The Great Powers and the Arab World • 317The United Arab Republic
Not true! Syria's leaders were Arab nationalists, not communists. A com¬
munist takeover in Damascus would have stifled the Ba'thists or perhaps
set off a conservative countercoup like that of King Husayn in Jordan. The
Ba'thists saw their salvation in a union with Nasir's Egypt. Nasir would
have preferred a gradual federation of the two states, but Syria's leaders
could not wait. In February 1958 Syria's president, meeting with Nasir in
Cairo, agreed to combine their two countries. Henceforth, Syria and Egypt
would be the "northern region" and the "southern region" of a new state,
the United Arab Republic (UAR). Plebiscites held later that month in both
regions ratified the agreement. The people voted almost unanimously for
Nasir (the ballot offered no other choice) as their president. Outsiders ac¬
cused Egypt of annexing Syria, but it was the Syrians who rejoiced loudest
over the new union.
Union with Egypt settled Syria's internal unrest, at least briefly, but it put
pressure on other Arab governments to follow suit. The Hashimite kings,
Jordan's Husayn and Iraq's Faysal II, reacted to the United Arab Republic by
forming a rival union of their own, one more homogeneous but less popu¬
lar. Saudi Arabia remained aloof but may have betrayed its concern when a
leading Syrian politician accused King Sa'ud of offering him a bribe to
murder Nasir and rupture the union with Egypt. As we mentioned in
Chapter 14, this accusation led to the fall of Sa'ud (who had succeeded his
father, Ibn Sa'ud, in 1953) from power. His brother and heir apparent,
Faysal, took charge of Saudi finances and foreign affairs. Although he was
widely regarded as pro-Nasir in 1958, Faysal stayed out of the UAR, prefer¬
ring not to share his country's immense oil revenues with Egypt and Syria.
Yemen's ultraconservative government did agree to federate with the UAR,
but this action had no effect on its own internal politics. The Palestinians
rejoiced at the union between Egypt and Syria, hoping that Nasir would
soon restore them to their usurped homeland.Lebanon's First Civil War and US Intervention
However, the other non-Muslim state east of the Mediterranean—
Lebanon—felt the winds of Arab nationalism. The lure of Arab unity was
strong in Lebanon among several groups: Palestinians, especially those
living in refugee camps; Muslim Lebanese, who felt that the status quo fa¬
vored Christians; young people, mainly university students, who believed
that Lebanon's aloofness from Arab nationalism benefited imperialism and
Zionism; and those Lebanese politicians who were excluded from power by