and subsequently emphasized that it was now a true regional defense organization and something of an Islamic Pact), and adopted a more radical stance on the issue of Palestine. ₃₅ In a lengthy address delivered on December 16 Said provided his own understanding of the Baghdad Pact and stressed his long-standing Arab credentials: “The call to Arab nationalism is not accidental to me, it is my very being.” ₃₆ The speech did little to rescue him from domestic criticism or regional estrangement.

In fact, Nasser responded with another media barrage, ridiculing Said and his Arabism that allowed him to be a handmaiden of Western imperialism. ₃₇ In January 1957 Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Jordan concluded the “Treaty of Arab Solidarity”; Iraq was notably absent, pointedly excluded, and now isolated from the Arab world. Although the Baghdad Pact and Nuri al-Said survived this and other episodes for the next eighteen months, the Suez War had completely undermined his position, and he could do little to resuscitate it, save distancing himself from the pact that bore his stamp and the Iraqi capital’s name. What was once a source of prestige was now a lightning rod.

The Suez War shifted the ground toward Nasserism, strengthening all who were associated with radical politics and undermining all those associated with the West. Nasser’s power came not from the barrel of a gun—after all, he had just been routed by Israel—but from his symbolic capital and his ability to frame the Suez War as part of a history of imperialism that had dismembered the Arab nation and continued to keep it powerless. Broadcasting his message of the threat posed by the West to the Arab nation and speaking of the need to have the conservative Arab leaders change their tune or be swept from office, Nasser mobilized the streets throughout the region and brought pressure to bear on the governments to align their policies with his. Iraq and Jordan found themselves confronting a nearly unresolvable dilemma: in private they were increasingly resolute that Nasser had to be stopped and was a greater menace as a consequence of the Suez War, but in public they found it more difficult to oppose him because of his unrivaled prestige and the soiled reputation of the West. ₃₈ To shield themselves from criticism and from being labeled enemies of nationalism and agents of imperialism, Jordan and Iraq—particularly Jordan—attempted to portray themselves as allies of Nasser’s brand of Arabism (though not necessarily of Nasser) and clamped down on domestic opposition groups. But regional radicalization was the dominant trend, leaving the Hashemites in Iraq and Jordan increasingly isolated in Arab politics and their own capitals. This radicalization of Arab politics, moreover, increasingly demanded that Arab officials not only shun associations with the West but also fulfill Arabism’s highest aspiration—unification.

 

Arabism and the Rise and Decline of Unification

The call for unification had receded from the agenda since 1945, and the Arab states that once were its principal champions, Iraq and Jordan, were now associated with conservatism and imperialism. But unification, the summit for many Arab nationalists, became a reality when Egypt and Syria announced the creation of the United Arab Republic (UAR) on February 1, 1958. Although the architects of the federation presented it as a natural and logical development in the steady march of Arab nationalism, behind the scenes its creation was quite messy and something of a shotgun marriage. ₃₉ That Syria and Egypt found themselves the highly reluctant partners at the altar of unification was a testimony to Syrian domestic politics, Nasser’s attempt to maintain his symbolic standing, and the politics of impression management.

What possessed the Syrian leaders to get on a plane in January 1958, fly to Cairo, and offer up the Syrian state to Nasser? The triggering factors were ideology and the domestic turmoil that had been Syria’s decadelong undoing and had increasingly defined its political life since 1956. The Suez War and the crisis of 1957 strengthened the Syrian Ba’ath Party, whose intellectual writings stressed the singularity of the “eternal nation” and the necessity of having this one nation united under a single state. ₄₀ But the Communist Party was another beneficiary of this domestic turmoil; in fact, its growing popularity placed it on the verge of taking state power. The Ba’ath Party was not alone in fearing this outcome; so too did a highly conservative element within the military. By the final days of 1957 the only safe predictions for the future of Syrian politics were that the Communists were likely to take power in the near future and that Syria’s unending governability crisis was not about to end.

The Ba’athists and the military turned to Nasser and the prospect of a federation with Egypt to halt the ongoing political turmoil and to keep the Communists at bay. ₄₁ The Ba’athists surmised that they would achieve numerous domestic and ideological goals, for they would realize an ideal of unity that they probably would not accomplish through electoral means; obstruct the growing power of the Communists; have an opportunity to school Nasser in a more pristine form of Arabism; and obtain a vehicle for exporting their revolution abroad and enhancing their political prestige. ₄₂ Simply put, having Nasser rule the Syrians seemed preferable to trying to govern themselves. ₄₃ Few Syrian politicians could oppose the idea of union, and even the Communists had to pay lip service to this goal. “The idea of Arab unity was irresistible, and, like motherhood, no politician with any aspirations could speak against it.” ₄₄ That such a political arrangement was thinkable owed to the salience of the idea of unity in Syrian intellectual life and the perceived artificiality of the “region” of Syria. ₄₅

Nasser was hardly overjoyed by the Syrian proposal. Never one to trumpet the unification theme, he responded coolly to the recent unity discussions with Syria, and the Egyptian public was hardly pushing Nasser in that direction. ₄₆ So when the Syrian leadership landed in Cairo and presented Nasser with the gift of Syria, his lack of enthusiasm came as no surprise. To unify with Syria meant to become entangled in the web of Syrian politics that had been the demise of so many. No wonder, then, that his initial response to the visiting Syrians was to tell them to get their house in order first. ₄₇ But they persisted and insisted that this was the moment to realize a central tenet of Arab nationalism and the only way to stifle the growing power of the Communists.

Nasser confronted a dilemma that was partly of his own making. How could he, the leader of Arabism, reject the pinnacle of Arabism’s aspirations? To refuse the Syrian offer would be to deny his own leadership and to turn his back on the role that he created and that bore his name. But governing Syria might be his political undoing and force him to squander resources on a losing foreign policy adventure. According to one aide to Nasser, some within Egypt’s inner circle strongly advised against this entanglement, fearing that it would undermine Egypt’s other political and economic interests. ₄₈

Impression management rather than military calculations led Nasser to accept the merger. Nasser ultimately accepted the Syrian invitation because of his calculation that he had more to lose by rejecting the unity agreement than he did by accepting the trouble that was Syrian politics. “For Nasser to refuse unity would undermine his prestige,” recalled one of Nasser’s political advisers from the period. “He is an Arab leader, and if he refused unification, then how can he be an Arab leader?” ₄₉ To limit his exposure to Syrian turmoil he sought as much control over Syria’s political and economic life as possible.

The Syrian leap into Nasser’s arms was in fact a product not only of domestic survival but also a strong measure of symbolic entrapment and face saving. Syrian leaders had correctly predicted that Nasser would be cool to the idea of unity and therefore believed that they could make a dramatic gesture of unity that Nasser would turn down, thus solidifying their domestic credentials without actually having to surrender their sovereignty to Nasser. Clearly, they had not counted on Nasser’s accepting the offer. Now the Syrians were caught. They could hardly rescind their unity offer. And once the unification drive picked up steam, Syrian leaders felt compelled to accept Nasser’s control over Syrian political life, including the dissolution of the army, political parties, and most other mechanisms of social control. ₅₀ For both the Syrians and the Egyptians, then, the road to unity was paved by symbolic interactions, attempts at impression management, and then symbolic entrapment. Such symbolic exchanges led them to accept a political agreement that both considered against their strategic interests but absolutely necessary for their symbolic standing and thus regime survival.

Egypt, which had once been unification’s staunchest opponent, was now its midwife and principal champion, instantly and dramatically telescoping the idea of unification from the far and distant future into the here and now. The creation of the UAR reverberated throughout the Arab world—and Nasser made sure of it. Although Nasser was the reluctant head of the Arab world’s newest political experiment, his vitriolic speeches in Cairo and Damascus betrayed not a hint of hesitation: he urged all Arabs to join the UAR in its inevitable march to unity and glory and challenged Iraq and Jordan to follow in Syria and Egypt’s footsteps, for public opinion demanded it and the UAR welcomed it. ₅₁ Yemen soon joined Nasser’s bandwagon and became a member of the UAR.

The Jordanian and Iraqi governments, Hashemites who were closely tied to the British and who had long waved the banner of unity, felt the symbolic aftershocks of the UAR and the growing pressures from their societies to match unification with unification. ₅₂ In fact, Iraq and Jordan had discussed unification as recently as late 1957 when their Arab credentials were in desperate need of repair. ₅₃ They reconvened their unity talks now that the UAR was hanging over their heads and hurriedly concluded their own agreement, the Arab Federation, on February 14, 1958. Few mistook the Arab Federation for the UAR. The former was decidedly less ambitious than the latter and had none of the dramatic effect. ₅₄ In his speech announcing the Arab Federation a publicly reserved Nuri al-Said immediately warned against expecting too much too soon by stressing how the federation was the beginning of unification and that the road would be long and rocky. ₅₅ Said’s sober tone reflected not only caution and conservatism but also disagreement between the two thrones, including who would head the federal army, whether the Iraqi or Jordanian military would be preeminent, and who had the authority to ratify and declare treaties. ₅₆ The first two points concerned who would acquire authority and power, whereas the third reflected King Hussein’s insistence that Jordan be exempt from now having to honor the Baghdad Pact lest he repeat past mistakes. ₅₇

Nasser gave a perfunctory welcome to the Arab Federation, but in no time a war of words ensued between the two rival federations. ₅₈ Cairo declared that Arab unity without liberation from the West was sham unity, Iraq and Jordan should reject the Baghdad Pact and ties to the West, Iraq had consulted with the West and Israel before the agreement, the other members of the Baghdad Pact actively opposed Arab unity schemes, and that the Arab Federation was nothing more than another tool of the West. ₅₉ Syrian newspapers echoed these themes and observed that the Arab Federation was “something artificial and confused . . . established for negative reasons and designed to distract the populace from the UAR.” ₆₀ In response to Nasser’s claim that the Arab Federation was an entree for imperialism, a Jordanian official chided Nasser for being new to the cause of Arab nationalism and for using such unity schemes as the joint command of 1955 as a “plot to commit treachery” rather than, as Hussein viewed it, a step toward unification. ₆₁ Although the effect of Nasser’s charges on his listeners in Amman and Baghdad is unknown, the Arab public’s response to the news of the Arab Federation paled in comparison to its response to the UAR. The Arab Federation’s failure to erase the accusations against the monarchies would become evident in a few months.

The announcement of these federations alarmed Saudi Arabia and further destabilized Lebanon. Saudi Arabia did not look kindly on this federation mania. It had always opposed unification attempts in the past, particularly the Fertile Crescent schemes that united the Hashemite kingdoms in Iraq and Jordan. To demonstrate its opposition Saudi Arabia reportedly suspended its annual grant to Jordan and began to consider additional diplomatic and security measures to counteract these federations. ₆₂

Nasser and the UAR had galvanized the popular imagination in Lebanon and further destabilized an already teetering political system. The Lebanese constitution had been in dire need of reform for some time because of economic, political, and demographic changes, and although domestic forces were largely responsible for propelling the political crisis, Nasser’s fingerprints also were present and complicating matters. Lebanese president Camille Chamoun, though confessing that Lebanon was “going through a difficult ordeal,” blamed the UAR for “interfering in our internal affairs with the aim of effecting a radical change in our basic political policy.” ₆₃ The crisis bubbled along throughout the spring and summer with no resolution in sight. A friendless Iraq urged Chamoun to stay the course, fight Nasser, and establish a defense or political agreement between Iraq and Lebanon. Nuri al-Said then convened a meeting of the Baghdad Pact countries to discuss the crisis in Lebanon. ₆₄ The meeting occurred in Istanbul on July 14, but Iraq’s chair was empty.

The Hashemite monarchy met its demise in the early morning of July 14, 1958, when General Abd al-Karim Qasim and Colonel Abd al-Salaam Aref overthrew the Iraqi government. The royal family was murdered, and Nuri al-Said was killed while trying to escape the city. Although many factors led to the revolution, the Baghdad Pact and the general sense of Iraq’s isolation from Arab politics contributed mightily. ₆₅ As Hanna Batatu has written, “The pact not only perpetuated the undesired connection with the English and guaranteed them the privilege they had hitherto enjoyed but also entailed a severing of Arab ranks and an open taking of sides in the ‘cold war.’ It alienated, in other words, neutralist, nationalist, and pan-Arab opinion.” ₆₆ The Free Officers were quite clear about their distaste for the former government’s opposition to Nasserism and identification with British interests. In a directive signed by the Free Officers on the eve of the July 14 coup, the party proclaimed that the future Iraqi government would henceforth “pursue an independent Arab national policy . . . convert the ‘Arab Union’ into an authentic union between Iraq and Jordan . . . and unite on a federal basis with the U.A.R.” ₆₇ Not all segments of Iraqi society supported this brand of Arab nationalism. ₆₈ But they were unified in their rejection of the Baghdad Pact and its symbolic defection from the Arab fold. ₆₉

The Iraqi Revolution, coming on the heels of the civil unrest in Lebanon, reverberated throughout the Arab world and created the perception that revolution in the Middle East was an unstoppable tide. ₇₀ The sound of revolution crashing throughout the Middle East rang alarms in the West and led to interventions by the United States and Britain in Lebanon and Jordan, respectively. ₇₁ Chamoun, watching a pro-Western government fall to Nasser, feared that he would be next and took the countermeasure of invoking the Eisenhower Doctrine and inviting American troops to enter Lebanon to confront the “external communist threat.” ₇₂ American forces marched onto the beaches of Beirut on July 15, more likely to confront the dangers of sunburn than they were Communists. Significantly, the first postintervention Lebanese government moved to distance itself from Chamoun and the U.S. intervention by revoking the Eisenhower Doctrine and creating a détente with Egypt.

King Hussein was visibly shaken and angered by the demise of the Iraqi monarchy and the death of the royal family. In the heat of the moment he contemplated sending his troops into Iraq under the pretext of the authority granted him by the charter of the Arab Federation, but his aides cautioned him against such a move. ₇₃ More isolated than ever in Arab politics and fearing that he too would fall to Nasserite forces, Hussein invited the British army to help him stabilize the situation. In his address to the nation Hussein justified his invitation on the ground that the “mercenary” agents of Communism posed a threat to Jordanian stability and true Arab nationalism. The move, he said, was “designed to enable this poor and small country to improve its economy and develop its resources and to permit its army to preserve . . . the internal front,” thus allowing Jordan to fulfill its obligations to the Arab nation and to keep it “from the clutches of communism.” ₇₄ In later statements Hussein was less diplomatic and more direct in his condemnation of Egypt. It was public knowledge, he exclaimed, that Syria and Egypt had been plotting against Jordan and that the Communist overthrow in Iraq meant that the burden of the Arab Federation rested on his shoulders. ₇₅ Hussein charged that

Nasir’s bloodthirsty disciples massacred members of the Royal family. President Nasir is the only cause of crises in the Middle East, and unless he is dealt with, these crises will continue. Nasir is the source of difficulties and disturbances in this part of the Arab world. . . . We want Nasir to know that Arab nationalism was born before he was, and that the holy march to which he referred will make tangible progress if he disappears. 76

Nasser answered these interventions with words alone and did not dare to pick a fight with the West. Nasser predictably denied any meddling and claimed that the U.S. and British landings represented old-fashioned imperialism and an attempt to undermine Arab nationalism. ₇₇ As the Western troops took their positions in Jordan and Lebanon, Nasser and the new Iraqi leaders flew to Damascus and delivered a scathing attack on Lebanon and King Hussein, ridiculing them for siding with the imperialists and against the nationalists. Hussein might have felt temporarily braced by the British forces stationed throughout the country, but these Western allies only amplified his loneliness in the Arab world and played directly into Nasser’s hands.

The events of 1958 inaugurated a new phase in Arab politics. Whereas in recent years Arab states had been debating their relations to the West and defining Arab nationalism as nearly tantamount to neutrality and anticolonialism, now unification became a rallying cry throughout much of the Arab world. But this was hardly a phase that Arab leaders, and particularly Nasser, had longed for. That unification now came to the fore is attributable to three central factors. The combination of domestic turmoil and Ba’athist pan-Arab ideology in Syria led the political elite to propose unification with Egypt to avoid having to rule itself and to further its ideological aspirations. That the Syrian elite would look to Egypt and Nasser, whom it had mistrusted only a few years before and whose credentials it had doubted, is a testimony to the person of Nasser, the domestic chaos of Syria, and the elites’ attempt to save face at home. Further, Nasser threw caution to the wind as he calculated that he must accept the Syrian invitation to govern the ungovernable or betray his image. As one who religiously promoted himself as the leader of Arab nationalism, he could hardly reject the responsibilities that accompanied that role. Symbolic entrapment and not strategic or economic calculations led Egypt and Syria to conclude a unity agreement that they privately feared might bring little but headaches. Finally, the symbolic presence of the UAR further radicalized Arab politics and added to the grievances against the conservative regimes. The Iraqi Revolution was the most dramatic example, but the governments of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon all seemed distant from prevailing opinion and increasingly isolated at home and abroad. The debate about the meaning and practices associated with Arabism now entered a new phase; an Arab state in good standing, according to the radical states, worked toward unification.

Imperatives of regime survival, combined with symbolic accumulation and entrapment, set into motion a series of developments that increased normative integration and mutual orientation. But no evidence exists that this outcome was desired or planned by the key participants, demanded by unforgiving societal elements, or dictated by strategic considerations. Rather, the interactions between Arab leaders spun a web that increased their mutual orientation and thus their mutual vulnerability, and they did so because of their desire to maintain their standing and protect their image. The same symbolic interactions that brought Arab leaders to this highly undesired point would continue but in a more deadly and consuming fashion during the next several years.

Divisions in the Radical Camp

No sooner was Nasserism the dominant political force in the region than the radical regimes turned their attention to each other, though in the most destructive manner. Their highly poisonous interactions, and their willingness to expose each other’s dirty laundry in the most confrontational and derisive communiqués, directly contributed to the decline of Arabism and to a growing perception that unification was unlikely in the near future—if desirable at all. In short, these highly inflammatory interactions between the leaders of the radical camp encouraged not integration but differentiation. The dynamics that had driven them forward toward unity would now cause them to reverse gear.

Iraq and Egypt soon replaced their initial exchanges of praise with a vicious feud. ₇₈ Illustrative of this abrupt change was the fate of Colonel Abd al-Salaam Aref, one of the architects of the Iraqi Revolution and a leading Arab nationalist: three days after the revolution he was standing on a balcony in Damascus with Nasser, but three months later he was in jail in Baghdad with a death sentence imposed by his (and Nasser’s) rival, Qasim. ₇₉ Part of the reason for the chill in Egyptian-Iraqi relations derived from a split and power struggle within the Iraqi regime. Aref was a Ba’athist, member of the ruling government, and supporter of Nasser, and he championed unification with the UAR and made his sentiments publicly known as early as July 18, 1958. President Qasim, along with the large Shi’i and Kurdish minorities and the Communist Party, was less enthusiastic about unification; the president had personal reasons, whereas the Kurds and Shi’ites did not share in the Arabist fervor. The Aref-Qasim power struggle developed into a rivalry between the Ba’ath and Communist Parties, with each attempting to enlist whatever domestic, regional, and international resources it could to maintain its power base. ₈₀

This power struggle, with Qasim at the top and using his pulpit to challenge Nasser and silence the Ba’athists and other supporters of the Egyptian president, cast a pall over the radical camp and the entire region. The low point in UAR-Iraq relations came in March 1959 when Iraq brutally suppressed a UAR-sponsored uprising in Mosul. A month later Nasser joined with King Saud of Saudi Arabia to ask the Arab League to condemn Qasim as a Communist and for his actions in Mosul. ₈₁ From now until the Iraqi coup of 1963, Egyptian-Iraqi relations remained bitter. But one notable consequence of this feud was that it “marked one of the first moments in the short history of pan-Arabism when it came into conflict with nation-state nationalism or particularism on a regional scale.” ₈₂ The Egyptian-Iraqi duel led the Iraqi government to repudiate Nasser’s claim to regional leadership and to accentuate Iraqi particularism in relationship to Arab nationalism. This was not the first time that such themes emerged, but it foreshadowed a string of events to come in the radical camp as their brutal interactions would further the cause of statism.

The cause of unification suffered a major blow on September 28, 1961, when Syria announced its withdrawal from the UAR. The sources of the secession largely revolved around Nasser’s strong hand in Syrian political and economic life. ₈₃ But a contributing cause can be traced to the preunification period and the fundamental differences over the meaning of Arabism. Nasser’s Arabism preached the interdependence of Arab security and power among sovereign Arab states, but the Syrian Ba’athists identified Arab nationalism as entailing an organic link among Arabs that demanded a singular political authority. Nasser and the Syrian Ba’athists, then, were destined for a collision course, a “long misunderstanding between them on what was meant by unity—a dialogue at cross-purposes—which only the painful union experiment brought into the open.” ₈₄

The collapse of the UAR and the public fallout that ensued only reinforced the understanding that this unification did little to extinguish national differences. In fact, it exacerbated them. In Syria another debate emerged about its relationship to Arab nationalism and, accordingly, the Syrian national identity. Syrian politics was largely defined by different strands of Syrian and Arab nationalism, and the rise of the Ba’ath Party in the late 1950s represented a pan-Arab vision and the most powerful voice of the period. The secession and charges against Nasser, however, reinvigorated a debate about Syria’s national identity. Rabinovich has described what happened:

The experience of union with a much larger, stronger, and rather self-assertive nation-state strengthened the feeling of Syrian distinctiveness and the notion of a Syrian entity, which in early 1958 had been very weak. But this change found no overt ideological expression as no one dared challenge the doctrine of pan-Arab nationalism and unity. The proponents of Syria’s renewed independence and sovereignty found themselves in the awkward situation of having to defend their position while professing allegiance to a doctrine that denounced it. 85

During the eighteen months between the Syrian secession of September 1961 and the Syrian coup of March 1963 the Syrian government, while clearly wrestling with the relationship between the Syrian national identity and the projects of Arabism, attempted to maintain its ideological standing by forwarding various unification schemes and occasionally drawing closer to Iraq. ₈₆

Nasser was ideologically and politically stunned by the demise of the unification that he never wanted. Although he likened the secession to a coup, no amount of rhetorical camouflage could undo the damage done by Syria’s catalogue of charges against him. ₈₇ Unaccustomed to being on the defensive, he moved in two different directions. The first was a hint of revisionism and a drift toward a more centrist version of Arab nationalism. In an interview with West German television a month before the Syrian secession Nasser revealed a new flexibility toward the concept of Arab unity, stressing a progressive development from “solidarity, to alliance, to total constitutional unity.” ₈₈ Shortly after the coup Nasser confidant Mohamed Heikal insisted that unions must have a real foundation, that is, be based on certain political and economic conditions, and Nasser confessed that he told the Syrians on January 15, 1958, that any constitutional union should have a five-year waiting period and should be consummated only after they have achieved an economic, military, or cultural union. ₈₉ Although shaken by the secession, Egyptian society, always wary of Egypt’s relationship to Arab nationalism and suspicious of these so-called organic links to the Fertile Crescent, “could now breathe a sigh of relief.” ₉₀ One response to the secession, then, was to revert to a more Egypt-centered view and retreat from the idea of unification and toward Nasser’s original view of Arabism.

But such hints of ideological revisionism were overshadowed by ideological purification. To shield himself from the Syrian accusations and to reestablish his Arab credentials Nasser purified Egypt’s Arab message. Now Mohamed Heikal published his famous essay distinguishing between Egypt as a state and Egypt as a revolution. Although as a state Egypt would conduct itself in a manner so becoming, as a revolution Egypt would go over the heads of other Arab leaders, deliver its message to the masses, and foment radical change. ₉₁ Nasser, who once spoke of “unity of ranks” and implied that regimes of divergent orientation could cooperate to confront common external threats, now began to champion a “unity of purpose” to best further the goal of true unity and revolution. ₉₂ In one account of the collapse of the UAR Nasser confessed that his error was to consort with Syrian conservatives and reactionaries. ₉₃ Never again, he told his audience.

This renewed religious zeal meant trouble for Nasser’s enemies at home and abroad. On the home front he moved against the bourgeoisie in a series of nationalizations ostensibly intended to further his brand of Arab socialism. On the regional front he proclaimed the necessity of maintaining ideological purity and began challenging radical and conservative governments alike. He refused to recognize the legitimacy of the Syrian government, delivered a relentless series of indictments in regard to its supposed conservatism, and more openly challenged the conservative states. ₉₄ Soon after the secession he withdrew his troops from the Arab force protecting Kuwait because it was unseemly for the vanguard of the revolution to be stationed alongside the reactionary monarchies of Jordan and Saudi Arabia. ₉₅

Egyptian troops departed from one part of the Arabian Peninsula only to find themselves at war in another—Yemen. In September 1962 Imam Ahmed of Yemen died and was succeeded by his son Mohammed al-Bader. Soon thereafter Bader was overthrown by the chief of his royal guards, Abdallah al-Sallal, who formed and headed the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC). The RCC ended the imamite and the reign of the Hamid al-Din family, established the Yemen Arab Republic, and pledged loyalty to Nasser and radical Arabism. Bader made his way north, where he established the counterrevolution among local loyal tribes. The republicans, headed by Sallal, and the royalists, headed by Bader, were now involved in a bloody civil war. ₉₆

Saudi Arabia and Egypt soon became embroiled in the Yemen conflict. Saudi Arabia dreaded the thought of Nasser protégés gaining a foothold on the Arabian Peninsula, which the Saudis had always considered of immense strategic value, and they feared that Nasser’s real agenda was the overthrow of the Saudi monarchy. ₉₇ Nasser’s decision to support the RCC had little to do with military politics and everything to do with symbolic politics. As the leader of Arab nationalism and still reeling from the Syrian secession, Nasser could hardly reject the request for aid from the RCC and was captivated by the opportunity to bolster his radical credentials. ₉₈ As one Egyptian official of the period put it, “Nasser intervened in Yemen to recover his prestige. It is natural for a leader to try and restore himself after the failure of the UAR.” ₉₉ Nasser responded to the Syrian secession with a pinch of revisionism and a heap of ideological purification and impression management.

Nasser’s regional recovery had less to do with his actions and more to do with a quick succession of coups, the first in Iraq in February and then in Syria in March 1963. Both revolutions presented themselves as correctives to the conservatism and authoritarianism of the regimes that preceded them, and this meant above all a renewed emphasis on unification and their longing for approval from Egypt. ₁₀₀ The Iraqis immediately proclaimed their desire to form a political union with Nasser. ₁₀₁ Such proclamations stemmed not only from ideology but also from a desire to generate political support from the demonstrators in the streets of Baghdad who were shouting the name of Nasser. ₁₀₂ The Syrian coup also brought to power a government that proclaimed its stand with Arab unity and wanted a détente with Nasser. ₁₀₃ Although the new Syrian regime was not necessarily engineered or run by members of the Ba’ath Party, it did call itself a unionist government and wanted a warmer relationship with Nasser, something that the previous eighteen months suggested was imperative for domestic stability. ₁₀₄ The street demonstrations in Damascus in favor of unification with Egypt in mid-March only reinforced the domestic imperative for unification; in fact, while the regime hardly warmed to the idea of its citizens’ clamoring for Nasser, it could hardly break up these demonstrations. ₁₀₅ Instinctually and politically, the Syrian leaders were determined to rekindle the idea of unity with Egypt; after all, they “could not allow themselves to be outbid in enthusiasm for unity.” ₁₀₆ In general, the popular pressures in Syria and Iraq for unification with Nasser placed their regimes in a difficult position of being on record for desiring unification but being quite fearful of giving up their power and national identities.

Nasser watched these coups and demonstrations with both satisfaction and alarm. After suffering the pain of the secession and feeling himself on the defensive for the past two years, he was visibly pleased by these coups and felt vindicated by the testimonials of praise coming from the Fertile Crescent. But he worried about being dragged into another unification scheme that he neither sought nor saw to his advantage. Indeed, all three governments approached the prospect of unity with tremendous reservations. Echoing Nasser’s reservations, Mohamed Heikal cautioned that “unity of ranks is more important than unity of purpose” or “any other form of constitutional unity.” ₁₀₇ In his Unity Day Speech on the fifth anniversary of the establishment of the UAR Nasser proclaimed that “for us, the concept of Arab unity at present does not mean constitutional unity or paper unity. Arab unity means that we all stand against enemies, that we all meet on great occasions, that we all face enemies as one man, and that we all celebrate our victories.” ₁₀₈ Still, Nasser willingly accepted the public call by Syria and Iraq for unity talks because it provided him with the opportunity to erase the stain of the UAR, reassert his leadership over these radical rivals to the Arab monarchies, and point another weapon at the conservative Arab states. ₁₀₉

All three regimes approached unification with a mixture of fear and necessity; as self-proclaimed radical states that had as their governments’ stated goals the erasure of the legacy of San Remo and the creation of a single state for a single nation, they could hardly sidestep the challenge. But to erase their boundaries might only leave them with greater troubles. Syria, Iraq, and Egypt laced their pledges for unification with character assassination. Syria initially and quickly proclaimed its willingness to engage in unification talks, but the regime also noted for good measure that Nasser had done his best to sabotage this form of true Arab expression. ₁₁₀ Nasser was hardly outdone in this contest of recriminations, and Iraq was not far behind.

These destructive and suspicious dynamics surrounded the unity talks between the three countries. The talks had three phases: five tripartite meetings from March 14 to 16; five bilateral meetings of Syria and Egypt from March 19 to 20; and a series of bilateral and tripartite meetings from April 6 to 14. The history of these failed talks is copiously detailed in Malcolm Kerr’s The Arab Cold War. ₁₁₁ But one of their principal characteristics was that the courtship defined by mutual mistrust, suspicion, and antagonism carried over into their formal negotiations. Cairo and Damascus became champion mudslingers. During the negotiations Mohamed Heikal published an article under the now familiar title of “I Accuse!” in which he portrayed Syria as attempting to discredit Nasser and to delay unification through provocative acts. ₁₁₂ Syria responded in kind. ₁₁₃ These rivalries colored the proposals that each brought to the negotiating table. Nasser originally proposed a union of it and Syria for four months, and if this trial period was successful, Iraq could join. Or, Nasser offered, perhaps Iraq and Syria could unify first. But neither Iraq nor Syria enjoyed the prospect of unification without Nasser because only he could give them the legitimacy that they sought for domestic stability. ₁₁₄ In the end each wanted a loose federation rather than immediate unification because Syria and Iraq feared Nasser’s long arm and Nasser feared becoming engulfed in Syrian and Iraq politics. ₁₁₅ “Everyone wants to show that he is for unity but without taking practical steps because of the tremendous mistrust,” recalled an Egyptian official from the period. ₁₁₆

The desire to project the image of unity without making the necessary sacrifices became painfully clear soon after the announcement of the Tripartite Unity Agreement, the Declaration of Union Accord, of April 17. ₁₁₇ But at first there was much rejoicing. As Egypt, Syria, and Iraq announced to the waiting Arab world the fruit of their negotiations, they stressed how this unification was an important step toward fulfilling Arabism’s goals, and how the “nonliberated” states, most notably Jordan, were now living on borrowed time. Crowds swarmed the streets throughout much of the Arab world, shouting, “Nasser! Nasser!” ₁₁₈ The memories of the UAR were seemingly erased if only for the moment by the promise of another unification experiment. It is worth emphasizing that Israel hardly figured in the discussion surrounding the agreement, and nearly all attention was directed at satisfying the long-standing desire for unification as the fulfillment of Arab nationalism. The crowds filled the streets and proclamations filled the airwaves as the tide of unification moved to reclaim the “nonliberated” Arab capitals and not nonliberated Palestine.

King Hussein, who reveled publicly in the demise of the UAR and gained some breathing space from the infighting in the radical camp, watched these events with great alarm. He viewed the Iraqi and Syrian coups as a sign of his encirclement. ₁₁₉ The media campaign unleashed by the radical capitals justified his paranoia. One broadcast at the height of the unification discussions asked Hussein if he wanted to be a friend of the Arabs—if so, “then remove the British crown from your head and trample it under your feet. We do not think that you will do so. Then issue your royal orders to the British imperialist bases in Jordan to leave Jordan immediately.” ₁₂₀ The unity talks and these highly incendiary broadcasts triggered rioting in Jordan, and Hussein found himself in the uncomfortable but familiar position of being a stranger in his own capital. ₁₂₁ Hussein responded in his usual manner by portraying the radical states as Communists, asserting that Arab nationalism must respect state sovereignty, and imposing strict curfews. Replying to the tendency of the radical states to classify Arab states by degrees of liberation, Jordanian official Wasfi al-Tal noted that “the Communist Party was the first to make such a classification.” ₁₂₂ In a later review of the principles of Jordanian foreign policy Tal insisted that “every Arab country has the right to choose the form of Government it deems suitable to its conditions.” ₁₂₃ These and other statements by the Jordanian government did not have their intended effect, for the announcement of the unity agreement unleashed another wave of protests. The Jordanian Parliament passed a resolution demanding unity, and it appeared as if there would be a replay of 1958, though this time without an Iraq to forge a fictitious and safe union. ₁₂₄ This time, however, Hussein was rescued not by the British but by his nemeses.

The tide of unification was obstructed by the signatories to the recent unity agreement. Iraq, Syria, and Egypt hardly had a honeymoon. Immediately following the agreement the Syrian government expelled the Nasserites from its inner circle because of personal and unionist politics. ₁₂₅ As the animosity raged, it became increasingly apparent that this was a marriage heading quickly toward divorce. Then, after months of political hostilities, on July 22 Nasser announced Egypt’s withdrawal from the agreement and delivered a scathing attack on Damascus. ₁₂₆ This would not be the end of Egypt’s accusations against its ex-partners, for during the next few months it would repeat the theme that Syria and Iraq were using the cloak of Arab unity to move against their domestic opposition and to extinguish true Arabist aspirations. ₁₂₇ To add insult to injury Nasser published a transcript of the failed talks as a way of demonstrating his correctness and the shallow Arabism of his rivals. Although the Syrian and Iraqi regimes accused Nasser of doctoring the transcripts, they were highly mortified by the image of their excessive deference to Nasser.

The demise of the unity agreement was a blow to Syria and Iraq. Although the Egyptian regime could survive politically without the agreement, Syria’s and Iraq’s domestic popularity depended on this ideological prop. To shore up their regimes both Iraq and Syria lashed out in every direction possible: they attacked Nasser and used Nasserism as a code word for conservatism, made preparations for their unification, wrapped themselves in the symbols of union among the three, and insisted that they were the true carriers of pure Arabism. ₁₂₈ Significantly, the Syrian Ba’athists began to emphasize that true unity can be achieved only after a struggle by and among separate movements that reflect the residue of regional differences. Through such doctrinal maneuvering the Syrian regime attempted to justify its conflict with Nasser, distinguish its brand of Arabism, and prepare the way for a union with Iraq and without Egypt. ₁₂₉ Iraq too used similar ideological devices and political instruments to deflect domestic criticism, stressing its singularity and the differences between Arab countries. ₁₃₀ To recover their prestige and to satisfy the minimal expectations that might be had for two Arab nationalist parties, on October 8 Syria and Iraq announced their desire for unification of their two “regions” by beginning with a treaty of military unity. Putting aside their rivalry with Nasser in the spirit of public relations, Iraqi and Syrian officials flew to Cairo to encourage Nasser to join their compact. ₁₃₁

Nasser, though somewhat alarmed that Syria and Iraq were nearing formal unification after years of traditional Egyptian opposition to this outcome, declined to join. ₁₃₂ Cairo portrayed the agreement as mere theatrics, nothing more than an attempt by both regimes to shore up their domestic situations, ₁₃₃ and accused their leaders of worse:

Michel Aflaq [the leader of the Syrian Ba’ath] must have visited an ear specialist in London who has been able to restore his sense of hearing. As a result the little philosopher has heard the Arab people’s curses. . . . However, London and Paris reports have said that Michel Aflaq did not meet with eye, ear, and throat specialists, but that he had met with British and French political experts interested in seeing Aflaq grow more deaf, more blind, and more dumb. 134

Nasser was exploiting the fact that Aflaq had a first name that was hardly Arab and was phonetically tied to France; in doing so Nasser was coupling Aflaq and Syria to imperialism. ₁₃₅ But his taunts only aggravated the more injurious act of not joining the unity agreement. A unity agreement without Nasser was not much to celebrate. In contrast to the tripartite agreement in April, which brought the crowd to its feet in Damascus and Baghdad and rioting in Jordan, the Iraqi-Syrian agreement was greeted by polite applause in Damascus and Baghdad and quiet in Jordan. ₁₃₆

The failure of these unity talks and the subsequent public airing of the radical laundry damaged the desirability, legitimacy, and overall appeal of unification. ₁₃₇ Symbolic exchanges and symbolic competition drove several Arab leaders to toss their states into the unification ring; symbolic exchanges and competition encouraged these same leaders to retrieve them. They talked their way into a unity drive that they privately lamented but to which they were rhetorically committed. Each leader’s response was to present himself as a sincere believer and his rivals as using Arabism to their own cynical and self-interested advantage. Hurling accusations at each other that they once reserved for King Hussein, they provided direct evidence for the growing sentiment that Arab leaders were using Arabism either to maintain their domestic power or to extend their regional influence.

The goal of unification had been soiled by its architects, and Arab politics now began to have a different look and texture. According to Tahseen Bashir, a Nasser spokesperson during the 1960s, the failure of the unity talks meant that unification was now “gone with the wind.” ₁₃₈ Many who once counted themselves among the unity faithful now began questioning the utility if not ultimate futility of pursuing unification—at least with these governments, with these means, at this time. Although many Arab leaders still mouthed the words of unification, from now on they became less quick to portray their military, political, and economic agreements as a step toward unification; indeed, the number of concrete proposals toward this end now declined precipitously. The search for the Arab community contributed to and bred hostility, rivalry, and fragmentation; consequently, Arab leaders began to conduct and orient themselves in a different mannner.

In such an environment Arab leaders began to rethink the relationship between the state and Arab unity. One immediate outcome was that Arab officials began to forward interpretations of Arab nationalism that were consistent with sovereignty and that were now well-received. King Hussein now had an easier time defending his definition of an Arab nationalism that was consistent with sovereignty and based on “equality.” ₁₃₉ Hussein wrote that “my own concept of Arab nationalism . . . is different from what I understand President Nasser’s to be. If I interpret his aims properly, he believes that political unity and Arab nationalism are synonymous. Evidently he also believes that Arab nationalism can only be identified with a particular brand of Arab unity. I disagree. This view can only lead, as it has in the past, to more disunity.” Conversely, Hussein believed that “Arab nationalism can only survive through complete equality. It is in our power to unite on all important issues, to organize in every respect and to dispel friction between us. . . . Let all this be undertaken through an active, respected Arab League, in which . . . danger of domination by any member of the family would be eliminated.” ₁₄₀ After the highly charged and ultimately dispiriting unity debate, this understanding of Arab nationalism now seemed less conservative and more practical. And although many Arab intellectuals and leaders who were closely associated with Nasser’s version of Arab nationalism hardly embraced Hussein publicly, they did echo many of the tenets that he was espousing. Indeed, Hussein gained some support from an unlikely source—Nasser. Nasser had never championed unification, had entered into the UAR and the unity talks with suspicion and concern, and left these talks deciding to expunge unification from his concept of Arab unity. ₁₄₁

Unification in practice left a residue of particularism and growing support for a conception of Arab nationalism that was consistent with sovereignty. “The impact of the unity failures on the thinking of Arab leaders,” recalled one Nasser aide, “was to shift the concept of unity to something more practical and desirable like cooperation.” ₁₄₂ Their own strategic and symbolic interactions moved them toward a new understanding of Arab unity, left them less vulnerable to symbolic sanctions on matters of unification because of these recent experiences, and less able to use the themes of unification for symbolic capital and as a source of symbolic sanctions. This did not exhaust the possibilities and opportunities for symbolic competition, as would become evident in the next few years. But it did mean that Arab states had begun to converge on a meaning of Arab unity that was consistent with sovereignty and that left more room to distinguish their local identities from the Arab national identities.

 

The Debate About Israel

Since the Suez War the Arab-Israeli conflict had taken a backseat to the acrimonious debate among Arab states about their organizing principles. But now that would change. The backdrop was Syria’s attempt to reclaim its prestige after the failed unity talks. In the fall of 1963 Syria began raising the matter of Israel’s plans to pump water from the Jordan River for its irrigation projects. The Arab states were on record as opposing the Israeli scheme, and Syria now had the perfect foil for embarrassing Nasser; after all, Nasser could outbid Syria on unification, but Egypt had no such leverage in the Arab-Israeli conflict. ₁₄₃

With Israel insisting that it would carry out its irrigation plan, the Arab states in opposition, and Syria chiding Nasser for being weak on Israel, the Arab-Israeli conflict careened toward a major crisis. Nasser watched with some alarm, for Syria’s accusations were quite effective at painting him as a conservative, and he feared that Syria’s belligerent rhetoric might cause an unwanted war. On December 16, 1963, the Cairo weekly Rose el Youssef published an article that claimed that “unstable” Syria, “unfriendly” Jordan, and “isolationist” Saudi Arabia were trying to stab Egypt in the back by involving it in a war with Israel. ₁₄₄ The article signaled that Nasser had no intention of being manipulated into a war that was not of his choosing. But he still had to address Syria’s rather pointed accusations and control its foreign policy actions lest he suffer a loss of prestige and/or find himself at war with Israel.

The Summit System

Nasser’s response was a major diplomatic and political coup: on December 23 he invited his fellow Arab leaders to come to Cairo to discuss the Arab-

Israeli conflict. ₁₄₅ By reaching out to all Arab states, both radical and conservative, Nasser accomplished a number of important goals. First, he could use this multilateral mechanism to quiet the Syrians while maintaining his prestige and leadership. ₁₄₆ By bringing the Arab states into a multilateral framework, insisting on collectivism, and adhering to the principle of the “Arab consensus,” he could better control Syria’s foreign policy. ₁₄₇ Second, the failed unity talks left him bloodied, and Israel provided a useful way to reclaim his leadership. Third, Israel was the perfect vehicle for forging a détente between Egypt and the conservative Arab states that he had taunted and threatened for the past decade. “Having repeatedly failed in attempts to impose his will on other Arab rulers,” observed Kamal Salibi, “President Nasser was starting to present himself as no more than first among equals.” ₁₄₈ Fourth, finding some common ground with the conservative Arab states in general and Saudi Arabia in particular might help resolve the Yemen war and enable Nasser to shift resources from abroad to more pressing domestic issues. ₁₄₉

The era of summitry symbolized an important change in Arab politics. The growing particularism in Arab politics, partly a result of the failed integration attempts, produced a new form of organization in Arab politics: summit meetings. Whereas Arab states had been fighting each other for the past several years over whether Arab nationalism was consistent with sovereignty, now Nasser, the symbolic leader of Arabism, signaled that he was less interested in this debate, had reconciled himself to a statism of sorts (though he did not necessarily consider other Arab leaders his peers), and wanted to find some common ground. By inviting the conservative Arab states to Cairo, Nasser was conceding that coexistence should define inter-Arab politics, and coexistence was tantamount to regime survival. ₁₅₀ King Hussein quickly recognized that Nasser’s invitation to Cairo was not about Israel but about a new phase in Arab politics, and he enthusiastically accepted a proposal that he viewed as vindicating his interpretation of Arab nationalism. ₁₅₁ Good news from Hussein’s perspective meant bad news from the Syrians’: this era of summitry meant isolation for Syria, which wanted neither a return to the spirit of unification nor this détente between the radical and the conservative states. ₁₅₂ In general, focusing on Israel, a common threat, enabled Arab leaders to temporarily overlook their differences, represented a shift in how Arab leaders displayed their credentials and where they accumulated symbolic capital, and provided a vehicle for altering the definition of and debate about Arab nationalism and the Arab national identity.

The Arab states held three summits before the Arab-Israeli War of 1967—in January and September 1964 and in September 1965. The first two summits focused on the Arab-Israeli conflict and creating new mechanisms for furthering the collective Arab effort; the third continued that debate about the Arab states’ collective response to the Israeli challenge but also spent considerable energy institutionalizing a meaning of Arab nationalism that was consistent with sovereignty. More to the point, the agenda of these summits confirmed and reinforced three related and emerging trends in inter-Arab politics: the decline of unification, the emphasis on the Arab-Israeli conflict for defining Arabism, and a move to harmonize the relationship between Arabism and sovereignty.

The decline of unification. The theme of unification was hardly heard during these summits. ₁₅₃ Although Syria and Iraq would occasionally suggest that all-Arab institutions were the wellspring of unification, the public speeches and news conferences gave little attention to unification and instead wrapped their multilateral proposals in the Arab-Israeli conflict. The lone unity agreement concluded during this period came after the second summit between the Egypt and Iraq. ₁₅₄ But Iraqi president Abd al-Salaam Aref was notably reserved as he claimed that cultural and educational unity would precede economic unity, with political unity trailing behind. ₁₅₅ In contrast to the regionwide enthusiasm that greeted the short-lived unification agreement between Egypt, Syria, and Iraq in 1963, the announcement of the Egypt-Iraqi union produced few accolades and much disdain. The Lebanese paper Al-Hayat characterized the agreement as a “personal plan” that would be difficult to implement because “the establishment of a constitutional political unity between the two countries requires the presence of two constitutions. Where are the two constitutions?” Although Nasser was wiser than he was six years earlier and recognized the difficulty of achieving unity, he could not back down because to do so “would be a worse setback than 17 April 1962 [a reference to Egyptian intervention in Yemen]. Still, if Iraq wants to orbit around Egypt, Egypt minds little so long as it does not require getting involved in Iraq like it got involved in Yemen.” ₁₅₆ Unification was disappearing from the political map. Few Arab leaders seemed willing to expend much energy working toward unification or even draping their policies in its rhetoric.

The emerging centrality of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Arab-Israeli conflict dominated the summit meetings. Israel, not unification, now became the vehicle for displaying Arab nationalist credentials. The conflict in fact now served to allocate the labels of radical and conservative. While Syria was ridiculing Nasser for turning his back on radical politics to consort with conservative Arab states, Nasser defended the conservatism of the summits by saying that “three years ago . . . there was not even talk about Palestine” and that these summits had elevated the issue to its proper place. Throughout an interview with the Egyptian newspaper Al-Hurriyah, Nasser insisted that the “ultimate Arab objective” was the liberation of Palestine, declining to discuss or comment on the issue of unification, which only recently had defined his foreign policy and his radicalism. ₁₅₇

But Nasser was equally insistent that any movement on the Arab-Israeli front, unlike the near carelessness that characterized his career in unification, be carefully orchestrated and prepared lest the Arab states find themselves in an unwanted war. Recall that one of Nasser’s principal reasons for devising the summit system was to fashion a multilateral mechanism to control Syrian foreign policy and to ensure that its unilateralist impulses did not become the Arab states’ nightmare. Nasser knew that the conservative Arab states would happily play along. King Hussein, for instance, predicted that success on the Arab-Israeli front required a slow, cautious, and careful approach; there are no shortcuts, he said, and inter-Arab differences must be settled before concrete action can be undertaken. ₁₅₈ In general, the summits were a victory for Nasser, enabling him to demonstrate resolve on the Arab-Israeli front without actually confronting Israel, and to control the more spirited members. ₁₅₉

To further the collective Arab cause the Arab states created two new instruments: the Unified Arab Command (UAC), which was announced with great fanfare but had negligible influence, and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), which was expected to have little autonomy but unexpectedly transformed inter-Arab politics and the Arab-Israeli conflict. ₁₆₀ Nasser was the principal architect of the Unified Arab Command, claiming that to stand resolute against the Israeli threat required “unified military action” and a joint command. ₁₆₁ After considerable debate the participants approved the UAC and handed Egypt the general responsibility of organizing other Arab states’ contributions. ₁₆₂ The UAC remained a paper institution. A central sticking point and the subject of intense debate at the September 1964 summit concerned whether the UAC would have access to all the frontline Arab states. ₁₆₃ Although Iraq and Egypt insisted that Arab states be allowed to transfer their forces from one country to another, Lebanon and Jordan were hardly excited about an all-Arab army under Nasser’s direction stationed on their soil. ₁₆₄ This was, after all, the same Nasser who only two years earlier had called for the removal of the Lebanese and Jordanian regimes. In the end the Arab states failed to unite and coordinate their militaries, but few of them mourned this failure. ₁₆₅

The more enduring creation of the first summit was the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Since 1948 the Arab states had ostensibly represented the Palestinians, and the Arab states had accrued much symbolic capital from that status. Nasser’s ebbing popularity was a principal reason behind his decision to sponsor the PLO; he believed that being credited with the formation of a Palestinian organization would hand him much prestige and enable him to better control the tempo of the confrontation with Israel. ₁₆₆ Hussein, traditionally opposed to the establishment of an all-embracing organization for the Palestinians that might claim the West Bank and authority over Jordan’s Palestinian population, now consented because he wanted to remain within the Arab consensus, believed that this threadbare organization posed little threat and was designed to keep the Arab-Israeli conflict quiet, and might support Jordan’s custodial role vis-à-vis the Palestinians. ₁₆₇ Hussein’s hopes were not groundless, for the PLO was designed to be a conservative institution controlled by the Arab states: the PLO was created with the understanding that it would not demand the unification of and would respect the sovereignty of the Arab states. The general opinion at the summit was that, by creating the PLO but by denying it any real power, the Arab states were communicating their readiness for action when they had nothing of the kind in mind. ₁₆₈

The Arab states had designed the PLO as a Potemkin village, but its leader, Ahmad al-Shuqayri had greater plans. Although initially thought to be something of a demagogue with little organizational or leadership skills, he soon began irritating the Arab states with his rather far-reaching and ambitious proposals that were designed to hand the PLO greater resources and freedom of action. At the second summit he demanded that the Arab states increase their bilateral assistance and impose special taxes on such commodities as matches and movie tickets to help finance Palestinian activities. The Arab states were “annoyed.” ₁₆₉ The third summit rejected the PLO’s demand that it be allowed to recruit, train, and arm Palestinians outside the Jordanian government’s authority. This upstart organization, initially established as an instrument of the Arab states, was quickly becoming more autonomous and potentially more threatening to state sovereignty. ₁₇₀ But for the time being the PLO played the role of the dutiful client and restricted its actions to agitating the Arab states for concrete action rather than undertaking those actions itself.

Maintaining the Arab consensus also required reinforcing the collective stance prohibiting relations with Israel. Since the 1950 Arab League meeting the Arab states’ policy had been to not negotiate with Israel. They had observed this religiously until April 21, 1965, when Tunisian president Habib ibn Ali Bourguiba stated that the Arabs might recognize Israel within the boundaries of the UN partition resolution of November 29, 1947. Bourguiba went further than any Arab leader since King Abdullah in acknowledging Israel’s existence, and he was doing so as Arab leaders were increasingly using Israel to exhibit their credentials. By hinting that a peaceful settlement might be found and by suggesting that Arab states should work as hard on the political as on the military front, Bourguiba was widely interpreted as taking a unilateral stand, perhaps even offering an olive branch to the Israelis. ₁₇₁

Nearly all Arab leaders quickly and roundly rebuffed Bourguiba’s statement, accusing him of everything from conspiring with Israel to being a misguided fool. The Syrian delegate to the Arab summit portrayed Bourguiba as the “sick man” of the Arab world. “As a doctor,” he said, “a person who was inflicted by a contagious disease should be isolated.” The delegate demanded that the Arab states unequivocally declare Bourguiba’s statements a “deviation from the Arab agreement” and repledge their adherence to the Arab League resolutions. ₁₇₂ The PLO was equally incensed, viewing Bourguiba’s statements as challenging its claim that it was the “first and last authority regarding the Palestinian question.” ₁₇₃ The May session of the Arab League considered Tunisia’s expulsion but decided not to. The point had been made. ₁₇₄

Bourguiba, now ostracized from Arab politics, elected not to attend the next summit meeting in September in Casablanca and instead broadcast his views and the reason for his absence. Bourguiba professed that he had been unfairly and unjustifiably attacked regarding his statements on Israel. He then assailed “the mouthpieces of Cairo,” accused Nasser of being committed to Arabism only so long as it served his interest and undermined his rivals’, and ended with a spirited defense of sovereignty as the basis of inter-Arab relations and unity. It is worth quoting at length from various parts of the speech:

There was not an existing Arab regime which was not abused and attacked, or whose overthrow was not attempted if it did not show submission or if it did not make an effort to escape the Egyptian orbit. . . . What Arab State has not uncovered a conspiracy engineered from Cairo? What Arab State has not sought the assistance of Egyptian teachers without regretting it and without being compelled to expel them as a result of what they have done to cause sedition and to mobilize public opinion to declare a revolution. Cairo only regards the leaders of [other] Arab countries as rulers for a time waiting to die. . . . That is why Cairo only deals with the States by regarding them as imaginary structures, semi-empty and lacking the hidden essence which generates prestige and brings forth respect. Arab rulers are regarded as either agents of imperialism or stooges of Cairo, and they cannot escape this inevitable fate. We believe that the [current] crisis of confidence has resulted from the way Egypt looks at Arab unity. The Arabs are not the only ones who are a homogenous group in culture and history. There are many groups like this in the world. . . . Unity will not last or bear fruit unless it is established on free choice and not imposed by various kinds of pressure, suppression, and bargaining. We therefore think that the only method of establishing co-operation between us is the method of free dialogue on the basis of mutual respect for national sovereignties. Tunisia announces its rejection of all interference in its policy, whether that policy concerns its internal system or its external relations. It regards these spheres as the essence of sovereignty and it cannot accept any dispute on them. . . . We believe that the safest basis for cooperation among States is that each should concern itself with what concerns it and that co-operation should take place in common in common spheres. We sincerely hope that the meeting of the Arab Kings and Heads results in affirming these basic principles on which the Arab League was established. 175

Bourguiba’s extraordinary speech represented the culmination of a decade of sentiments and sedimented resentments concerning Egypt’s pan-Arabism. ₁₇₆

Dovetailing with themes of the failed unification attempts that were still fresh in everyone’s minds, Bourguiba claimed that the death of pan-Arabism had come at the hands of its architects and that it should be replaced by an Arab nationalism that was consistent with sovereignty. Bourguiba’s speech, then, was noteworthy in two respects: he was on the defensive because he was seen as outside the Arab consensus on the Arab-Israeli conflict and he was paying dearly for it, and he took the offensive by accusing Nasser of using Arabism to create mayhem and to insist that sovereignty govern inter-Arab relations.

The move toward sovereignty. Whether the Arab states were moved by Bourguiba’s diagnosis of the Arab condition or not, his prescription for recognizing sovereignty defined the 1965 summit’s central resolutions. ₁₇₇ The concluding resolutions reinforced an interpretation of Arabism that was consistent with sovereignty. Five of the six principles adopted under the theme of “strengthening Arab solidarity” referred explicitly or implicitly to the norms of sovereignty and the society of states. Point 2 pledged to “respect the sovereignty of each of the Arab states and their existing regimes in accordance with their constitutions and laws, and to refrain from interfering in their internal affairs.” Point 3 vowed to “observe the principles and ethics of political asylum in accordance with the principles of international law and conventions.”

Significantly, points four, five, and six were directed at using national media for good and not for ill, including a decision to “keep discussion objective and criticism constructive in dealing with Arab questions and to end the campaigns of suspicion and slander in the press, radios, and other information media.” Because Arab leaders used symbolic technologies to undermine each other from within and to control each other’s foreign policies, their move toward détente included an attempt to disarm those weapons that counted most: their media. Thus it was not surprising that the Arab states trumpeted as one of the summit’s major accomplishments the decision to halt the media campaigns, because these campaigns “have been a fundamental sign of the disunity of Arab ranks, and not just a mere sign for they have moreover constituted an effective factor in widening the gap at every point of difference.” ₁₇₈ Many Arab leaders highlighted the importance of the resolutions on sovereignty and mudslinging as representing major moves toward stability and détente. ₁₇₉

The summit system symbolized and confirmed that Arab states were converging on the principle of sovereignty to organize their relations; many of its resolutions were designed to guide the foreign policies of Arab states toward sovereignty and away from unwanted intrusions in their domestic affairs. The collapse of the 1963 unification talks had encouraged Arab states to step closer to a meaning of Arab nationalism that was consistent with the territorial status quo. Unification had already run its course by late 1963 when Syria elevated the Israeli threat to embarrass Nasser because the unification issue no longer served that purpose. Nasser responded to the failure of unification by embracing a more state-centered view of Arab nationalism; he responded to Syria’s challenge by devising the summit system as a multilateral control on Syrian’s actions. The proposals designed to join their military forces to confront the Israeli threat carefully avoided any hint that they represented a step toward unification; the decision to try to stop the mudslinging was designed to arrest the symbolic technologies that Arab leaders feared most in their competitive interactions. But soon the summit system would collapse under the weight of its contradictions and spawn a new, and more dangerous, round of symbolic competition.

The End of the Era of Summitry and the Symbolic Dance to War

Arab leaders were increasingly demonstrating and defining their commitment to Arabism around the Israeli threat; an implication was that they were highly vulnerable to symbolic sanctioning and sensitive to the charge that they were not doing enough for the cause of Palestine. The problem for Nasser was that the summit system was designed to encourage conservatism rather than radicalism, and his ability to maintain the system depended on the willingness of the other Arab states to play their parts. Therefore, when the era of summitry ended after two short years, its undoing was largely the result of the very forces and contradictions that had led Nasser to propose the summit system at the outset. ₁₈₀

The contradiction that proved to be the summit system’s undoing was Nasser’s attempt to use the summit meetings as a multilateral device to control Syria’s Israeli policy and Syria’s desire to use the Israeli stick to bolster its credentials and embarrass Nasser. Two events brought this tension to a breaking point. The first was an Israeli attack on May 13, 1965, on one of Syria’s diverting stations. At the January 1964 summit the Arab states had resolved to establish a series of stations to divert the sources of the Jordan River in response to an Israeli plan for a large-scale diversion project. The Israelis threatened to forcibly dismantle such stations, and the Arab states resolved to meet that action collectively. A matter left unresolved by the Arab states, however, was when the host of a diverting station could act unilaterally to respond to a “minor” act of aggression and when an Israeli act would be considered “major,” thus requiring that Arab states to collectively determine the proper response. The May 1965 Israeli attack magnified the contradiction between Syria’s need to get the Arab states’ backing to respond to Israel and the Arab states’ decision that each state was responsible for responding to “minor” incidents. Syria presented its case in late May at a conference of the Arab premiers, but they rejected the plea for support. A bitter Syria subsequently launched a full-scale propaganda attack on Nasser, proclaiming that it was ready, willing, and able to confront Israel in regard to the Jordan River or any other issue but that Nasser was hiding behind the summit resolutions to avoid a war with Israel. ₁₈₁

This was exactly what Nasser was doing, but he could not very well admit it. At a meeting of Palestinian National Congress in June Nasser attempted to refute the Syrian charges by insisting that Arab states must coordinate their policies before confronting Israel. ₁₈₂ A united Arab army, he said, required unified Arab action, which was difficult at the moment because of significant inter-Arab differences. As troubling as this reality was, Nasser confided, it was an improvement over the early 1960s when no Arab summit, no Arab resolutions, and no statements of concrete action existed. How should the Arabs proceed? Through revolutionary action. But, he emphasized and qualified without a hint of irony, this must be cautious and careful revolutionary action. Defending his go-slow policy against Syria’s charges of weakness, Nasser raised a theme that would define his position toward the Arab-Israeli conflict for the next two years:

We must first of all have a plan. If, for example, an aggression is committed against Syria, do I attack Israel? If the case is so, then Israel can set for me the time at which to attack. Why? Just because it commits an aggression and hits one or two tractors, I am to attack Israel the second day. Is this logical and sound talk? It is we who will choose the time of the battle. It is we who will assess our position. It is we who will fight our battle. 183

Nasser feared that the same dynamics and vulnerability to symbolic sanctions that had dragged him into an unwanted federation with Syria in 1958 might now force him into an unwanted war with Israel. ₁₈₄ The Arab summits became the perfect device for sitting on Syria, but Syria might eventually engage in unilateral action that not only challenged the summit system but also threatened to call Nasser’s bluff. Symbolic entrapment was an ever-present possibility.

That was exactly what happened. A coup in Syria in February 1966 brought to power the most radical regime in Syrian history, according to Patrick Seale. ₁₈₅ Since the failed unity attempts the Syrian government had been engaging in various political and ideological moves designed to bolster its self-image as a sovereign independent state. It is unknown whether the Ba’ath was successful in its stab at legitimacy by posing as an equivalent and as an alternative to Nasser, but the party was able to secure its political power by controlling the army and suppressing the Nasserites. In any event, the declining appeal of the unionist idea and of Nasser’s leadership meant that although Egypt’s “ill will remained a source of embarrassment for the Ba’ath, it no longer posed a grave threat to its rule.” ₁₈₆ A more confident and radical Syria spelled bad news for Nasser.

The new regime explicitly framed past Arab summits as selling out the Arab nation and the cause of Palestine and as offering little more than feeble excuses for inaction. ₁₈₇ Less beholden to the notion of an all-Arab consensus if this meant conservatism, and more interested in establishing its independence and flushing Nasser from behind the screen of multilateralism, the Syrian government pressed its point by encouraging fedayeen raids into Israel. Although Nasser feared that Syria’s provocative actions might be the Arab states’ undoing, he was more alarmed by this challenge to his Arab credentials. As a result, he played into Syria’s strategy: he publicly sided with Syria and began attacking the conservative Arab states. This “public declaration of war” made it virtually impossible for the Arab states to convene another summit. ₁₈₈ “The era of summitry ended officially when the Arab League announced on July 22 the indefinite postponement of the fourth summit (due to convene at Algiers on 5 September).” Understandably, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, the two countries that gained most from the series of summits and the suspension of ideological hostilities, were most upset by its demise. ₁₈₉

With the summit period over, Syria and Egypt now began playing a dangerous game of symbolic competition. Syria’s earlier challenges had coaxed Nasser away from the multilateral mechanism that he had designed to control it, and now that Syria had drawn him out into the open, it continued to turn up the heat. Israel’s actions played right into Syria’s hands, for it faithfully retaliated for every fedayeen action, demonstrating that Syria was in no position to defend itself and increasing the pressure on Egypt to come to Syria’s defense. While Nasser watched in horror because he feared that Syria’s actions might precipitate a war with Israel, he was equally fearful of confirming Syria’s charge that he was indistinguishable from the conservative Arab states and weak on Palestine. Nasser, still seeking to control Syrian policy but with the summit format no longer available, finally established diplomatic relations with the new Syrian regime and signed a joint defense agreement in November 1966. ₁₉₀ The agreement, according to Egyptian general Mohamed Abdel el-Gamasy, was formed in the absence of trust and never led to any military coordination. ₁₉₁ But given the apparent motivations of the Syrians and the Egyptians, the lack of military coordination reflected the nonstrategic basis of the agreement. Syria’s motives, according to Samir Mutawi, were not to “revenge the injustices done to the Palestinians but in order to gain supremacy over Nasser as leader of the Arabs.” ₁₉₂ Motivated by a desire to control Syria’s actions, Nasser had accepted the risky wager that the alliance would leave him in control of Syria rather than vice versa, and Nasser lost the bet. ₁₉₃ Syria continued its provocative ways, increasing the prospect of war and forcing Nasser to keep pace with Syria’s taunts or stand accused of being weak on Palestine. ₁₉₄

Jordan watched this “dangerous game of brinkmanship” anxiously, aware that it too would be forced to keep pace or suffer a loss of prestige. ₁₉₅ Syria and Egypt accused Hussein of being weak on Arabism, made worse by Israel’s retaliation against Jordan for the fedayeen raids. Israel launched a particularly deadly reprisal on the West Bank village of Samu on November 13, 1966. The casualties were not only a village and dozens of soldiers and civilians but also Jordan’s credibility regarding its ability to defend its territory and protect the Palestinians. Always ready to embarrass Hussein, Cairo and Damascus accused him of following in his grandfather’s footsteps and failing to protect the Palestinians. ₁₉₆ The combination of the Israeli attack and the inflammatory broadcasts contributed to rioting among the Palestinians for several weeks; some Palestinian figures even declared the West Bank an independent Palestinian state, and the government imposed martial law to take back the streets. ₁₉₇ The consequences were not only political but also strategic. The raid convinced Hussein that Israel did not differentiate between Arab states; that the raid that led to Israel’s attack on Samu had originated from Syria was well known, but Israel was perceived as preferring to target the West Bank, because attacking Syria might have greater military consequences. The raid persuaded King Hussein that his credentials and Jordan’s security were on the line. ₁₉₈

The first few months of 1967 were relatively quiet, but in April a series of incidents and maneuvers began between Israel and Syria that signaled that the region was spinning toward war. On April 7 a dogfight between Israel and Syria over the Golan led to the downing of several Syrian MiGs. The remainder of the month remained relatively quiet, but events escalated considerably in early May. Perhaps because of an internal crisis Syria began publishing reports of a “Zionist-reactionary plot” against Syria. ₁₉₉ Attending such reports were highly dramatic and public pleas for Egypt to assist Syria and to live up to its Arab obligations. Jordan also unleashed a media campaign against Nasser, accusing him of doing little to help his brethren and allies. ₂₀₀

Suspiciously silent on these Israeli-Syrian developments, Nasser found himself increasingly pressured to take dramatic action to support his alliance partner and to maintain his credentials. Nasser was caught between the symbolic and the strategic, and he sacrificed the latter. “Nasser’s concern began not with Israel but with Syria, and pointed eventually not to Sharm al-Shaikh, still less to Tel-Aviv, but to the chanceries and streets of the Arab world.” ₂₀₁ Jordan and Syria kept daring him to show his mettle and to stop hiding behind the UN flag, and Nasser accepted each and every dare. On May 14 he sent his army into the Sinai, and on May 22 he closed the Strait of Tiran. Nasser’s military advisers cautioned him against taking such actions for fear of provoking Israel and tempting an unwanted war. But Nasser accepted such risks “as a means to end Arab opposition to him, and to maintain his popularity and high esteem in the Arab world.” ₂₀₂ That he took this risk can be properly attributed to his beliefs that Israel would ultimately not launch a preemptive strike, that the combined Arab forces represented a sufficient retaliatory force, and, ultimately, that his Arab credentials were at stake.

Symbolic competition also informed King Hussein’s decision to cast his lot with Egypt and Syria and go to war with Israel. The Jordanian cabinet held a fierce debate about how it should position itself in the war climate. Jordanian official Wasfi al-Tal was nearly alone in arguing against trusting Nasser, claiming that war would bring disaster to Jordan and could cost the king Jerusalem and the West Bank. ₂₀₃ Few shared Tal’s pessimistic appraisal of the Arab states’ military capabilities. But ultimately it was Arabism that led Hussein to embark on a path that would bring him into war with Israel. The Syrian and Egyptian campaign against Hussein had been highly effective, stirring up the Jordanian population in general and the Palestinians in particular. If Jordan stayed out of the war, Hussein would have had a difficult time containing the inevitable public outcry. ₂₀₄ Hussein ultimately decided that he would rather take his chances with the Israelis than he would his own population. If he went to war with Israel, the most he would lose would be the West Bank and Jerusalem, but if he stayed on the sidelines he would probably lose his crown and his country. ₂₀₅

These calculations help to explain King Hussein’s somewhat curious decision to cast his lot with Egypt and Syria when he flew to Cairo and signed a joint defense pact with Egypt on May 30. ₂₀₆ Hussein was now in league with the same states that had repeatedly attempted to undermine his regime over the years and in the recent past. But Hussein flew to Cairo because of symbolic rather than strategic considerations. A palace adviser explained: “To meet with Nasser may seem strange when one considers the insults and abuse which Radio Cairo had been hurling at the Hashemite throne for the past year; nonetheless, it would have been impossible for us to justify our remaining aloof from so momentous a matter which engaged the entire Arab world.” ₂₀₇ “If we were isolated from the mainstream of Arab politics,” reflected former Prime Minister Zaid Rifai, “we would be an easy target.” ₂₀₈ Jordanian King Abdullah prodded Egypt into a war that it did not want in 1948, and Egypt returned the favor to Jordanian King Hussein in 1967.

Symbolic competition propelled Arab leaders to commit to policies that they thought were unwise strategically but necessary politically. ₂₀₉ This was a war that few Arab military officials had prepared for or Arab leaders wanted, but it was a war that they stumbled into and got. Their private thoughts became public soon after the end of the war. Arab intellectuals and officials began linking the very dynamics that led the Arab states into this military debacle to earlier episodes that also had unwanted outcomes; as they saw it, the 1967 war was an extreme example of the ills that defined Arab politics. In such commentaries Arab political elites left little doubt that they found few strategic imperatives in their recent war with Israel, but they did find much evidence of inter-Arab symbolic exchanges and political calculations that had left them all worse off.

Arab officials and intellectuals could look back to the events since 1955 and recall a period that began with promise and assuredness and ended with a string of failures and disappointments. The years after the Baghdad Pact seemed to be one steady march toward greater integration among Arab states. By 1958 revolution was in the air, Arab nationalism appeared to be an unstoppable tide, and the demand for unification was growing. To be sure, many Arab officials privately feared these developments, which were likely to leave them more vulnerable to each other’s policies and maneuverings than ever, but they found themselves under pressure from their societies and their rivals to keep up appearances. The result was that Arab nationalism appeared to be a movement whose time had come.

What halted the unstoppable tide of Arab nationalism were the same Arab leaders who proclaimed themselves its guardian. But it was not as if Arab leaders got together and constructed a new set of arrangements and institutions that secured their states against Arab nationalism. This was not to be a repeat of the developments that led to the League of Arab States. Rather, Arab officials responded to their ideological excesses by accusing each other of various crimes and insincerities, which led to a normative deficit and greater suspicion that these leaders could not foster Arabism at this time under these conditions. Unification vanished from the agenda, and Arab states more fully converged on the norms of sovereignty and accepted the territorial status quo. Palestine now became the issue on which Arab leaders established their credentials and questioned those of their rivals. The events leading to the 1967 war were only more evidence, as if any was needed, that symbolic competition could have cataclysmic consequences.

 

Endotes

Note 1: For overviews of the Suez War see Wm. Roger Louis and Roger Owen, eds., Suez 1956: The Crisis and Its Consequences (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Mohamed Heikal, Cutting the Lion’s Tail: Suez Through Egyptian Eyes (New York: Arbor House, 1987); J. C. Hurewitz, “The Historical Context,” in Louis and Owen, Suez 1956, pp. 19–29. Back.

Note 2: Louis and Owen, Suez 1956. Back.

Note 3: Heikal, Cutting the Lion’s Tail; Ali Hillal Dessouki, “Nasser and the Struggle for Independence,” in Louis and Owen, Suez 1956, p. 38. Back.

Note 4: George Corm, Fragmentation of the Middle East: The Last Thirty Years (London: Hutchinson, 1983), p. 35. Back.

Note 5: Robert Satloff, From Abdullah to Hussein: Jordan in Transition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 151; Tawfig Hasou, The Struggle for the Arab World: Egypt’s Nasser and the Arab League (Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985), pp. 36–37. Back.

Note 6: Eden received the news of the nationalization when he was having dinner with King Faysal and Nuri al-Said in London. Eden and Said were equally horrified, with Said urging Eden to strike at Egypt immediately and hard. Heikal, Cutting the Lion’s Tail, p. 130. Saudi Arabia and Syria were not completely pleased with Nasser’s nationalizations, for both feared repercussions and were bitter about not being forewarned. Ibid., pp. 133–34, 156–57. Back.

Note 7: For British motivations see Patrick Seale, The Struggle for Syria (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1986), pp. 248–49; Keith Kyle, “Britain and the Suez Crisis, 1955–56,” in Louis and Owen, Suez 1956, pp. 103–31. Back.

Note 8: Maurice Vaisse, “France and the Suez Crisis, 1955–56,” in Louis and Owen, Suez 1956, pp. 131–44. Back.

Note 9: Johnathan Shimshoni, Israel and Conventional Deterrence: Border Wars from 1953 to 1970 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993); Benny Morris, Israel’s Border Wars (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). Back.

Note 10: Heikal, Cutting the Lion’s Tail, p. 179, and Amin Hewedy, “Nasser and the Crisis of 1956,” in Owen and Louis, Suez 1956, p. 169, write that Nasser dismissed the possibility of French and British collusion with Israel because it would only undermine the West’s influence and its allies in the region. Back.

Note 11: Malcolm Kerr, The Arab Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 4; Gordon Torrey, Syrian Politics and the Military, 1945–58 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1964), p. 323; Ali Abdel Rahman Rahmy, The Egyptian Policy in the Arab World (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1983), p. 52. Back.

Note 12: Torrey, Syrian Politics, p. 323; Seale, Struggle for Syria, p. 262. Back.

Note 13: Many Syrian pan-Arabists had viewed the 1955 alliance with Egypt as the first step toward union; in July 1956 Prime Minister Hashim Atali announced a committee to study the matter, and Syria initiated serious follow-up discussions. Torrey, Syrian Politics, pp. 331–32. Back.

Note 14: Seale, Struggle for Syria, chap. 21; Fawaz Gerges, The Superpowers and the Middle East: Regional and International Politics, 1955–67 (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1994), p. 85. Back.

Note 15: On the 1957 crisis see Torrey, Syrian Politics, pp. 361–65; Gerges, Superpowers and the Middle East, p. 87. Back.

Note 16: Eli Podeh, The Quest for Arab Hegemony in the Arab World: The Struggle over the Baghdad Pact (New York: E. J. Brill, 1995), pp. 206, 209. Back.

Note 17: Middle East News Agency (hereafter MENA), “Outgoing Ministers’ Statement,” November 18, 1956, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, November 20, 1956, p. 5. Back.

Note 18: Rashid Khalidi, “Consequences of the Suez Crisis in the Arab World,” in Louis and Owen, Suez 1956, p. 385. Back.

Note 19: Morris, Israel’s Border Wars, chap. 12. Hussein accepted a security arrangement that he had previously rejected largely because of electoral and domestic considerations. Uriel Dann, King Hussein and the Challenge of Arab Radicalism: Jordan, 1955–67 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 37. Back.

Note 20: Satloff, From Abdullah to Hussein, p. 156. Back.

Note 21: Amman Home Service, “Sulaiman al-Nabulsi’s Policy Statement,” November 27, 1956, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, November 29, 1956, pp. 7–10. Also see Torrey, Syrian Politics, p. 300. Back.

Note 22: “Treaty of Solidarity Between Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt: The Accord on Jordan,” cited in Muhammad Khalil, The Arab States and the Arab League: A Documentary Record, vol. 2 (Beirut: Khayat’s, 1962), pp. 287–89. Back.

Note 23: Satloff, From Abdullah to Hussein, p. 159; Dann, King Hussein, p. 43. Back.

Note 24: Dann, King Hussein, chap. 3; Gerges, Superpowers and the Middle East, p. 82. Back.

Note 25: Cited in Dann, King Hussein, p. 45; also see Aqil Hyder Hasan Abidi, Jordan: A Political Study, 1948–57 (New York: Asia Publishing, 1965), pp. 148–49. Back.

Note 26: Dann, King Hussein, chap. 4. Back.

Note 27: Cited in Anouar Abdel-Malek, Egypt: Military Society (New York: Random House, 1968), p. 282. Back.

Note 28: “Comment on the Iraqi-Jordanian Agreement,” Baghdad, October 16, 1956, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, October 18, 1956, pp. 6–7. Back.

Note 29: Khalidi, “Consequences of the Suez Crisis,” p. 383. Back.

Note 30: See Cairo Home Service, “Gamal abd al-Nasir’s Speech of 9.11.56 at Al-Azhar Mosque,” November 9, 1956, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, November 11, 1956, pp. 5–15. Back.

Note 31: Ahmed Said, “Cairo on Arab Neutralism,” “Voice of the Arabs,” November 12, 1956, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, November 16, 1956, p. 8; Cairo Home Service, “Ahmed Sa’id on Baghdad Pact,” November 27, 1956, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, November 29, 1956, pp. 1–2. Back.

Note 32: Damascus Home Service, “Radio Attacks on Nuri al-Said,” November 24, 1956, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, November 27, 1956, pp. 10–12. Back.

Note 33: For discussions of the bungled coup see Khalidi, “Consequences of the Suez Crisis,” pp. 382–83; Podeh, Quest for Arab Hegemony, pp. 217–18; Torrey, Syrian Politics, p. 324; Seale, Struggle for Syria, chap. 20. See Torrey, Syrian Politics, pp. 329–30, for the trials in January and February 1957. Back.

Note 34: Baghdad Home Service, “Criticism of Syrian ‘Sabotage’ of the Pipeline,” November 14, 1956, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, November 16, 1956, pp. 5–7. Back.

Note 35: Podeh, Quest for Arab Hegemony, pp. 214–15. Back.

Note 36: Quoted in Podeh, Quest for Arab Hegemony, p. 220. Back.

Note 37: “Egyptian Government’s Reply to Prime Minister’s Nuri As-Said’s Radio Speech of December 16, 1956,” cited in Khalil, Arab States and the Arab League, vol. 2, pp. 279–86. Back.

Note 38: Heikal, Cutting the Lion’s Tail, p. 216. Back.

Note 39: For an excellent treatment of events leading to the unity agreement, see Malik Mufti, Sovereign Creations: Pan-Arabism and Political Order in Syria and Iraq (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996), chap. 6. Also see Torrey, Syrian Politics, pp. 374–81; Seale, Struggle for Syria, chap. 22. Back.

Note 40: Itamar Rabinovich, Syria Under the Ba’ath, 1963–66 (New York: Halstead, 1972), pp. 9–10. For overviews of the Ba’ath Party and its ideology see Kerr, Arab Cold War, pp. 7–8; Seale, Struggle for Syria, pp. 153–58; Rabinovich, Syria Under the Ba’ath, pp. 6–11. Back.

Note 41: Rabinovich, Syria Under the Ba’ath, p. 15. Back.

Note 42: Seale, Struggle for Syria, p. 311; Kerr, Arab Cold War, pp. 12, 15; Rabinovich, Syria Under the Ba’ath, p. 13; Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978), p. 815. Back.

Note 43: Kerr, Arab Cold War, p. 11; Seale, Struggle for Syria, p. 321. Back.

Note 44: Torrey, Syrian Politics, p. 377; also see Seale, Struggle for Syria, p. 158. Back.

Note 45: For the relationship between identity and the “imagined” Arab community enabling the possibility of unity as a conceptual category, see Eberhard Kienle, “Arab Unity Schemes Revisited: Interest, Identity, and Policy in Syria and Egypt,” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 27 (1995): 53–71. Back.

Note 46: Abdel-Malek, Egypt, p. 256; also see Seale, Struggle for Syria, p. 314. Back.

Note 47: Kerr, Arab Cold War, p. 11. Back.

Note 48: Anonymous source, interview by author, Cairo, Egypt. Back.

Note 49: Ibid. Back.

Note 50: Mufti, Sovereign Creations, p. 90–92; Rabinovich, Syria Under the Ba’ath, p. 15; Seale, Struggle for Syria, pp. 321–24. See Kerr, Arab Cold War, chap. 1, and Rabinovich, Syria Under the Ba’ath, pp. 16–25, for a discussion of the rise and fall of the UAR. Back.

Note 51: MENA, “Haykal’s Reply to Fadil al-Jamili on Arab Union,” March 9, 1958, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, March 10, 1958, p. 2. Also see Damascus Home Service, “Amir al-Badr’s Speech on Union with the Yemen,” March 8, 1958, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, March 10, 1958, p. 11. For the text of the agreement see Cairo Home Service, “Convention Establishing the United Arab States,” March 8, 1958, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, March 10, 1958, pp. 9–11. Back.

Note 52: Damascus accused Saudi Arabia of hiring agents to overthrow the Syrian government and to stop the tide of Arabism and unity. See “Bill of Indictment in the ‘Saudi Plot’ Case,” Damascus, March 29, 1958, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, April 1, 1958, pp. 3–25. Back.

Note 53: These initial negotiations included Saudi Arabia. But the Saudis, fearing too close an association with their Hashemite rivals who were linked to the West, made Iraq’s withdrawal from the Baghdad Pact a condition for its participation. Podeh, Quest for Arab Hegemony, pp. 221, 238. Back.

Note 54: “Iraqi Jordanian Union Communique,” Baghdad, in Arabic, February 14, 1958, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, February 16, 1958, p. 6. For the text of the agreement see “Iraqi-Jordanian Agreement on the Arab Union,” Baghdad, in Arabic, February 14, 1958, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, pp. 7–8. Also see Mufti, Sovereign Creations, pp. 102–108 for a discussion of the federation. Back.

Note 55: “Nuri as-Sa’id on the Arab Federation,” Baghdad, in Arabic, May 19, 1958, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, May 21, 1958, pp. 7–8. Back.

Note 56: MENA, “ ‘Ash-Shab Report of Iraqi-Jordanian Disputes,” April 8, 1958, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, April 10, 1958, pp. 8–9. Back.

Note 57: Podeh, Quest for Arab Hegemony, p. 194; also see Dann, King Hussein, chap. 6. Back.

Note 58: “Cairo Press Comment on the Iraqi-Jordanian Union,” March 15, 1958, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, March 17, 1958, pp. 1–5. Back.

Note 59: Cairo Home Service, “Al-Akhbar on the Baghdad Pact’s Opposition to the Egyptian-Syrian Union,” January 23, 1958, and “Ash-Shab on the Baghdad Pact’s Anti-Arab Ties, January 24, 1958, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, January 26, 1958, pp. 1–3. Also see Cairo Home Service, “Cairo Radio Comment on Arab Unity,” February 16, 1958, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, March 18, 1958, pp. 1–3. Back.

Note 60: “Cairo and Damascus Press Comment on the Arab Federation,” February 18, 1958, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, February 20, 1958, pp. 4–6. Back.

Note 61: “Jordanian Statement on Abd an-Nasir’s CBS Interview,” Ramallah, in Arabic, April 8, 1958, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, April 10, 1958, pp. 4–8. Back.

Note 62: MENA, “Al-Ahram on Developments in Saudi Arabia,” April 8, 1958, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, April 10, 1958, p. 3. Back.

Note 63: “President Sham’un’s Press Statement,” Beirut, May 21, 1958, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, May 23, 1958, p. 10. See Damascus Home Service, “Abd an-Nasir’s Speeches to Lebanese in Damascus,” February 28, 1958, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, March 1, 1958, pp. 7–12. Also see Gerges, Superpowers and the Middle East, pp. 104–105. Back.

Note 64: Gerges, Superpowers and the Middle East, p. 112. Back.

Note 65: Ibid., p. 113; Batatu, Old Social Classes, pp. 801–804. Back.

Note 66: Batatu, Old Social Classes, p. 679. Back.

Note 67: Ibid., p. 804. Back.

Note 68: Ibid., p. 817; Majid Khadduri, Independent Iraq: A Study in Iraqi Politics Since 1932 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960), pp. 307–309; Abdul-Salaam Yousif, “The Struggle for Cultural Hegemony During the Iraqi Revolution,” in R. Fernea and W. Louis, eds., The Iraqi Revolution of 1958: The Old Social Classes Revisited, pp. 172–96 (New York: I. B. Tauris, 1991). Back.

Note 69: Cairo was a bit premature in celebrating that the need to rename the Baghdad Pact because it was unwelcome in Baghdad. Cairo Home Service, “Al-Ahram on the Baghdad Pact,” July 27, 1958, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, July 29, 1958, p. 2. Although one of the Free Officers’ first acts was to suspend Iraq’s participation in future pact security meetings, Iraq did not formally withdraw until March 1959. Still, the new Iraqi regime left little doubt that Iraq would now follow a different foreign policy orientation and had unabashedly embraced Nasser and his brand of Arabism, symbolized by an agreement in which the Iraqis pledged to honor the Joint Defense Pact, a thinly veiled rejection of the Baghdad Pact. Cairo Home Service, “The UAR-Iraqi Agreement,” July 19, 1958, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, July 21, 1958, p. 12. Back.

Note 70: Rashid Khalidi, “The Impact of the Iraqi Revolution on the Arab World,” in Fernea and Louis, Iraqi Revolution of 1958, pp. 106–17. Back.

Note 71: The Americans entered via the Eisenhower Doctrine. Unveiled on January 5, 1957, the doctrine represented another effort by the United States to construct a workable containment policy in the Middle East and to replace Britain’s post-Baghdad decline. The doctrine offered $200 million in economic and military assistance to any states determined to maintain their “national independence,” although the core of the policy was congressional authorization to use U.S. military authority to deter any armed aggression by international Communism. The Eisenhower Doctrine was highly reminiscent of the Baghdad Pact in its ability to split the Arab world into rival camps, though it did not exactly duplicate these camps; Nasser was the head of the oppositionist grouping, joined by Syria, whereas Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and the North African states were all favorably disposed. See Seale, Struggle for Syria, pp. 285–89, for discussions of the doctrine Back.

Note 72: Gerges, Superpowers and the Middle East, p. 116; Beirut Home Service, “Sami as-Sulh on the U.S. action,” July 16, 1958, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, July 18, p. 13; Beirut Home Service, “Sami as-Sulh’s Statement in reply to Adil Usayren,” July 21, 1958, pp. 13–14. Back.

Note 73: King Hussein, Uneasy Lies the Head (London: Heineman, 1962), pp. 162–64; James Lunt, Hussein of Jordan (London: Macmillan, 1989), p. 49. Back.

Note 74: Amman Home Service, “King Husayn’s Address to Jordanians,” July 17, 1956, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, July 20, 1956, pp. 10–12. Back.

Note 75: “King Husayn’s Press Conference,” Ramallah, in Arabic, July 19, 1958, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, July 21, 1958, pp. 16–17. Back.

Note 76: Amman Home Service, “Comment on Abd an-Nasir’s Speeches in Damascus,” July 21, 1958, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, July 23, 1958, p. 4. Back.

Note 77: Cairo Home Service, “Abd-Nasir on the U.S. Landing in Lebanon,” July 16, 1958, cited in Foreign Broadcast Information Service (hereafter FBIS), July 18, 1958, p. 1; Cairo Home Service, “Abd-Nasir’s Speech in Damascus,” July 18, 1956, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, July 20, 1958, pp. 2–5; Damascus Home Service,“UAR and Iraqi Speeches in Damascus,” July 19, 1958, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, July 21, 1958, pp. 5–12; “Comments on the U.S. and British Landings,” July 17, 1958, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, July 20, 1958, pp. 1–5. Back.

Note 78: Kerr, Arab Cold War, p. 17; Kamal Salibi, The Modern History of Jordan (London: I. B. Taurus, 1993), p. 206. Back.

Note 79: Kerr, Arab Cold War, p. 17. Back.

Note 80: Gerges, Superpowers and the Middle East, p. 127; Batatu, Old Social Classes, p. 815–20; Mufti, Sovereign Creations, pp. 113–16. Back.

Note 81: Kerr, Arab Cold War, p. 18. Nasser was in a bind in 1961 when Kuwait declared its independence and Iraq announced its intention to “reclaim” Kuwait, and the British provided protection to Kuwait. Nasser, a supporter of unity but an opponent of Iraq’s actions, was now in the uncomfortable position of siding with Britain. Although he arranged to have a UAR-Saudi-Jordanian contingent replace the British, Nasser’s image gained little from the exchange. Ibid., p. 20. Back.

Note 82: Khalidi, “Impact of the Revolution,” p. 111–13. Back.

Note 83: See Kerr, Arab Cold War; Rabinovich, Syria Under the Ba’ath; Derek Hopwood, Syria: 1945–86 (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1988)., pp. 41–42; Mufti, Sovereign Creations, pp. 132–39. Back.

Note 84: Seale, Struggle for Syria, pp. 224–25. Back.

Note 85: Rabinovich, Syria Under the Ba’ath, p. 20. Back.

Note 86: Ibid. pp. 26–27, 37–38; Mufti, Sovereign Creations, pp. 135–39. Back.

Note 87: Mohamed Abdel Ghani el-Gamasy, The October War: Memoirs of Field Marshal el-Gamasy of Egypt (Cairo: American University of Cairo Press, 1993), pp. 16–17. Back.

Note 88: Cited in Abdel-Malek, Egypt, p. 273. Back.

Note 89: Ibid., p. 274; also see Samir Mutawi, Jordan in the 1967 War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 49. Back.

Note 90: Adbel-Malek, Egypt, p. 275. Back.

Note 91: Kerr, Arab Cold War, p. 2; Adeed Dawisha, Egypt and the Arab World: Elements of a Foreign Policy (New York: Wiley, 1976), pp. 34–36. Back.

Note 92: Kerr, Arab Cold War, pp. 29–30; Leila Kadi, Arab Summit Conferences and the Palestine Problem, 1936–50, 1964–66 (Beirut: PLO Research Center, 1966), pp. 116–18; Hasou, Struggle for the Arab World, pp. 115–17. Back.

Note 93: Kerr, Arab Cold War, p. 26. Back.

Note 94: Rabinovich, Syria Under the Ba’ath, p. 20. Back.

Note 95: Kerr, Arab Cold War, p. 27. Back.

Note 96: See F. Gregory Gause III, Saudi-Yemeni Relations: Domestic Structures and Foreign Influence (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990); Kerr, Arab Cold War, pp. 107–109; Saeed Badeeb, The Saudi-Egyptian Conflict over North Yemen, 1962–70 (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1986); Rahmy, Egyptian Policy in the Arab World, for discussions of Yemen. Back.

Note 97: Gerges, Superpowers and the Middle East, p. 151; Nadav Safran, Saudi Arabia: The Ceaseless Quest for Security (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1988). Back.

Note 98: Gerges, Superpowers and the Middle East, p. 150; Abdel-Malek, Egypt, p. 284. Back.

Note 99: Anonymous source, interview by author, Cairo, Egypt. Gamasy similarly argues that Egypt’s intervention in Yemen was a response to the failure of the UAR. October War, p. 18. Back.

Note 100: See Kerr, Arab Cold War, pp. 40–42, on these revolutions. Back.

Note 101: Baghdad Home Service, “Iraqi Foreign Minister’s Press Conference,” February 13, 1963, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/1176/A/2–5, February 15, 1963; MENA, “President Arif’s Statement to MENA,” February 13, 1963, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/1176/A/1–2, February 15, 1963. Even recognizing the Iraqi regime could not be undertaken without conflict. Although both Syria and Egypt immediately recognized and welcomed the new government, a feud broke out between the two in regard to whether Egypt’s recognition was true and sincere. Damascus Home Service, “Damascus Reply to Cairo on Syria’s Recognition of Iraq,” February 12, 1963, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/1175/A/2, February 14, 1963. Also see Rabinovich, Syria Under the Ba’ath, p. 44. Back.

Note 102: Rabinovich, Syria Under the Ba’ath, p. 61. Back.

Note 103: Damascus Home Service, “Statement on the Revolution in Syria,” March 8, 1963, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/1196/A/2–3, March 10, 1963. Back.

Note 104: Rabinovich, Syria Under the Ba’ath, p. 52. Back.

Note 105: Amin Hewedy, interview by author, Cairo, March 17, 1996; Rabinovich, Syria Under the Ba’ath, p. 61; Hopwood, Syria, p. 45. Back.

Note 106: Kerr, Arab Cold War, pp. 46–48. Back.

Note 107: Cairo Home Service, “Hasanayn Heikal’s Weekly Article in Al-Ahram,” February 15, 1963, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/1178/A/5–7, February 17, 1963. Back.

Note 108: Cairo Home Service, “Abd an-Nasir’s Unity Day Speech,” February 21, 1963, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/1185/A/5, February 23, 1963. Back.

Note 109: Gerges, Superpowers and the Middle East, pp. 162–63. Back.

Note 110: Damascus Home Service, “Plans for Syrian Union with Iraq,” February 18, 1963, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/1180/A/4–5, February 21, 1963. Back.

Note 111: Kerr, Arab Cold War, pp. 49–95. Also see Rabinovich, Syria Under the Ba’ath, pp. 59–66. Back.

Note 112: Cited in Abdel-Malek, Egypt, p. 282. Back.

Note 113: Kerr, Arab Cold War, p. 73. Back.

Note 114: Ibid., pp. 55–56. Back.

Note 115: Salibi, Modern History of Jordan, p. 208. Back.

Note 116: Anonymous source, interview by author, Cairo, Egypt, March 19, 1996. Back.

Note 117: See Mohammad Mehdi, “The Cairo Declaration,” Middle East Forum 49, no. 8 (Summer 1963): 31–40, for a discussion of the agreement. Back.

Note 118: Salibi, Modern History of Jordan, p. 209. Back.

Note 119: Dann, King Hussein, pp. 119, 128. Back.

Note 120: “The Campaign Against King Husayn,” Voice of the Arab Nation (editorial), March 20, 1963, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/1206/A/2, March 22, 1963. Back.

Note 121: Adeed Dawisha, “Jordan in the Middle East: The Art of Survival,” in P. Seale, ed., The Shaping of an Arab Statesman: Abd al-Hamid Sharaf and the Modern Arab World (New York: Quartet, 1983), p. 64. Back.

Note 122: Amman Home Service, “Wasfi at-Tall’s Press Conference,” March 9, 1963, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/1197/A/6–8, March 11, 1963. Back.

Note 123: Amman Home Service, “Wasfi at-Tall’s Statement,” February 8, 1963, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/1171/A/7–8, February 10, 1963. Back.

Note 124: Lunt, Hussein of Jordan, p. 73; Salibi, Modern History of Jordan, p. 209. Back.

Note 125: Rabinovich, Syria Under the Ba’ath, pp. 63–64. Back.

Note 126: Ibid., p. 72. Back.

Note 127: Cairo Home Service, “Hasnayn Haykal’s Article of 11th October,” October 11, 1963, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/1377/A/1, October 14, 1963. Back.

Note 128: Corm, Fragmentation of the Middle East, p. 62; Kerr, Arab Cold War, p. 85; Rabinovich, Syria Under the Ba’ath, p. 67. Back.

Note 129: Rabinovich, Syria Under the Ba’ath, pp. 84, 87–88. Back.

Note 130: Eberhard Kienle, “The Limits of Fertile Crescent Unity: Iraqi Policies Toward Syria Since 1945,” in D. Hopwood, H. Ishaw, and T. Koszinowski, eds., Iraq: Power and Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 367–68. Back.

Note 131: Rabinovich, Syria Under the Ba’ath, p. 95; Mufti, Sovereign Creations, pp. 160–63, 166. Back.

Note 132: Kerr, Arab Cold War, p. 93. Back.

Note 133: Baghdad Home Service, “The Announcement of Syrian-Iraqi Military Unity,” October 8, 1963, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/1374/A/2–4, October 10, 1964. Back.

Note 134: Cairo Home Service, “Al-Akhbar Article,” October 9, 1963, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/1375/A/7–9, October 11, 1963. Back.

Note 135: Yemen too got into the act, as President Abdallah al-Sallal commented: “What a strange name; we are genuine Arabs, what do we have to do with Michel?” Rabinovich, Syria Under the Ba’ath, p. 72. Back.

Note 136: Dann, King Hussein, p. 134. Back.

Note 137: Corm, Fragmentation of the Middle East, pp. 97–98. Back.

Note 138: Tahseen Bashir, interview by author, Washington, D.C., April 2, 1996. Back.

Note 139: Amman Home Service, “King Husayn Press Conference,” March 16, 1963, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/1203/A/2, March 18, 1963. Also see Salibi, Modern History of Jordan, p. 209; Kadi, Arab Summit Conferences, p. 89; Mutawi, Jordan in the 1967 War, pp. 20–21. Back.

Note 140: Hussein, Uneasy Lies the Head, pp. 74–80. Back.

Note 141: Kerr, Arab Cold War, pp. 90–91. Back.

Note 142: Anonymous source, interview by author. Back.

Note 143: Rabinovich, Syria Under the Ba’ath, pp. 95–96, 101. Back.

Note 144: Kadi, Arab Summit Conferences, p. 92; Kerr, Arab Cold War, pp. 98–99. Back.

Note 145: See Kerr, Arab Cold War, p. 98, for a discussion of the conflict over the various water schemes. Back.

Note 146: Mutawi, Jordan in the 1967 War, p. 51; anonymous source, interview by author. Back.

Note 147: Bashir interview. Back.

Note 148: Salibi, Modern History of Jordan, p. 211. Back.

Note 149: Anonymous source, interview by author, Cairo, Egypt, March 19, 1996; Kadi, Arab Summit Conferences, p. 94; Gerges, Superpowers and the Middle East, p. 166. Back.

Note 150: Salibi, Modern History of Jordan, p. 211; also see Kerr, Arab Cold War, p. 110. Back.

Note 151: Mutawi, Jordan in the 1967 War, p. 22. Back.

Note 152: Rabinovich, Syria Under the Ba’ath, p. 115. Back.

Note 153: Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/1958/A/4, October 11, 1965. Back.

Note 154: Cairo Domestic Service, “Text of UAR-Iraq Presidential Council Decisions,” October 16, 1964, cited in FBIS, October 19, 1964, B1–2. Back.

Note 155: Baghdad Domestic Service, “President Surveys Measures to Achieve Unity,” October 24, 1964, cited in FBIS, October 26, 1964, C3. Back.

Note 156: Jerusalem Israel Domestic Service, “Al-Hayah Comments on UAR-Iraq Unity Accord,” October 26, 1964, cited in FBIS, October 28, 1964, F1. Also see Malcolm Kerr, “Regional Arab Politics and the Conflict with Israel,” in P. Hammond and S. Alexander, eds., Political Dynamics in the Middle East (New York: American Elsevier, 1972), p. 45. Back.

Note 157: MENA, “Abd An-Nasir Grants Interview to Al-Hurriyah,” Cairo, June 7, 1965, cited in FBIS, June 8, 1965, B1–4. Back.

Note 158: Amman Domestic Service, “At-Tall Reviews Arab Problems for Press,” June 6, 1965, cited in FBIS, June 7, 1965, D1–3. Back.

Note 159: Cairo Domestic Service, “Arab Premiers Reject Bourguiba Proposals,” May 27, 1965, cited in FBIS, May 28, 1965, B3. Back.

Note 160: See, for instance, Cairo Home Service, “Al-Ahram on the Summit Conference,” September 8, 1964, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/1653/A/2, September 10, 1964; Damascus Home Service, “Syrian Comment on Conference,” September 8, 1964, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/1653/A/2, September 10, 1964. The decision to unify forces also caused Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and the Sudan to now sign the Arab Collective Security Pact. MENA, “Additional States to Sign Arab Defense Treaty,” Cairo, September 10, 1964, cited in FBIS, September 11, 1964, B2. Back.

Note 161: Cairo Domestic Service, “Address by President Nasser,” January 13, 1964, cited in FBIS, January 14, 1964, B2–3. Back.

Note 162: Cairo Domestic Service, “UAR General to Head Joint Arab Force,” January 17, 1964, cited in FBIS, January 20, 1964, B2. See Mutawi, Jordan in the 1967 War, pp. 58–59, for a general discussion of the UAC; he credits a Jordanian military paper as setting it into motion. Back.

Note 163: Beirut RNS, “Jordan Has No Reservations About Arab Troops,” June 1, 1965, cited in FBIS, June 2, 1965, D2; Damascus Domestic Service, “Nasir Reveals Weak Attitude Toward Syria,” June 1, 1960, cited in FBIS, June 2, 1960, G3. Back.

Note 164: Cairo Domestic Service, “Working Plan Presented by UAR Gains Approval,” September 9, 1964, cited in FBIS, September 10, 1964, B1; Beirut RNS, “Conference Reaches Accord on Military Matters,” September 8, 1964, cited in FBIS, September 9, 1964, B1–2; Beirut Home Service, “Lebanese Views on the Stationing of Arab Troops,” September 9, 1964, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/1654/A/3, September 11, 1964; Cairo Home Service, “Haykal on the Arab Summit,” September 18, 1964, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/1662/A/1, September 20, 1964. Also see Mutawi, Jordan in the 1967 War, pp. 62–63; Beirut RNS, “Stationing of Troops in Countries Discussed,” May 27, 1965, cited in FBIS, May 28, 1965, B9. At the second summit Jordan agreed to allow the Unified Arab Command to cross into its territory under restrictive conditions. Jordan Home Service, “Press Conference Given by Information Minister Wasfi at-Tall,” September 18, 1965, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/1965/A/4. Back.

Note 165: Beirut RNS, “Delegations Admit Conference Shortcomings,” May 30, 1965, cited in FBIS, June 1, 1965, B6. Back.

Note 166: Charles Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 2d ed. (New York: St. Martin’s, 1992), p. 186. Back.

Note 167: Mutawi, Jordan in the 1967 War, pp. 56–57; Dann, King Hussein, pp. 138–41; Kerr, Arab Cold War, p. 114. Back.

Note 168: On sovereignty see Helena Cobban, The Palestinian Liberation Organization: People, Power, and Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 195. This also helps to account for the Palestinian National Covenant’s ambiguous stance vis-à-vis wataniyya and qawmiyya. Gabriel Ben-Dor, “Nationalism Without Sovereignty and Nationalism with Multiple Sovereignties: The Palestinians and Inter-Arab Relations,” in G. Ben-Dor, ed., Palestinians and the Middle East Conflict (Forest Grove, Ore.: Turtle Dove, 1979), p. 149. On its proposed instrumental nature, see Mutawi, Jordan in the 1967 War, p. 57. Back.

Note 169: Beirut RNS, “Some Annoyed at Shuqayri Presentation on Entity,” September 1, 1964, cited in FBIS, September 2, 1964, B1. Back.

Note 170: Mutawi, Jordan in the 1967 War, p. 66; Dann, King Hussein, p. 147. Back.

Note 171: Also see Gerges, Superpowers and the Middle East, p. 192. Back.

Note 172: Damascus Domestic Service, “Damascus Account of 27 May Meeting,” May 28, 1965, cited in FBIS, June 1, 1965, B4. Back.

Note 173: “Ash-Shuqayri’s Withdrawal,” Cairo Voice of Palestine, May 28, 1965, cited in FBIS, June 1, 1965, B2. Back.

Note 174: Cairo Domestic Service, “Arab Premiers Reject Bourguiba Proposals,” May 27, 1965, cited in FBIS, May 28, 1965, B3–7. Back.

Note 175: Tunis Home Service, “Bourguiba’s Broadcast on the Arab Summit Conference,” September 13, 1965, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/1965/A/4–9, September 14, 1965. Back.

Note 176: Not surprisingly, Bourguiba’s comments did little to endear him to the Egyptian government. Nasser on Bourguiba: “He claims that he is a leading struggler and that he has been struggling for 30 years. If he has been struggling for 30 years it means that he started his struggle before anyone else in the Arab world and yet was the last to attain his independence. And it has not been long since the French evacuated Tunisia. This is Bouguibism.” “Haykal on Prelude to Arab Summit,” Al-Ahram, September 17, 1965, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/1964/A/4, September 18, 1965. Back.

Note 177: Damascus applauded Bourguiba’s speech in general and his reference that those who act in the name of Palestine act for themselves, noting that “a number of those who speak on the Palestine issue would like to repeat what Bourguiba recently said in this connection.” Damascus Radio Service, September 18, 1965, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/1965/A/2–3, September 19, 1965. Back.

Note 178: Cairo Home Service, “Cairo Al-Akhbar Comment on the Casablanca Conference,” September 15, 1965, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/1961/A/2, September 16, 1965. Back.

Note 179: See, for instance, the comments by Lebanese President Charles Hilu. Beirut Home Service, September 18, 1965, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/1965/A/5, September 19, 1965. Back.

Note 180: The other factor was the split between Egypt and Saudi Arabia over the ongoing revolt in Yemen and King Faysal’s proposed Islamic Pact, which Nasser interpreted as a direct challenge to his Arab nationalism. See Mutawi, Jordan in the 1967 War, p. 67; Kerr, Arab Cold War, pp. 109–110; Dann, King Hussein, pp. 149–50; Gerges, Superpowers and the Middle East, p. 186. Back.

Note 181: Damascus Domestic Service, “Nasir Reveals Weak Attitude Toward Syria,” June 1, 1965, cited in FBIS, June 2, 1965, G3; Rabinovich, Syria Under the Ba’ath, pp. 167–68. Back.

Note 182: Cairo Domestic Service, “Nasir Opens Palestine National Congress,” May 31, 1965, cited in FBIS, June 3, 1965, B1–17. Also see MENA, “Abd An-Nasir Grants Interview to Al-Hurriyah,” Cairo, June 7, 1965, cited in FBIS, June 8, 1965, B1–4. Back.

Note 183: Cairo Domestic Service, “Nasir Opens Palestine National Congress,” May 31, 1965, cited in FBIS, June 3, 1965, B1–17. Back.

Note 184: Syria, of course, made much of Nasser’s statement and acknowledgment that he would not come to Syria’s defense on just any grounds. The result was a heated war of words. See MENA, “Al-Ahram Replies to Syrian Criticism of Nasir,” Cairo, June 3, 1965, cited in FBIS, June 3, 1965, B25–27; Damascus Domestic Service, “ ‘Certain Arab States’ Pursue ‘Two-Faced’ Policy,” June 2, 1965, cited in FBIS, June 3, 1965, G1–3. See Rabinovich, Syria Under the Ba’ath, pp. 168–69, for Syria’s response to Nasser’s speech. Back.

Note 185: Seale, Struggle for Syria, p. 104. Also see Rabinovich, Syria Under the Ba’ath, pp. 204–206; Hopwood, Syria, p. 47; Mufti, Sovereign Creations, pp. 173–76. Back.

Note 186: Rabinovich, Syria Under the Ba’ath, p. 209. Back.

Note 187: Damascus Domestic Service, “Al-Bath: Arabs Denounced Summit Long Ago,” August 2, 1966, cited in FBIS, August 2, 1966, G1. Also see Gerges, Superpowers and the Middle East, p. 196. Back.

Note 188: Gerges, Superpowers and the Middle East, p. 197. Back.

Note 189: Dann, King Hussein, p. 152. Back.

Note 190: Although Nasser’s actions were largely driven by regional politics of the moment, it was easier for him to recognize this Ba’athist regime that was more “local” in focus. Rabinovich, Syria Under the Ba’ath, p. 210. Back.

Note 191: Gamasy, October War, p. 89. Back.

Note 192: Samir Mutawi, “The Jordanian Response,” in R. Parker, ed., The Six-Day War: A Retrospective (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1996), p. 175. Back.

Note 193: According to Mutawi, the Jordanians feared that this alliance spelled the end of Nasser’s conservativism and constituted a trap from which he would not be able to extricate himself. Syria, in the Jordanian view, believed that it would triumph over Nasser whether there was a war or not and whether the Arabs won or lost. “Jordanian Response,” p. 175. Back.

Note 194: Syria not only intended to embarrass Nasser but also to further its domestic political objectives of popularity and help bring down an Israeli government that it believed was teetering on the brink. Moshe Maoz, Syria and Israel: From War to Peacemaking (Oxford, England: Clarendon, 1995), pp. 94–98. According to Fred Lawson, Syria’s willingness to escalate the conflict with Israel was related to Syrian domestic struggles regarding the political economy and government-military relations. Why Syria Goes to War: Thirty Years of Confrontation (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996), pp. 47–49. Back.

Note 195: Mutawi, Jordan in the 1967 War, p. 73. Back.

Note 196: Ibid., p. 79. Back.

Note 197: Salibi, Modern History of Jordan, p. 218; Mutawi, Jordan in the 1967 War, p. 81. Back.

Note 198: Mutawi, Jordan in the 1967 War, pp. 77–78. Back.

Note 199: C. Ernest Dawn, “The Other Arab Responses,” in Parker, Six-Day War, p. 155. Back.

Note 200: Mutawi, Jordan in the 1967 War, pp. 28, 85; Dawn, “Other Arab Responses,” p. 158–59. Back.

Note 201: Kerr, Arab Cold War, pp. 126–27. Back.

Note 202: Gamasy, October War, pp. 26–27; also see Mark Tessler, A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), pp. 389–90. Back.

Note 203: Mutawi, Jordan in the 1967 War, p. 87. Back.

Note 204: Ibid., p. 90; Dawn, “Other Arab Responses,” p. 159. See Dann, King Hussein, chap. 12, for a discussion of the months preceding the June war. Back.

Note 205: Mutawi, Jordan in the 1967 War, pp. 100–103, 162, 183. Back.

Note 206: Ibid., pp. 108–109, for discussions of the treaty. Back.

Note 207: Quoted in Salibi, Modern History of Jordan, p. 220. Back.

Note 208: Mutawi, Jordan in the 1967 War, pp. 100–101; also see Salibi, Modern History of Jordan, pp. 219–20. Back.

Note 209: A sure sign of their disarray appeared at the last Arab League Council meeting before the 1967 war; while the Arab states were on the verge of war, the only action they could muster was a resolution denouncing racial discrimination in the United States. Kerr, Arab Cold War, p. 125. Back.