The UAR was a member of the United Arab States, a loose confederation with the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen, which was dissolved in 1961.

The United Arab Republic was established on February 1st, 1958[2] as the first step towards a larger pan-Arab state, originally being proposed to Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser by a group of political and military leaders in Syria.

Pan-Arab sentiment traditionally was very strong in Syria, and Nasser was a popular heroic figure throughout the Arab world following the Suez Crisis of 1956.

Only Syrian advocates of unity, including Salah al-Din Bitar and Akram El-Hourani had prior knowledge of this delegation; Quwatli and Azem were notified a day later and considered it tantamount to a "military coup".

[5][6] Nasser's final terms for the union were decisive and non-negotiable: "a plebiscite, the dissolution of parties, and the withdrawal of the army from politics".

Caught between Western and Soviet pressures, the members of the elite in Syria viewed the merger with Egypt as the least bad option to insulate from either side.

Nasser established a new provisional constitution proclaiming a 600-member National Assembly with 400 members from Egypt and 200 from Syria, and the disbanding of all political parties, including the Ba'ath.

Nasser gave each of the provinces two vice-presidents, assigning Boghdadi and Abdel Hakim Amer to Egypt and Sabri al-Assali and Akram El-Hourani – a leader of the Ba'ath – to Syria.

In the fall of 1958, Nasser formed a tripartite committee, consisting of Zakaria Mohieddine, al-Hawrani, and Bitar to oversee the affairs in Syria.

Also, Egyptian-style land reform was resented for damaging Syrian agriculture, the Communists began to gain influence, and the intellectuals of the Ba'ath Party who supported the union rejected the one-party system.

Mustafa al-Barudi, the Syrian Minister of Propaganda, stated that 'the smallest member of the (Egyptian) retinue thought that he had inherited our country.

Egypt's own status as a state unfriendly to Western influence in the region (and thus to the close relationship between the British, in particular, and the Jordanian and Iraqi monarchies) added to the pressure.

[citation needed] In nearby Lebanon, President Camille Chamoun, an opponent of Nasser, viewed the creation of the UAR with worry.

Although Nasser did not covet Lebanon, seeing it as a special case,[18] he felt obliged to back his supporters through giving Abdel Hamid Sarraj the task of sending them money and light arms, and training officers.

[19] On 14 July 1958, Iraqi army officers staged a military coup and overthrew the Kingdom of Iraq – which had just previously united with Jordan to form the rival Arab Federation.

[20] Although most members of the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) favoured joining Iraq with the UAR, the new prime minister Abdel Karim Qasim disagreed.

This meeting resulted in the end of the crisis in Lebanon, with Nasser ceasing to supply his partisans and America setting a deadline for retreating from the area.

In June 1960, Nasser tried to establish economic reforms that would bring the Syrian economy more in line with the strong Egyptian public sector.

[25] Instead of a federation of two Arab peoples, as many Syrians had imagined, the UAR turned into a state completely dominated by Egyptians.

"[26][page needed] Despite the economic difficulties, what truly produced the demise of the UAR was Nasser's inability to find a suitable political system for the new regime.

Though Amer allowed some liberalization of the economy to appease Syrian businessmen, his decision to rig the elections of the National Union (the single party which replaced the Ba'ath), with the help of Colonel Abdul Hamid Sarraj (a Syrian army official and Nasser sympathizer), antagonized Ba'athist leaders.

[27] Sarraj was appointed the head of the National Union in Syria, and by the spring of 1960 had replaced Amer as the chair of the Syrian Executive Council.

In August 1961 Nasser abolished regional governments in favour of one central authority, which operated from Damascus February through May and from Cairo for the rest of the year.

Though the coup leaders were willing to renegotiate a union under terms they felt would put Syria on an equal footing with Egypt, Nasser refused such a compromise.

From 5 to 10 June in 1967, Israel invaded Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula during the Six-Day War.

Anwar Sadat, who reversed many of the socialist reforms enacted under Nasser, extended diplomatic recognition to Israel despite their ongoing occupation of lands seized in 1967.