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JSOU Report 16-1
In reality, the Syrian and Iraqi Ba’thists were reluctant to enter the kind of
union proposed by Nasser. Nasser wanted a plebiscite to be held on the question
of whether rule of the united UAR should be by committee or a single
president. Remembering 1958, the Syrian Ba’thists and government rejected
the plebiscite. This resulted in the resignation of the five Nasserist ministers. 97
On 18 July 1963, Syrian Nasserists attempted to displace the Ba’thists in a
coup led by Jaim ‘Alwan. The coup failed and, rather than the usual exile,
the coup ringleaders were tried and executed. The coup and the subsequent
suppression effectively ended Nasserism in Syria. 98 In August 1963, Nasser
withdrew from the agreement of 17 April, and with a straight face, he accused
the Ba’th of attempting to use it for “their own political ends.” 99
In Iraq, the Ba’th faced a challenging situation. In the RCC, eight out
of 18 civilians were Ba’thists. Of the military members, 8 of 10 officers were
Ba’thist. Of the senior positions, Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr was prime minister,
Tahir Yahya was chief of staff, Salih Mahdi Ammash was defense minister,
and Hardan Tikriti was deputy chief of staff and air force commander. The
old-line civilian Ba’thists looked with some suspicion on the military officers
because most were relatively recent converts. The civilians, Aflaq’s protégés
Ali Salih al-Sadi and Talib Shabib, found themselves trying to balance policy
with the fact that the military had the ability to impose a solution. 100
The split with Nasser pushed the Syrian and Iraqi Ba’th parties into closer
alignment. On 26 August, Abd-al-Salaam Aref, now President of Iraq and
Nasser’s old supporter, agreed to unity talks with the Syrian Ba’th. On 8
October 1963, Iraq and Syria signed the Military Unity Charter as an initial
step toward full unification. Despite this ‘progress,’ relations between the two
Ba’th party branches had begun to unravel. Many in Iraq viewed it as Syrian
Ba’thist domination. In both Iraq and Syria, generational differences between
the older traditional Ba’thists and the younger generation created frictions.
Aflaq and Sadi resorted to using the military to undermine each other. Coupled
with the usual conflict between the military and civilian branches, bilateral
unity talks faced obstacles. In Iraq, the situation was somewhat different.
The power struggle within the Ba’th pitted the civilians who wanted to create
a militia to counterbalance the military against Aref, nonaligned military
officers, and waffling Ba’thist military officers who wanted to maintain their
power. When a Syrian delegation showed up to discuss the mechanics of
unity, Shabib asked Sami al-Jundi, “Are you really serious about this unity
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