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Slipped Border. Unity was obtained, but at a high price. Once in control, Nasser insisted on the abolition of all parties, Baath included, and fixed on Syria the same tight controls and security-police system as in Egypt. Designated as the Northern Region of the United Arab Republic. Syria was flooded by officious Egyptian brass and cramped by Nasser's authoritarian economic schemes. Syrian officers who protested found themselves transferred to duty deep in Egypt; civilians quickly landed in jail. At last, even Michel Aflak rebelled and ordered the Baath Cabinet Ministers to resign in a body, setting the stage for Syria's angry secession from the U.A.R.
In Iraq the Baath Party faced crisis from the moment Dictator Karim Kassem established his bloody dictatorship in 1958. The Baathists participated in an armed revolt in the oil center of Mosul, which Kassem savagely suppressed with the help of Iraq's Communist militia. A Baathist group tried to kill Kassem, but failed and was butchered. Finally, last month, Baathist politicians and pro-Nasser military men organized and exe cuted the coup that resulted in the death of Kassem and the slaughter of hundreds of his Communist allies. Four weeks later, with far less blood. Baathists and pro-Nasser officers in Damascus brushed aside the conservative government of Syria. The way at last was open for the unity that everyone had been talking about.
Complete Lesson. The difficulty, of course, is that everyone wants unity on his own terms. Even Jordan's King Hussein, who is anathema to Nasser and the Baathists, says he hopes for eventual reconciliation with his enemies and admission of Jordan into the Arab Union. If necessary. Hussein told newsmen, he would abdicate to achieve Arab unity. But he quickly added. "Provided it's unity on a proper basis." Michel Aflak replies: "Jordan and Saudi Arabia are welcome to join the Arab Union, but not with their present regimes and rulers."
In Cairo President Nasser has given every indication that he intends to avoid the mistakes made during the hurried and ill-fated union with Syria. "The main reason for the lack of success." Nasser told TIME last week, "was that we accepted complete union and amalgamation, instead of federation and self-government in both states."
To begin discussion of a better system. Iraqi and Syrian delegations flew into Cairo fortnight ago for preliminary talks with Nasser. Last week an even more high-powered group of Syrians arrived, headed by Michel Aflak and Premier Salah El-Bitar, with the intention of laying down a solid foundation for the proposed unity structure. This week another set of delegates from Syria and Iraq will return to Cairo, each bringing a draft project for a new union.