Adib al-Shishakli (1909 – 27 September 1964, Arabic: أديب الشيشكلي, romanized: ʾAdīb aš-Šīšaklī) was a Syrian military officer who served as President of Syria briefly in 1951 and later from 1953 to 1954.

He studied at the Military Academy of Damascus (which later was relocated to Homs) and became an early member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), founded by Antun Saadeh, promoting the concept of a Greater Syria.

Only months after al-Za'im's takeover, which shattered Syria's weak parliamentary system, Za'im was overthrown by a group of officers connected to the SSNP, including Shishakli and Zaim's old comrade, Colonel Sami al-Hinnawi, who led the new military junta.

Za'im had previously delivered the SSNP leader Antun Saadeh to the Lebanese authorities, who had him tried and executed for wanting to destroy the modern state of Lebanon.

Atassi wanted to create a union with Hashemite Iraq, something which Shishakli greatly opposed, claiming that Hinnawi was the driving force behind pro-Hashemite sentiment in Syria.

In December 1949, Shishakli launched another coup, the third of that year, arresting Hinnawi to break Hashemite influence in Syria, but keeping Atassi at his post.

All of this greatly weakened the pro-union elements in Syria but they continued to work for union with Hashemite Iraq through the Prime Minister, Nazim al-Kudsi.

When Prime Minister Maarouf al-Dawalibi, a pro-Iraq politician from Aleppo, refused this demand, Shishakli responded on 28 November 1951 by arresting Dawalibi and his entire cabinet.

To ensure his control, he strategically deployed spies and security agents across the nation to vigilantly observe and suppress any signs of opposition against his rule.

[4] In August 1952, he established an official government party, the Arab Liberation Movement, but it was boycotted by powerful representatives of civilian political society, such as Hashim al-Atassi.

He clashed frequently with the independent-minded Druze minority on the Jabal al-Druze mountain range, accusing them of wanting to topple his regime using funds from Jordan.

Britain courted Shishakli during the early period of his rule in the hope that Syria would join plans for a British-led Middle East Defence Organization.

The United States offered Shishakli considerable sums of money to settle Palestinian refugees in Syria and turn them into Syrians.