Association of Arab Republics

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The alliance of the Arab republics of Egypt , Syria and Iraq proposed by the Iraqi Baath regime in March 1972 was a reaction to the Jordanian proposal for a United Arab Kingdom , but it collided with the Egyptian-Libyan-Syrian Federation of Arab Republics and failed because of Syrian-Iraqi differences .

Egypt, Iraq and Syria had already agreed on a common flag in 1963. Syria had just abolished this flag in 1972; Egypt never took over.

prehistory

United Arab Republic

Nasser's Egypt and Syria had already formed a United Arab Republic in 1958 , which broke up in 1961. The first attempts to form a new VAR including Iraq were made immediately after the Baathists seized power at almost the same time in Iraq (February 8, 1963) and in Syria ( March 8, 1963 revolution ). The Federal Republic agreed on April 17, 1963 , however, failed in the same year due to power struggles between Baathists and Nasserists in Syria and Iraq, and the United Political Leadership established between Nasser and Iraqi Nasserists in 1964 did not lead to a new United Arab Republic. Instead, power struggles within the Ba'ath Party also led to a rift between Syrian and Iraqi Ba'athists in 1966.

Federation of Arab Republics

The Federation of Arab Republics agreed in 1971 by Sadat (left), Gaddafi (center) and Assad (right) had already come into force in 1972

In view of the defeat of Egypt and Syria in the Arab-Israeli war of 1967 , Syrian President Nureddin al-Atassi called in September 1967 on the presidents of Egypt and Iraq to form a "unitary state of socialist Arabs" with Syria, without meeting his To find considerable support in 1968 in Cairo. Power struggles within the Syrian Ba'ath Party and the pressure exerted by the then Defense Minister Hafiz al-Assad on President Atassi led to the conclusion of a Syrian-Iraqi military alliance in March 1969 and the stationing of Iraqi troops in Syria. In June 1969, Iraqi President Hasan al-Bakr declared that an Iraqi-Syrian union must be the beginning of an Arab unification. In contrast, Atassi announced again in the same month that Syria was planning a "political union with progressive Arab states, especially with Egypt", and after Atassi's overthrow in November 1970 , Assad, as Syria's new prime minister or president, also oriented more towards an alliance with the new rulers Egypt and Libya. Iraq was urged to withdraw its troops from Syria and on April 17, 1971, Assad, Sadat and Gaddafi agreed to form a federation of Arab republics . The construction of the Tabqa dam put another strain on Syrian-Iraqi relations.

United Arab Kingdom

In addition to its own isolation, Iraq's leadership worried about the possibility of a rapprochement or reconciliation between Jordan and the US and Israel. The destruction of the Palestinian combat units by Jordanian troops in 1970/71 saw the Iraqi units stationed in Jordan to protect against Israel just as inactive as Syria's military ruler Assad, who had prevented Atassi's intervention on behalf of the Palestinians. Still, Jordan had demanded the withdrawal of Iraqi troops. In March 1972, Jordan's King Hussein even proposed a separate peace to Israel should it agree to the return of the occupied Palestinian territories to Jordan. Instead of an independent state of Palestine demanded by the other Arab states , only a Palestinian autonomous area was to be created within a United Arab Kingdom .

The king's proposal was immediately rejected not only by the PLO , all other states of the Arab League and most of the states of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation , but also by Israel. In view of this rare Arab unity, al-Bakr submitted the counter-proposal on March 15 and March 20, 1972, that the PLO or (the jointly liberated) Palestine should become part of a unified Arab state that Egypt and Syria should form with Iraq.

League of Arab Republics

The federal government (red) resembled the United Arab Republic of 1963

Apart from the inclusion of Palestine and the PLO, the basic structure of the Iraqi proposal was very similar to the conditions negotiated back in 1963.

A common foreign policy with common diplomatic missions abroad, a uniform defense policy with common armed forces and a uniform economic and financial policy were planned. For this purpose, the federal government should have a joint people's assembly in which the number of representatives of the respective federal states should be proportional to the proportion of the total population of the federal government. In addition to this federal assembly, there should be a second chamber in the form of a council of republics , in which all federal states should be equally represented. A joint council of state presidents should form the executive. Resolutions should be made by majority, not unanimous. A joint Federal Constitutional Court was also planned; and a common federal constitution should guarantee the rights and freedoms of existing parties and organizations in each state.

population Egypt Iraq Syria Palestine total
1962/63 (estimate) 27.96 million 7.26 million 5.47 million not part of the 1963 VAR 40.69 million
1972 (estimate) 34.84 million 9.75 million 6.68 million more than 1 million more than 52 million
In the Triple Alliance, Egypt would have brought more than two-thirds of the population into Iraq and Syria. If in 1963 it was negotiated that Egypt should not automatically receive two thirds of the seats in the Federal Assembly, then in 1972 the addition of Palestine would have prevented an Egyptian two-thirds majority even without such a clause.

The federal government should be open to all "progressive" Arab states that want to join - only Libya should be excluded for the time being, according to Iraqi wishes. There were conflicts between Libya and Iraq over Iraq's rapprochement with the Soviet Union and the apparent reconciliation of the Iraqi Ba'ath Party with the communists. Iraq's Baath leadership accused Gaddafi of promoting Syrian-Iraqi divisions financially.

Reactions

Iraq's then Vice President Saddam Hussein campaigned for the unification proposal in Damascus and Cairo

An Iraqi delegation led by then Vice-President Saddam Hussein traveled to Syria and Egypt at the end of March 1972 in order to advertise economic (mainly financial) and military support for the project. Saddam Hussein met Assad in Damascus , Egypt's Vice President Mahmud Fauzi in Cairo on March 26, and finally Sadat on March 28 in Alexandria , but the reactions were politely cautious. Before his meeting with Saddam Hussein, Sadat had already discussed the Iraqi plan with Gaddafi in Libya; in relation to Iraq, Egypt only referred to the already existing federation with Syria and Libya. The Union proposal was not mentioned in the Egyptian press release at the end of the Iraqi state visit.

Syria and Egypt invited Iraq to join the federation. Syria's Foreign Minister Abd al-Halim Haddam made vague suggestions on how Iraq could join the Federation. First of all, the warring wings of the Ba'ath party should reconcile and reunite at a Syrian-Iraqi summit. In August 1971, however, the Syrian Ba'ath leaders and politicians ( Michel Aflaq , Amin al-Hafiz , Shibli al-Aysami ) who fled to Iraq after the power struggles of 1966 and 1970 were sentenced to death in absentia by Syria. The nationalization of the Iraqi Petroleum Company's Baniyas pipeline, which runs through Syria, further tightened relations. Nevertheless (and after Egypt and Libya announced in August 1972 the formation of a United Political Leadership for the purpose of closer union within the federation) al-Bakr responded benevolently to the Syrian proposals on October 22, 1972 and proposed a Syrian-Iraqi union within the federation in front. To this end, Syria and Iraq should first form a United Political Leadership and develop a common strategy for the liberation of Palestine.

However, Syria and Egypt showed no interest in further discussions and negotiations. Critics later justified the rejection by claiming that the Iraqi proposal was not serious. Nevertheless, on January 27, 1973, Iraq assured Egypt and Syria of its full military and economic support in the event of a war against Israel and suggested a joint high command, which was rejected by Egypt and Syria.

consequences

In order to break Iraq's isolation, President al-Bakr made friends with the Soviet Union in 1972.

At the same time as the Arab unification plan, Saddam Hussein, on a visit to Moscow in February 1972, prepared the deepening of relations with the Soviet Union in order to prevent the threatened isolation of Iraq. On April 9, 1972, al-Bakr and the Soviet Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin signed an extensive friendship treaty in Baghdad, and in May 1972 the Ba'ath regime took communists into government .

Gaddafi's Libya immediately took the friendship treaty as an opportunity to break off diplomatic relations with Iraq - although Egypt had signed a friendship treaty with the Soviet Union as early as 1971 and although Syria's Ba'ath regime had officially formed a coalition with the Communist Party in March 1972 . At Libyan insistence, Egypt unexpectedly expelled all of the country's Soviet advisers in June 1972, and in August 1972 Sadat even gave in to Gaddafi's insistence that within a year an even closer union between Egypt and Libya should be formed within the federation. No progress had been made in this regard up to the eve of the October War 1973, but Libya, like Iraq, supported the Egyptian-Syrian attack on Israel.

The approval of a ceasefire with Israel in 1974 divided Libya and Egypt as well as Syria and Iraq. The joint rejection of the Syrian intervention in the Lebanese civil war , approved by Egypt, brought Iraq and Libya closer together in 1976, while Syria and Egypt, on the other hand, continued to grow closer. After Sadat's trip to Jerusalem, however, both Libya and Syria finally left the Federation in 1977. The 1978 Camp David Agreement and the Egyptian-Israeli separate peace in 1979 were rejected by Syria and Libya, as was Iraq. Iraq did not join the rejection front formed by Libya, but in 1978 there was a temporary Syrian-Iraqi reconciliation, which in 1979 even culminated in a renewed Syrian-Iraqi union plan . After the rapid failure of this project too, Iraq did not participate in any further attempts at an Arab unification. A renewed attempt at unification with Libya in 1980/81 was also Syria's last participation in an unification project.

annotation

In the book of the Syrian Ba'ath politician Shibli al-Aysami , the Iraqi proposal is translated as the Union of Arab Republics
  1. ↑ Just like the Federation of Arab Republics , its Iraqi counter-draft was apparently also called in Arabic اتحاد الجمهوريات العربية, DMG ittiḥād al-ǧumhūrīyāt al-ʿarabīya . As an alternative to this same federation but was for Ittihad (: actually Union ) well aware of the German translation federal elected, although the Iraqi draft in fact a new United Arab Republic should be.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gustav Fochler-Hauke (Ed.): Fischer Weltalmanach '69 , p. 369. Frankfurt / Hamburg 1968
  2. ↑ Horst Mahr: The Baath Party - Portrait of a Pan-Arab Movement , p. 111 . Olzog 1971.
  3. ↑ Nureddin el Atassi , Internationales Biographisches Archiv 12/1993 from March 15, 1993 (lm), in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)
  4. ^ Lothar Rathmann : History of the Arabs - from the beginnings to the present , Volume 7 (The struggle for the development path in the Arab world), p. 481. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1983
  5. ^ Robin Leonard Bidwell : Dictionary of Modern Arab History , pp. 429f. Routledge, New York 1998
  6. ↑ Hassan Tawalba: The Ba'th and Palestine , p 55f. Dar al-Ma'mun, Baghdad 1982
  7. ↑ a b c d e f Shibli al-Aysami : Unity, Freedom, Socialism, pp. 99-102. Valle Olona, ​​Varese 1978
  8. ↑ a b c d Reuters of March 27, 1972: Iraqi Delegation Arrives In Cairo For Talks On A Tripartite Federation (with video clip )
  9. ↑ Record of the Arab World: Yearbook of Arab and Israeli Politics , Volume 1, p. 222. Research and Publishing House, 1972
  10. ↑ Hamburger Abendblatt of March 20, 1972: Little prospects for Union plans from Baghdad
  11. ^ A b c Polska Akademia Nauk - Komitet Badań Krajów Azji, Afryki i Ameryki Łacińskiej: Studies on the Developing Countries , No. 1-4 (9-12), pp. 180f. Zakład Narodowy in Ossolińskich, Breslau 1989
  12. ↑ Gustav Fochler-Hauke (Ed.): Fischer Weltalmanach '72, p. 399. Frankfurt / Hamburg 1971
  13. ↑ a b c Martin Stäheli: The Syrian Foreign Policy under President Hafez Assad - Balancing Acts in Global Change , pp. 155–160. Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2001
  14. ^ Robin Leonard Bidwell : Dictionary of Modern Arab History , pp. 359f. Routledge, New York 1998
  15. ↑ Johannes Berger, Friedemann Büttner, Bertold Spuler: Middle East PLOETZ - History of the Arab-Islamic World to Look Up, pp. 78–82. Ploetz Publishing House, Freiburg / Würzburg 1987
  16. ^ Martin Robbe : Scheidewege in Nahost , pp. 289, 291 and 295. Military publishing house of the GDR, Berlin 1983
  17. ^ Robin Leonard Bidwell : Dictionary of Modern Arab History , pp. 251f. Routledge, New York 1998