Syria: A Short History/20
INDEPENDENT REPUBLIC
Syria embarked upon its career as a fully independent state under its president Shukri al-Quwatli with hope and aspiration but with no rosy path in sight. It soon found itself beset with a multiplicity of thorny problems, both internal and external. There was first its relation with its twin sister Lebanon, with which it shared the common interests of tariff and customs duties, concessionary companies, the administration of antiquities and the guarding of the common frontier. With Turkey it wished to settle the problem of Alexandretta, now the province of Hatay. Vis-à-vis Jordan it faced the question of Greater Syria long and ardently advocated by King Abdullah. In 1946 the king declared that in furthering this project he was motivated not by dynastic interests but rather by the ideal of a Pan- Arab state nucleated around a joint Syria-Palestine unit. An influential Syrian group favoured the plan. Another, the People's Party, advocated the Fertile Crescent project, sponsored by Iraq, which would bring Syria, Iraq and Jordan into one entity as a preliminary step towards the realization of a Pan-Arab union. Iraqis could claim that their king as the son of Faysal was entitled to both thrones; but their treaty relations with Great Britain made Syrians hesitate.
Different from all these groups and distinct by itself was the Syrian Nationalist Party, which preached the doctrine that there was such a thing as a Syrian nationhood independent of and unrelated to Arabism. Syria, in their definition, included Lebanon. The organization was authoritarian in its administration, aggressive and determined in its propaganda, and soon won converts mainly from among the educated youth. Its founder, a Lebanese Christian who had lived in Brazil, was condemned to death by the Lebanese government on the ground of conspiring against its security. The party then went underground. Last but not least was the Zionist problem, which had grown out of its narrow dimensions and assumed international importance. Syria could not tolerate the thought of an intrusive Zionist state created at the expense of a territory not only contiguous to it but considered part of it. Within Syria's own boundaries there were those who favoured one or the other of the proposed projects, but against Zionism the feeling was intense and unanimous.
Of all these problems the Zionist was the most pressing. The situation in Palestine was gradually getting out of hand. A state of terrorism bordering on anarchy began to prevail as the Jewish Agency absorbed authority from the British mandatory and flooded the land with new recruits from abroad, mostly young and potential fighters for Zionism. When the general assembly of the United Nations on November 29, 1947, approved the partition plan for Palestine guerrilla warfare broke out. The majority vote for partition was secured at the last minute by manoeuvring and intensive lobbying by United States agents at Lake Success and by wire-pulling from Washington—all in response to Jewish pressure. Arab anti-Western feeling now began to include the United States. As the United Nations had no means of enforcing the partition or establishing security and as the British troops withdrew, the Zionists achieved military superiority over the Palestine Arab 'liberation army 5 and on May 14, 1948, proclaimed the state of Israel. It was immediately recognized by the United States and Russia. Members of the Arab League, including Syria, moved against the new state but their disorganized, inadequately equipped and poorly trained troops, with the exception of Jordan's Arab Legion, made such a poor showing that they had in February 1949 to sign an armistice with Israel.
Throughout, the domestic situation in Syria was moving from bad to worse. As under the mandate, the people's thought and energy continued to be canalized in political and military channels to the neglect or detriment of other aspects of life. Finances passed into a disastrous condition. Currency, still tied to the French franc, remained unstable. As prices soared, sales dipped. The military performance in Palestine was humiliating. An expansionist Israel posed a threat to the safety of Syria. The mirage of an Arab union was dimmed beyond recognition. The time was ripe for a change in government.
In the silent night of March 30, 1949, a coup d'état was hatched by an army group headed by Colonel Husni al-Zaim. Al-Quwatli and some of his ministers were held under detention until they signed their resignations. Therewith was effected the first in a series of three military coups which punctuated the remaining nine months of the year. Al-Zaim introduced progressive, even radical reforms. He gave women of elementary education electoral rights and brought the privately endowed charitable institutions (waqfs) under state control. He ordered a curfew, enforced censorship of the press and closed the frontiers. A 15 per cent tax was ordered on all industrial concerns and made retroactive to 1940. The Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco) was granted wayleave for its proposed Trans-Arabian Pipe Line (Tapline). A modern commercial law was adopted. The Syrian dictator took Kemal Atatürk for model. The colonel promoted himself to field-marshal and ordered a richly ornamented baton from Paris. Suspicion spread that he had French leanings. His fall was as abrupt and dramatic as his rise.
On August 14 another group of officers, led by Colonel Sami al-Hinnawi, forced their way into al-Zaim's residence and that of his prime minister, apprehended and summarily shot them, to save the country, in the words of the communique, from the tyrant who had abused his authority, wasted public funds and restricted personal liberty. Al-Hinnawi's régime was even shorter than his predecessor's and much less productive. On December 19 a third coup engineered by Colonel Adib al-Shishakli, chief of staff, overthrew the Hinnawi regime because c it plotted against the republican regime in conjunction with foreign elements'. Al-Hinnawi favoured union with Iraq and the 'foreign element', the supposed villain, in this case was Great Britain, Iraq's ally. The seventy-four-year-old Hashim al-Atasi, elected shortly before that as provisional president of the Republic, was retained. In due course al-Shishakli gathered the reins of the executive power into his own hands.
Conditions did not greatly improve under the new regime. The rupture of the Syro-Lebanese customs union (March 1950) severed the last economic link with its closest neighbour. Lebanon pursued its time-honoured policy of free trade and open market, while Syria embarked upon a protective tariff policy. The Lebanese frontier was closed to Syrian exports. Syria was the greater economic sufferer. It planned to improve the port of Latakia and the roads leading from and into it. The asylum given Syrian political refugees in Lebanon was a constant source of friction. On the Syrian-Israeli border clashes were intensified. The main issue was whether Israel had the right to extend its drainage work in the Lake Huleh swamps to the upper reaches of the Jordan, included in the demilitarized zone between the two states. Appeals to the United Nations by both sides were frequent but the results often unsatisfactory. Anti-Western feeling was intensified, especially since Israel was receiving arms and financial support from Great Britain, France and the United States.
The national defence item climbed higher and higher in the Syrian budget. The government refused American aid 'with strings attached to it'. There was no immediate source to tap for bolstering the shaky economy. Long-range projects were headed by the draining of the Ghab swamps on the Orontes, which would reclaim and irrigate 200,000 acres at a $280,000,000 cost, provide hydro-electric power for new industry and exterminate disease-bearing insects. Other major drainage and irrigation projects involved the Euphrates, the Khabur and the Yarmuk rivers on a five-year plan adopted in 1955 at an estimated cost of about $200,000,000. By decree some 4,000,000 acres of state domain lands were distributed among a number of agricultural co-operative settlements. Trade agreements with Lebanon ended the deadlock. Water, electricity and communication companies in Damascus and Aleppo were nationalized. In June 1953 al-Shishakli promulgated a draft constitution modelled to a limited extent after that of the United States. It featured an elective president in whose hands lodged executive power, a chamber of deputies with legislative function and a supreme court.
At a time when the Shishakli régime seemed secure, undercurrents swelled to undermine it. Four years were not enough to reconcile or eliminate opposition. The Arab Liberation Party, a Shishakli creation and the only one allowed to operate, proved to be a broken reed. Business strikes, student demonstrations, political disturbances gained more momentum as the year 1954 passed into 1955. The imprisonment of twelve opposition leaders, some of whom had held the highest positions in the government, and the rushing of troops to crush uprisings in Jabal al-Duruz produced the opposite results. At last, when the Aleppo garrison declared its rebellion and threatened to march against the capital, al-Shishakli yielded. He offered his resignation and fled to Saudi Arabia and later to Paris, where he still is. The aged Atasi, ousted by the dictator in 1951, was restored to power by the army. He replaced the Shishakli constitution with that of 1950. On September 6 Shukri al-Quwatli, who had fled to Egypt during the Zaim coup, returned to accept the chamber of deputies' election as president of the Republic. A five-year military rule inscribed a circle which took it back to its starting-point. It was tested and proved wanting. Civilian control with constitutional authority was resumed.
Under al-Quwatli Syria pursued the ideal of Arab unity through rapprochement with Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Hostile to Israel, unfriendly towards Turkey, alienated from Lebanon and more recently from Iraq, she felt isolated and vulnerable. By history, geography and tradition, Iraq would have been a natural partner of Syria. But the signing by Iraq of the Baghdad pact (February 1955) allied it with Turkey and the West. Both Egypt and Syria then considered the Arab League security pact as no longer effective and the two bound themselves by a new defence treaty. The treaty established unity of command and covered training, equipment and other phases of military organization and activity. On the East-or-West issue Syria and Egypt saw eye to eye. Saudi Arabia was determined in its opposition to dealings with Russia.
The avowed policy of Syria under al-Quwatli was that of 'neutrality': rejection of foreign pacts and readiness to receive arms from any source that offered them 'with no strings'. Russia and her satellites expressed willingness to accommodate. Early in 1956 the Syrian government recalled its delegation seeking a thirty-million-dollar loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. It signed a trade and payment agreement with Rumania to export cotton, tobacco, hides, textiles and olive oil for Rumanian timber, dyes, chemicals, medicines, agricultural engines and other machinery. Similar agreements followed with Hungary, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia. Cultural missions were exchanged with Russia and Communist China. The cultural agreement with Russia involved exchange of specialists in science, art, education and scholarships. Eight of the thirty participant countries in the Damascus third international fair (September 1956) belonged to the Communist bloc. In the 1957 fair Great Britain, France and the United States were conspicuous by their absence.
Syrian-Israeli tension continued unabated. Border incidents became more serious. An Israeli raid on a Syrian army post at the northern corner of the Sea of Galilee (December 11, 1955) killed thirty-six Syrians against six Israelis and, following a United Nations security council report, elicited from the three great Western powers a censure in 'strong and unequivocal terms'. But in effectiveness this censure was no stronger than an old-time poultice on a cancerous area. The continued aid to Israel from the West—particularly from the United States—the festering wound of the nine hundred thousand Palestinian refugees, the policy of France in North Africa, an increase in border clashes with Turkey intensified hostility to the West as it accelerated rapprochement to the East. All this urged intensified military preparedness. Plans for constructing air-raid shelters, for introducing military training into secondary and trade schools and for strengthening border defences were hastily laid and carried out. On August 12, 1956, a nationwide draft of civilians including women was announced.
Any hope of reconciliation with the West was shattered when on October 30, 1956, Israel's invasion of Egypt was seconded by an Anglo-French one. Syria rallied to the support of her ally. Army officers blew up the Iraq Petroleum Company's pipe-lines in her territory and repairs were allowed only after withdrawal of all foreign forces from Egypt, despite the loss of a major element in the country's national income. The triple attack on Egypt and its failure to achieve its purpose raised the stature of Gamal Abdel Nasser (Jamal Abd-al-Nasir) from that of a national Egyptian hero to an international Arab one; it placed him in a niche by himself, a symbol of resistance to Western aggression and a champion of the Pan-Arab cause. To the Moslem masses throughout south-western Asia the Egyptian president became an idol.
Russia also threatened to help Egypt with ’volunteers'. Earlier in the summer its foreign minister had paid a visit to Egypt and Syria, and when President al-Quwadi was repaying the visit to Moscow he was assured by President Klimenti Y. Voroshilov at a reception in his honour of Soviet readiness ’to supply Syria with the necessary assistance to overcome as rapidly as possible the vestiges of colonialism', and in doing so c the Soviet Union claims no privileges or advantages for itself. On two following occasions, when Syria accused Turkey of intending aggression, Russia warned of her readiness to support the Syrian side. Thus did the Soviet Union seek and find common ground for identifying her interests with those of Syria and the rest of the Arab world: hostility to the three great Western powers, arms against Israel and sympathy with the Pan-Arab movement. It was its policy that won friends, not its ideology. Officially the Communist party remained banned in Syria, as it was in other Arab states, though one seat in the parliament was held by its leader. As late as the autumn of 1957 al-Quwatli was still declaring: ’Had it not been for Israel, we would not have felt the need for new weapons; and were it not for the unrelenting preferential treatment of Israel by the United States, we would not have been introduced to new Russians.'
On the other hand, the Eisenhower doctrine offering aid and protection to any Near Eastern country that sought it against Communist threat fell flat and was rejected outright by the Syrian government (June 1957). The tripartite agreement of May 1950 among Great Britain, France and the United States to take immediate action against any Arab state or Israel violating the frontier lacked implementation, as did the avowed policy of 'equal friendship to both sides' declared by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles on his return from a trip to the troubled area. The downward curve in Syrian-American relations hit bottom when on August 13, 1957, military authorities 'uncovered' in Damascus 'an American plot to overthrow Syria's present regime'. Advantage was taken of the announcement to reshuffle, in favour of the leftist side, some high officers in the army. Three American embassy officials were ousted. In retaliation the United States expelled the Syrian ambassador and one of his Washington aides. Shortly after that Syria, backed up by Russia, accused Turkey of massing troops on her Syrian border, and Premier Nikolai Bulganin warned that 'the Soviet Union cannot remain indifferent' to 'the report about Turkish troops' concentration on Syria's border'.
For two years Syrians and Egyptians have been considering the possibility of political union as a first step towards a Pan-Arab one. It was high time to take decisive action and consummate the merging of the two states into one. Exchange of visits and views among high officials, meetings of joint deputies' committees and of ministers' commissions and other relevant measures were now expedited. The groundwork was laid for a draft constitution. On the first of February 1958 the merger of the two into the United Arab Republic, with President Nasser as its head, was proclaimed at Cairo. The new Republic would have one flag, one army and one people. Other Arab states were invited to join. The kingdom of Yemen responded and opened negotiations. Those of Iraq and Jordan, under two young cousin kings, reacted by a merger of their own which was named the Arab Federation. Saudi Arabia stayed on the fence. Lebanon declared that it would neither interfere in its neighbours' internal affairs nor countenance interference on their part in its affairs.
The stage was set for a new act in the drama of Arab history. The signing of the birth certificate of the United Arab Republic inscribed the title of the first scene, in which the rôle to be played by Syria belongs to future history.