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Salah Jadid

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Salah Jadid
صلاح جديد‎
Salah Jadid in 1968.
Assistant Regional Secretary
of the Syrian Regional Branch
In office
1 August 1965 – 13 November 1970
Regional SecretaryAmin al-Hafiz
Nureddin al-Atassi
Preceded byMuhammad az-Zubi
Succeeded byJaber Bajbouj
Chief of Staff of the Syrian Army
In office
11 November 1963 – 1966
Preceded byZiad al-Hariri
Succeeded byAhmed Suidani
Member of the Regional Command
of the Syrian Regional Branch
In office
March 1966 – 13 November 1970
In office
1 February 1964 – 19 December 1965
Personal details
Born1926 (1926)
Dweir Baabda, Alawite State, French Syria
Died19 August 1993(1993-08-19) (aged 66–67)
Mezzeh prison, Damascus, Syrian Arab Republic
Political partyArab Socialist Ba'ath Party
Other political
affiliations		Ba'ath Party (1947–1966)
Syrian Social Nationalist Party
Military service
Allegiance First Syrian Republic (1946–1950)
Second Syrian Republic (1950–1958; 1961–1963)
 United Arab Republic (1958–1961)
 Ba'athist Syria (1963–1970)
Branch/service Syrian Army
Years of service1946–1970
Rank Major General
Battles/wars

Salah Jadid (Arabic: صلاح جديد, romanized: Ṣalāḥ Jadīd; 1926 – 19 August 1993) was a Syrian military officer and politician who was the leader of the far-left bloc of the Syrian Regional Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, and the de facto leader of Ba'athist Syria from 1966 until 1970, when he was ousted by Hafez al-Assad's Corrective Movement. The regime, built by Jadid, was sometimes called "Neo-Marxist".[1] His regime became hated and alienated by most of the Syrian people. The regime's main opponents were merchants and members of the middle class, who suffered economically, and religious figures such as the ulama and Sunni Muslims, who objected to the regime's policies against religion.[2]

Early life and career

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Jadid was born in 1926 in the village of Dweir Baabda, near the coastal city of Jableh,[3][4] to an Alawite family of the Haddadin tribe.[5] Another report states his birth year as 1924.[6] He studied at the Homs Military Academy, and entered the Syrian Army in 1946.[7] Jadid was originally a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), but later became a member of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, led by Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar, in the 1950s through an associate of Akram al-Hawrani.[3] Even so, Jadid remained close to the SSNP; his brother, Ghassan, was one of its most prominent members in Syria. He changed allegiance again in the 1950s, when he became a member of the Arab Nationalist Movement, a party supporting Gamal Abdel Nasser's ideological beliefs. Jadid supported Syria's ascension into the United Arab Republic (UAR), a union republic consisting of Egypt and Syria.[8]

UAR period

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Further information: United Arab Republic

During the UAR-era, Jadid was stationed in Cairo, Egypt. Jadid established the Military Committee alongside other Ba'athists in 1959. The chief aim of the Military Committee was to protect the UAR's existence. In the beginning there were only four members of the Military Committee, the others were Hafez al-Assad, Abd al-Karim al-Jundi and Muhammad Umran.[8] The Military Committee also tried to save the Syrian Ba'ath movement from annihilation. Committee members were among those who blamed Aflaq for the Ba'ath Party's failing during the UAR years.[9] The party's Third National Congress in 1959 supported Aflaq's decision to dissolve the party, but a 1960 National Congress, in which Jadid was a delegate representing the then-unknown Military Committee, reversed the decision and called for the Ba'ath Party's reestablishment. The Congress also decided to improve relations with Nasser by democratising the UAR from within. A faction within the party, led by al-Hawrani, called for Syria's secession.[10]

Post-UAR period

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The Military Committee did not succeed in its aims, and in September 1961 the UAR was dissolved after the coup d'etat. President Nazim al-Kudsi, who led the first post-UAR government, persecuted Jadid and the others for their Nasserite loyalties, and all of them were forced to retire from the Syrian Army.[8] Following the 1961 coup that ended the UAR, the Committee started planning its own coup against the secessionist government of al-Qudsi.[11]

Ba'athist coup d'etat

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1963 Coup d'etat

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Main article: 1963 Syrian coup d'état
Michel Aflaq (left) and Jadid.

In March 1963, Ba'athist Military Committee staged a coup against the democratically elected president Nazim al-Qudsi, beginning 62 years of uninterrupted totalitarian Ba'athist rule in Syria. In that coup, Jadid bicycled into the city that morning, and captured the Bureau of Officers' Affairs, which later became his personal fiefdom.[12] The Ba'athist Military Committee (which had seized power) declared martial law and formed the National Council for the Revolutionary Command (NCRC) to rule the Syria, which included Jadid as well as non-Ba'athists (such as the Nasserists). However, within the NCRC, the Military Committee, which consisted only of Ba'athists, still remained and held all the real power in the country (which included Jadid, along with Hafez al-Assad, Abdul-Karim Jundi and Ahmad Miration), which became known as the "junta within the junta".[13] Soon, in the same 1963, Jadid was promoted from Lieutenant colonel to Major general and named Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of Syria.[14]

Ba'athist consolidation of power

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Ba'athists took control over country's politics, education, culture, religion and surveilled all aspects of civil society through its powerful Mukhabarat (secret police). Ba'athist military officers began initiating purges across Syria as part of the imposition of their ideological programme. Politicians of the Second Syrian Republic who had supported the separation from United Arab Republic (UAR) were purged and liquidated by the Ba'athists: this was in addition to purging of the Syrian military and its subordination to the Ba'ath party. Politicians, military officers and civilians who supported Syria's secession from UAR were also stripped of their social and legal rights, thereby enabling the Ba'athist regime to dismantle the entire political class of the Second Syrian Republic and eliminate its institutions.[15] The Syrian Arab Armed forces and secret police were integrated with the Ba'ath party apparatus; after the purging of traditional civilian and military elites by the new regime.[16] Following the seizure of power in 1963 by the Ba'athist military committee, the Syrian regional branch of the Ba'ath party experienced severe factionalism and splintering, leading to a succession of governments and new constitutions.[17] The influence and power of neo-Ba'athists grew: Neo-Ba'athism was a more radical version of Ba'athism, and Salah Jadid was one of the main Neo-Ba'athists in Syria. The neo-Ba'athist military officers, through their increased political and military influence, began initiating purges across bureaucratic structures of the Syrian state and rapidly monopolized control over various organs of the Syrian Ba'ath party. All decisions about the relations between the military and civilian sectors (as well as the fact that a new set of rules had been established for the party organization in the armed forces), were classified as top secret.[18]

Rising Jadid's influence

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Members of the Syrian government in 1965. From left to the right: Vice president Nureddin al-Atassi, leader of National Command Michel Aflaq, president Amin al-Hafiz and Army's Chief of Staff, Salah Jadid.

In the first two years after the coup each member of the Military Committee gathered around him a cadre of supporters from among the officers, using personal and communal ties as well as military authority. The greatest opportunities were open to the man who had been Chief of Staff during the decisive period of party activity in the army - General Salah Jadid, who was later to appear as a representative of the most extreme and militant group in the army. By September 1965, In the new regional leadership, formed in accordance with the new organizational regulations, military officers constituted 40 percent of the delegates, and the full, direct control of the civilian regional organization passed into the hands of the strong man on the Military Committee, General Jadid, who proceeded to increase its efficiency by military methods. The army's connection with the party increased greatly, where ideas of military discipline and other aspects of the military were introduced.[18]

Muslim Brotherhood riot

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Main article: 1964 Hama riot

In April 1964, a Muslim Brotherhood uprising broke out in Hama against the ruling Ba'ath Party. The decision to suppress the Hama riot led to a schism in the Military Committee between Muhammad Umran and Jadid.[19] Umran opposed force, instead wanting the Ba'ath Party to create a coalition with other pan-Arab forces.[19] Jadid desired a strong one-party state, similar to those in the communist countries of Europe, also viewing it as a necessary means to protect Ba'athist power against "class enemies."[20][19] The uprising was eventually suppressed by military force, and the following month the NCRC implemented a provisional constitution providing for a National Council of the Revolution (NCR), a cabinet, a Presidential Council, and an appointed legislature composed of "people's organizations."

Coming to power and leadership

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1966 Coup and rift of the Ba'athism

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Main article: 1966 Syrian coup d'état
General Salah Jadid after successful 1966 coup d'état.

Salah Jadid came to power after a military coup in 1966, in which he was a leading figure.[21] The coup was due to strong ideological differences between the Military Committee and the National Command of the Ba'ath Party, whose unity had almost collapsed shortly after the seizure of power in 1963. A new coup overthrew the National Command and ousted the Aflaqites from power (and sent Michel Aflaq into exile). The new regime entrenched itself with the help of massive military, economic, and political aid from the Soviet Union, while exploiting differences within the communist camp and in the Soviet leadership itself.[18] The instigators of the coup are also sometimes described as a military junta.[21] 1966 coup marked the total ideological transformation of the Ba'ath party's Syrian regional branch into a militarist "neo-Ba'athist" organization which became independent of the National Command of the original Ba'ath party.[22] Jadid's coup also caused the deepest rift in the history of the Ba'ath movement: when the National Command was toppled, the Iraqi Regional Branch of the Ba'ath party remained supportive of what it viewed as the "legitimate leadership" of Michel Aflaq.[23] When the Iraqi Ba'ath party gained power in 1968 in the 17 July Revolution no attempts were made at a merger, to achieve their supposed goal of Arab unity, or reconciliation with the Syrian Ba'ath.[24] After the establishment of Ba'ath rule in Iraq, many members of the Syrian-dominated Ba'ath movement defected to its Iraqi-counterpart, few if any Iraqi-loyal Ba'athists attempted to change its allegiance to Damascus.[25] From the beginning, the neo-Ba'athist regime in Damascus launched an overwhelmingly anti-Iraqi Ba'athist propaganda campaign, to which their counterparts in Baghdad responded.[26] The Syrian Ba'ath party denounced Aflaq as a "thief" and claimed that he had stolen the Ba'athist ideology from Zaki al-Arsuzi and proclaimed it as his own.[27][28] The Iraqi Regional Branch, however, still proclaimed Aflaq as the founder of Ba'athism.[29] Bitar was sentenced to death "in absentia" in 1969,[30][31] and Aflaq was condemned to death in absentia in 1971.[32] The Syrian Regional Branch also erected a statue of Arsuzi not long after the 1966 coup.[33] Nevertheless, the majority of Ba'athists outside Syria continued to view Aflaq, not Arsuzi, as the principal founder of Ba'athism.[34]

April 1st announcement

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On April 1, 1966, the new regime issued a 24-page statement outlining its ideology and policies.[2]

The document began by attacking the old right-wing policies of the previous regime, which have "caused degeneration and alienated Ba'athism from the Syrian people." The document called for the rejection of any ideology within the army, blaming it for weakening the army and causing a lack of motivation to tackle the various challenges it faced. The party declared that its policy towards the Arab world would henceforth be based on the idea of ​​Arab unity and a concerted effort to resolve the Palestinian issue. The new regime claimed that the Arab monarchies had capitulated to Western dictates and interests that were not Arab. To a large extent, the document revealed the revolutionary, uncompromising nature of the new regime, strongly opposing the indecisive policies of other Arab states.[2]

Domestic policy

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Senior officials of the Ba'ath Party with Jadid.

New regime was the most radical in Syrian history.[35] While Jadid remained away from public view, as the second secretary of the Ba'ath Party, men allied to him filled the top posts in state and army: Nureddin al-Atassi, as party chairman, state president and later prime minister; Yusuf Zuayyin, as prime minister; Ibrahim Makhous as foreign minister, Hafez al-Assad as defense minister; Abd al-Karim al-Jundi, as security chief. A number of ex-army officers now also held key positions; most of them belonged to a clandestine group called "Military Convention" which had used "Trojan horse" tactics within the Ba'ath party's civilian body. Among those officers were Hafez al-Assad, Ahmad al-Suwaydani, Mustafa Tlass and Salah Jadid itself.[2] Several were military men, and all belonged to the Ba'ath Party's left-wing. The Syrian Communist Party played an important role in Jadid's government, with some communists holding ministerial posts,[36] and Jadid established "fairly close relations" with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.[36]

Contrary to traditional Ba'athist philosophy, neo-Ba'athists believed that the army should be an independent entity occupying a central position in the political arena, and therefore they insisted that the army play a role equal to that of the civilian sector in the activities of the Baath Party. However, they argued that in order for the army to properly perform its duty, it was necessary to strengthen indoctrination and political propaganda within its ranks.[2]

The Military Committee, which had been the officers' key decision-making process during 1963–66, lost its central institutional authority under Jadid because the fight against the Aflaqites was over – the key reason for the committee's existence in the first place, and NCRC was dissolved.[37] The new government supported a more radical economic program including state ownership over industry and foreign trade, while at the same time trying to restructure agrarian relations and production.[38]

Internal repressions

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Jadid began his rule by re-organizing all the intelligence agencies under the central command of the Ba'ath Party's National Security Bureau.[39] Jadid appointed his ally, al-Jundi, to head the National Security Bureau, which became known as the most intimidating apparatus in the country.[40] The Bureau, under al-Jundi, acquired a notorious reputation in the country for its brutal methods of rooting out opponents,[41] including arbitrary arrests, torture and infiltrating civil society with state informers.[42] Opponents of the government were harshly suppressed by Jadid's special services and Mukhabarat, while the Ba'ath Party replaced parliament as law-making body and other parties were banned. The Jadid regime attempted to carry out Arabization campaigns in the predominantly Kurdish northeastern regions.[43]

Khaled Hakim, an anti-military leftist and prominent Ba'ath trade unionist, described how at regime marches, workers with guns were in fact army soldiers dressed in workers' overalls to show public support for Jadid. He was jailed the same year Jadid staged his coup, 1966, however, he managed to escape to Jordan.[18]

Imposition of radical socialism

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An image of a Syrian woman in military uniform, serving in the army, on the cover of a Kuwaiti magazine.

The Jadid regime adopted a Marxist program of rapid economic development.[44] Jadid and his supporters prioritised socialism and the "internal revolution".[45] His regime attempted a socialist transformation of Syrian society at a forced pace, creating unrest and economic difficulties. By the 1966, government-sponsored land reform and nationalization of major industries and foreign investments had confirmed the new socialist direction of Syria's economic policy.[46][47] As the state assumed greater control over economic decision-making by adopting centralized planning and strictly regulating commercial transactions, Syria experienced a substantial loss of skilled workers, administrators, and their capital.[46] Despite the political upheavals, which undermined the confidence of landowners, merchants, and industrialists, the state successfully implemented large-scale development projects to expand industry, agriculture, and infrastructure.[46] Jadid was strongly promoted the idea of class struggle within Syria.[48] The properties of traders, local businessmen and land owners were confiscated by Jadid's radical leftist regime, while the Syrian military forces became thoroughly politicized with neo-Ba'athist officers.[49] The Alawite officers, themselves of peasant background, claimed to represent the interests of the peasants and workers, and actively pursued policies which benefitted the rural areas at the expense of the cities.[50] However, Jadid's swift and harsh imposition of such radical measures was extremely unpopular inside the country.[51]

The Ba'ath Party was divided over several issues, such as how the government could best use Syria's limited resources, the ideal relationship between the party and the people, the organization of the party and whether the class struggle should end.[45] These subjects were discussed heatedly in Ba'ath Party conclaves, and when they reached the Fourth Regional Congress the two sides were irreconcilable.[45] To generalize, Salah Jadid's reign was characterized by extremely brutal repressions, state terror, intensification of totalitarian measures, and imposition of hardline policies of War Leninism.[49][52]

The Syrian public, organized into organizations such as workers' and farmers' organizations, a student association, and youth and women's movements, were supposed to help the regime implement its policies and contribute to the "healing of the country and society." The original Baath leaders believed that multiple parties were not necessary for democracy and that there was a better way to do it, and the neo-Ba'athists even more so.[2]

The Neo-Baath doctrine stated that any public organization or army in Syria must be subordinate to the ruling party (i.e. the Ba'ath Party).[2]

Anti-religious policies

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Syrian women in a military uniform during the neo-Ba'athist demonstration.

Though a Christian, Michel Aflaq viewed the creation of Islam as proof of "Arab genius" and a testament of Arab culture, values, and thought. According to Aflaq, the essence of Islam was its revolutionary qualities. Aflaq called on all Arabs, both Muslims and non-Muslims alike, to admire the role Islam had played in creating an Arab character, but his view on Islam was purely spiritual and Aflaq emphasized that it "should not be imposed" on state and society. However, during Jadid's rule, it's changed: neo-Ba'athist ideologues openly denounced religion as a source of what they considered the "backwardness" of the Arabs.[53] The new regime decreed that religious schools were to be closed, religious institutions nationalized, the powers of religious leaders curtailed, and religious provisions removed from the constitution, among other anti-religious measures.[2] The Jadid regime was anti-religious and imposed severe restrictions on religious freedom, banning religious preaching and persecuting the clergy.[54] Neo-Ba'athists viewed the religious clerics as class enemies to be liquidated by the Ba'athist state.[55] The party disseminated the doctrine of the "Arab Socialist New Man", which conceptualised the "new Arab man" as an atheist who campaigned for socialist revolution and rejected religion, feudalism, imperialism, capitalism, and every value of the old social order.[55] While state ministers, officials, educators, etc. regularly preached about the "perils of religion"; party periodicals and magazines during the 1960s regularly made predictions about the "impending demise" of religion through the socialist revolution.[56] Anti-religiosity even extended to the regime's main social support base, the Alawites: the suggestion that the Alawite officers who ran the country would publish the secret books of their religion horrified Jadid, who said that if this were done, the religious leaders would "crush us."[57] Jadid's regime nationalized private schools of Muslim, Armenian and other communities in Syria.[43]

Counter-coup attempt

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Main article: Salim Hatum

Salim Hatum, who helped Jadid come to power and commanded the coup operations, was disappointed in him and attempted a counter-coup, but it failed: Hatum fled to Jordan, and when he returned to Syria after the Six-Day War in 1967, he was immediately captured and executed by the neo-Ba'athist regime. In the aftermath of the attempted coup Jadid purged the party's military organization, removing 89 officers; Minister of Defence, Hafez Assad, removed an estimated 400 officers, Syria's largest military purge to date.[58] The purges, which began when the Ba'ath Party took power in 1963, had left the military weak.[58]

Foreign policy

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Relations with superpowers

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Soviet Union
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Jadid with members of the Regional Command, 1966

In the sphere of foreign policy, the neo-Ba'athist regime established close ties with the Soviet Union. Jadid's natural ideological orientation was toward countries with a socialist orientation and under Soviet protection. Initially, the Soviet Union was cold and hesitant toward the new regime, but Jadid, fearing that the lack of overt support from one superpower or another would leave Syria vulnerable, decided to seek Soviet approval through delegations and pro-Soviet statements. And indeed, the Soviet leadership eventually agreed to take Syria as an ally:[2] Syria and began receiving large amounts of weaponry and aid from the Soviet military. Jadid's Marxist-Leninist regime quickly established strong ties with the Syrian communists as well as the CPSU.[36] But at the same time, the Syrian delegation to the United Nations was in constant conflict with the Soviets: it was perhaps the most outspoken of the Arab delegations in opposing the Soviet-American compromise agreement embodied in Security Council Resolution 242 of November 22, 1967, which was to provide a framework for the Arab-Israeli negotiations.[59]

Eastern bloc and others
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The new regime was extreme left at all levels, including international relations, and it consequently strengthened its ties with communist and socialist states. Syria became very close to the Eastern bloc and their allies: countries such as Cuba, Yugoslavia, Sudan, Libya, East Germany, Bulgaria, etc., which were against “Western imperialism” and monarchies.[2]

United States
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Relations with the US remained poor throughout Jadid's reign: after the Six-Day War they were broken off, and in 1970 the US expressed its willingness to intervene in the Jordanian Crisis and support the Hashemite monarchy (to the detriment of the invading Syrian forces).[60]

Western bloc and others
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Since the regime was close to the Eastern Bloc, its relations with the Western Bloc were automatically bad. Jadid cooled Syria's relations to the point of breaking diplomatic ties with various influential Western countries such as the Britain and West Germany.[2]

Relations with Israel

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Women in military uniform.

Relations with Israel have traditionally been poor. Although Syria was not ready for war, especially after numerous political purges in the army, Jadid adopted a very belligerent and aggressive policy towards Israel.[51] The Jadid's regime pursued hardline policies and calling for the mobilization of a "people's war" against Zionism, which was expressed in its huge support for leftist Palestinian fedayeen groups, granting them considerable autonomy and allowing them to carry out attacks on Israel from Syrian territory: Jadid continued supporting that concept even after catasrophic war in 1967.[61][62][49] According to Israeli sources, the neo-Ba'athist regime initiated 177 border incidents and aided 75 Palestinian terrorist or sabotage acts between 23 February 1966 and 15 May 1967.[63] Jadid believed that in order to defeat Israel and wipe it off the map of the region, it was necessary to send armed Palestinian guerrilla and terrorist groups into Israel as a vanguard, thereby drawing Israel, against its will, into an all-out war against all Arab countries, which would lead to the liberation of Palestine. Once Jadid and his allies came to power, they began to argue that popular struggle, based on the system used by the rebels in Algeria and the Viet Cong in Vietnam against foreign rule, was the best formula for destroying the State of Israel. The neo-Ba'athist regime believed that only an uncompromising scorched earth war could liberate the Arabs of the Middle East and their lands from Zionist rule and from the drive of Western powers to expand across Arab lands until they conquered them all. Syrian-backed guerrilla warfare and terrorism were aimed at damaging Israel's infrastructure and ruining its economy. Jadid believed that foreign investors would stay away and Israel's economy would become unprofitable. Another goal was to wear down the Israeli military by forcing it to deal with terrorist activity and to force Israel to spend money on deterrence and defense, which would disrupt the army's training and procurement of regular equipment. Syrian operations, the neo-Ba'athist leaders believed, would give them time to reduce the military disparity between the Arab countries and Israel and would soon prepare the Arab armies for a conventional war. Moreover, the Syrians wanted to force the other Arab states to sit down and recognize Syria as the only one fighting for the Palestinian cause, no matter the price it had to pay. The Syrian leadership promoted the idea of ​​a “people’s war” as much as possible, preaching and exploiting the mass belief that the people’s struggle was justified and effective. The regime devoted much effort and resources to convincing its citizens of this. The Syrian leaders argued that the mission of liberating Palestine was the responsibility of the forces of revolution and progress, which would be represented by the majority of sections of Arab society: farmers, merchants, students, intellectuals, revolutionaries, and others. And yet, despite the bellicose statements they made on every occasion, the leaders themselves did not believe that Syria was capable of defeating Israel on its own.[2]

Jadid on the military parade.

According to Jadid, it was Syria that had to lead the fight and determine what kind of war it would be and how it would be fought. He also argued that it was they who revived the issue of occupied Palestine at Arab League summits and in the United Nations, and so it was natural that they became the leaders of the people's armed struggle for its liberation.[2]

Just a few months after the coup, Jadid completed the formation of the Palestinian paramilitary Ba'athist group called al-Sa'iqa, which carried out attacks on Israel from Jordanian and Lebanese territory, but was completely under the control of the neo-Ba'athist regime in Syria.[64] Al-Sa'iqa became a very important guerrilla group for the Jadid regime: it was present in neighboring Arab countries and also diminished the role of other fedayeen groups in Syria that were not created by him. For example, after the creation of al-Sa'iqi, Fatah (another fedayeen group), under Syrian pressure, was forced to move its bases and training camps from Syria to Jordan.[1] Syria-controlled al-Saiqa successfully replaced the uncontrolled Fatah.[2]

Syria’s inflammatory rhetoric soon translated into action, as it did on the social and economic front. By the end of 1966, terrorist attacks, including mines, sniper fire on Israeli civilians, and bombing of water supplies, had intensified, backed by Syrian statements and threats. The goal was to force Israel to launch a counter-insurgency that would draw the entire region into the war. Armed Palestinian groups in these circumstances endangered not only Israel, but also the Arab states, and especially Syria's neighbors, Jordan and Lebanon. Of all the Arab states that supported the idea of ​​armed conflict both declaratively and ideologically, Jadid's Syria was the most resolute and outspoken. However, Syrian leaders vehemently denied direct participation and practical support for Palestinian organizations, giving various justifications.[2]

In addition to supporting the Palestinian fedayeen, within the framework of this concept, the Jadid regime was engaged in training a "Civil Army" by sending army instructors to populated areas to provide military training to citizens. The Jadid's regime proceeded to set up a militia and a massive peasant army soon after coming to power.[47]

Relations with Arab world

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Jadid meets with Gamal Abdel Nasser in Cairo, 1968

The main principles of the Jadid's regime were to support syrian nationalism rather than the pan-Arabism of the previous regime, which meant concentrating on Syria itself and abandoning the idea of ​​a single Arab nation as sought by the founders of the Ba'athism, al-Bitar and Aflaq.[2] His neo-Ba'athist regime was basically indifferent to pan-Arab issues except for Palestine; it took a more Marxist line than the 'Aflaq-Bitar leadership[50] and pursued hardline policies towards so-called "reactionary" Arab states,[63] especially Saudi Arabia and Jordan (because of this, Syria did not receive aid from other Arab countries. Egypt and Jordan, which participated in the war, received £135 million per year for an undisclosed period). After the 1966 coup d'etat, the new regime immediately launched an unprecedented series of verbal attacks against the Saudi monarchy and its rulers. The Syrians claimed they would instigate a "revolutionary wave that would engulf the Middle East" which would bring about the collapse of the conservative countries, and first and foremost Saudi Arabia.[65]

Jadid called for the mobilization of a "people's war" against Zionism, rather than inter-Arab military alliances.[61][62][49] Much of the propaganda in 1966-67 was devoted to the theme of a "people's liberation war" of an Arabs on the supposed models of Algerian and Vietnamese wars. To shore up domestic support and unite the Arab world behind him, Jadid used extreme positions by threatening Israel. According to the Washington institute for Near East policy, "the state-run Radio Damascus gushed, "Arab masses, this is your day. Fight, Arabs we have decided to oust you, aggressors (Israel).""[66] Jadid pursued an isolationist policy until 1969, which also led to very tense relations with a number of countries in the region,[67] such as Ba'athist Iraq and Nasserist Egypt.

In addition, Jadid was an active enemy of other countries that he believed were oppressing the Arabs, such as Ethiopia and Iran (Syria was harboring Arab separatists from the Khuzestan province and members of the Eritrean Liberation Front).[43]

Downfall and death

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After the 1967 war

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Public support for Jadid's government, such as it was, declined sharply following Syria's defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel captured the Golan Heights, and as a result of the troubled internal conditions of the country: it provoked a furious quarrel among Syria's leadership.[68] The civilian leadership blamed military incompetence, and the military responded by criticizing the civilian leadership.[68]

Salah Jadid in military uniform.

After the war, in particular, tensions began to increase between Jadid's followers and those who argued that the situation called for a more moderate stance on socialism and international relations. This group coalesced around Defense Minister Hafez al-Assad, who protested the "adventurism" of Jadid, and demanded a normalization of the internal situation by adopting a permanent constitution, liberalizing the economy, and mending ties with non-Ba'athist groups, as well as the external situation, by seeking an alliance with conservative Arab states: Assad argued that the government should take steps to improve relations with Jordan, Iraq and Egypt to facilitate coordinated military planning with them. Jadid regime gave a lot of support to the leftist fedayeen, but Assad already considered this a bad decision. In his opinion, the militants were given too much autonomy in attacks on Israel, which provoked the Six-Day War: he demanded a strong reduction in the autonomy of the fedayeen and the transfer of control over them to the army.[61][64] Assad also disagreed with the very essence of the concept of "people's war" promoted by Jadid, which is initially guerrilla: he is the Minister of Defense, responsible for the movement of tanks, air forces and artillery, and not the command of guerrilla groups. This strategy was attractive to President Atassi, a veteran of the Algerian war, for example, but not to Assad.[64] Since the start of the conflict between Assad and Jadid, the Palestinian fedayeen have become another lever in the hands of the various factions locked in a struggle for power. For example, al-Sa'iqa, formed in 1966, had expanded into a large militia of thousands of fighters by 1969: Jadid used it as a counterweight to armed Assad's supporters.[1] Assad also insisted that the party should be removed from military affairs and that the Armed Forces should receive an even larger budget from economic development projects: however, Jadid and his colleagues resisted these demands, and the Regional Party Congress held in September 1968 rejected them.[64]

Jadid's avowedly Marxist regime was hated by about half a dozen other leftist factions in Syria. Even in 1968, Jadid continued to refuse to approve the formation of a proposed "Progressive Front" with various Nasserist, Houranist and renegade Ba'ath elements.[64] While Jadid retained the allegiance of most of the civilian Ba'ath apparatus, Assad as defense minister gradually asserted control over the military wing of the party. In 1969, Assad purged several Jadid loyalists, and from that point on Jadid had lost his preeminence in the state.[69]

1969 incident

[edit]
Main article: 1969 Syrian incident

From 25 to 28 February 1969, general Assad initiated "something just short of a coup".[70] Under Assad's authority, tanks were moved into Damascus and the staffs of al-Ba'ath and al-Thawra (two-party newspapers) and radio stations in Damascus and Aleppo were replaced with Assad loyalists.[70] Latakia and Tartus, two Alawite-dominated cities, saw "fierce scuffles" ending with the overthrow of Jadid's supporters from local posts.[70] Shortly afterwards, a wave of arrests of Jundi loyalists began.[70] On 2 March, after a telephone argument with head of military intelligence Ali Duba, Abd al-Karim al-Jundi, head the National Security Bureau and important ally of Jadid, committed suicide.[70] When Zu'ayyin heard the news he wept, saying "we are all orphaned now" (referring to his and Jadid's loss of their protector).[71] Despite his rivalry with Jundi, Assad is said to have also wept when he heard the news.[70]

Invasion of Jordan

[edit]
Main article: Syrian invasion of Jordan
Syrian tank invade Jordan.

In 1970, when conflict erupted between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Jordanian army, Jadid sent troops - ostensibly of the Palestine Liberation Army but actually regular Syrian army troops - into Jordan to aid the PLO.[72] After the initial military successes of the invasion, King Hussein asked Israel to carry out airstrikes against Syrian troops together with the Jordanian Air Force. The airstrikes caused heavy losses for the Syrian troops, which was due to the almost full lack of air defense systems and the fact that the commander of the Syrian Air Force, Assad, did not agree to send squadrons to Jordan to support their invaded army.[73] The decision to invade Jordan was not generally welcomed by Assad's more moderate Ba'ath faction, and the troops withdrew.

Internal conflict

[edit]

The action helped trigger a simmering conflict between the Jadid and Assad factions within the Ba'ath Party and army. The Syrian Communist Party aligned itself with Jadid, drawing him the support of Soviet ambassador, Nuritdin Mukhitdinov. Angered by this, Assad decided to scare the Soviets by sending Mustafa Tlass to Beijing to procure arms and wave Chairman Mao's Little Red Book.[74] Assadists began dismantling Jadid's support network, facing ineffectual resistance from the civilian branch of the party that remained under Jadid's control.[75]

1970 Coup d'etat

[edit]
Main article: Corrective Movement (Syria)

In November 1970, Jadid tried to fire Assad and his supporter Mustafa Tlass. Assad responded by launching an intra-party coup dubbed the Corrective Movement. Although many mid-level officials were offered posts in Syrian embassies abroad, Jadid refused: "If I ever take power, you will be dragged through the streets until you die."[76] Jadid was arrested on 13 November 1970, and remained in the Mezzeh prison.[77] The coup was calm and bloodless; the only evidence of change to the outside world was the disappearance of newspapers, radio and television stations.[76] A Temporary Regional Command was soon established, and on 16 November the new government published its first decree.[76]

Death

[edit]

Jadid was arrested and remained in the Mezzeh prison in Damascus until his death of a heart attack on 19 August 1993.[77]

References

[edit]
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Bibliography

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