Democracy Destroyed: Stories of American Sponsored Coups - Syria

posted on: Mar 22, 2021

By: Noah Robertson/Arab America Contributing Writer

April 17, 1946: French control of Syria was finally over and President Shukri al-Quwalti, Syria’s first democratically elected president, could finally run the country independent of French rule. Syria’s hope for a democratic and prosperous future however quickly encountered problems.

Initially, the U.S. supported an independent Syria and wanted to help train and arm them. Unfortunately for Syria, with the U.S. support of the 1947 Palestine-Israel UN Resolution and the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, the Americans realized they could not risk Syria using American weapons against Israel. In retaliation for supporting Israel, al-Quwalti blocked the Trans-Arabian Pipe Line (TAPLINE) since the TAPLINE was being built by ARAMCO, an American company. This, along with a rising threat of Communism in Syria, led to four coup efforts supported by the American government (1/2 of them successful). In this article we will see how these four coups contributed to the Syria’s inability to maintain a stable democratic government and led to many hardships for Syrians.

The First of the Coups in Syria: 1949

A combination of American fears about Syria’s ability to quash growing Communist parties and ARAMCO’s lobbying for help with TAPLINE, the CIA and Syrian Chief of Staff Husni Zaim, who had right-wing army dissident support, began talking in 1948. Sanctioned by President Harry Truman, CIA operative Stephen Meade met with Zaim at least six times to discuss “the possibility [of an] army supported dictatorship.” Zaim was clearly anti-Soviet and the CIA described him as a “banana republic dictator type” with the competence of a “French corporal,” which meant he could be easily controlled. He requested the CIA stir up internal disturbances during which he would carry out his coup, and on March 30, 1949, Zaim took control of the government and suspended the constitution. By April 15, “over 400 Commies” had been arrested, Israeli peace talks resumed, land was promised for Palestinian refugees, and TAPLINE was approved. Washington was overjoyed.

Unfortunately for Zaim, his Israel-friendly policies led to his overthrow by Colonel Sami Hinnawi on August 14, 1949. The 1^st CIA supported coup and military dictatorship were over after only ~4 months. Hinnawi held elections in November and won, but he planned to form a union with Iraq leading to Colonel Adib Shishakli removing him on December 19, 1949. Shishakli did not have any real plan, so in the next 23 months there were 7 different civilian cabinets.

The Second of the Coups in Syria: 1951

In 1950 Colonel Shishakli discussed receiving “military aid for army modernization to ‘maintain order’” with this U.S., a veiled offer to govern similar to Zaim. Given Shishakli‘s strong anti-Communist attitudes and their perceived weakness of Prime Minister Nazim Qudsi’s regime, the U.S. quickly decided to back Shishakli. Since Zaim, the Israeli peace talks had been paused, pro-Communist attitudes were spreading, and TAPLINE was again blocked. In 1951 when Ma’aruf Dawalibi, considered pro-Soviet, was to become the head of the eighth civilian cabinet in two years it was time for Shishakli to act.

Shishakli quickly dissolved parliament and set up the second military dictatorship in two years. In 1952 he also dissolved all political parties, crushing hopes for democracy. As promised, Shishakli began restoring the pro-Western policies of Zaim and the U.S. quickly prepared aid as a thank you. This coup was not directly helped by the U.S., but Shishakli was strongly supported and promised benefits if he took power and acted in support of American interests.

More chaos between coups in Syria: 1954-1955

As Shishakli worked to restore the pro-American policies, his popularity declined leading to a bloodless coup on February 25, 1954. Syrians went to the polls on September 24^th, again trying to restore democracy in the country, and elected many left-wing party members including the first freely elected Communist party deputy in the Arab world. This, of course, greatly worried the U.S.

Under the new regime anti-Western and pro-Communist sentiment grew rapidly. During this time, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was worried Colonel Adnan Malki could seize control of the country, partner with Nasser, and further cement anti-Western sentiment. Coincidently (or not), he was assassinated on April 22, 1955 by the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, a former pro-Shishakli group rumored to have CIA support. This only increased anti-American sentiment and pushed the U.S. to mobilize resources against left-wing control in Syria. It also led to a harsher crackdown by Syrian intelligence than in the past.

Operation Straggle (Project Omega): a Failed Coup

On August 18, 1955 President Shukri al-Quwalti was elected president again and hopes for a democratic Syria were resumed. Since Quwalti  would not support all of Washington’s interests they refused to send military aid, so he aligned with Egypt in mid-October. Nasser had just begun to receive Soviet support and the U.S. became worried of Syria’s “chronic governmental weakness” being next. This, of course, was a weakness they had encouraged.

As Soviet arms and tanks flowed into Syria the British became worried too. U.S. Ambassador Moose openly suggested that an “anti-Communist coup” might be a necessary solution, which both governments quickly supported and the CIA began working with Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). This proposed CIA-SIS operation was codenamed Project Omega, more commonly known as Operation Straggle. At this point, according to Archibald Roosevelt, the State Departments’ “point man on Syria,” the “leftist coalition of forces supported by the Soviets” in Damascus as “a target legally authorized by statute for CIA political action.”

Not only were the CIA and SIS involved in encouraging locals to revolt, but they originally planned to have Turkey stage border incidents and use the mess of conflicts as justification for Iraqi troops to invade. On July 26, 1956, when Nasser seized the Suez Canal, everything changed. At the last minute, SIS convinced the CIA to postpone the coup by four days – to coincide with a British-Israeli intervention in Egypt, though they did not mention this – despite the CIA having already delivered $150,000 to their Syrian co-conspirators. By the time Israel began their assault on Egypt, Syrian counterintelligence had discovered Straggle. On October 30^th Secretary of State Foster Dulles and CIA Director Allen Dulles agreed to put the operation on hold, but they did not end their desire for a coup.

The Eisenhower Doctrine

On January 1, 1957 Eisenhower requested congressional authorization to use U.S. troops to counter Soviet subversion in the Middle East. A large congressional majority approved this based off of evidence of 24 Soviet jets, 130 tanks, and 100 technicians in Syria. This doctrine was preparation for overt actions if the coup Eisenhower, the Dulles brothers, and the British were preparing failed.

Operation Wappen: Another Failed Coup

With Syria’s signing of a technical aid agreement with the Soviets, the Communist threat had reached a level at which Washington and London gave final approval to Wappen, which had been in the planning stages for three months. Former president Adib Shishakli was in Beirut and ready to take control again. Essentially, the plan was for CIA agent Rocky Stone to coordinate “national conspiracies and various strong arm provocations” in other Arab countries and then blame it on Syrian Ba’athists providing pretext for an invasion by Iraq and Jordan. The CIA also planned to bribe military officers to rise up against al-Quwatli, to support Muslim Brotherhood protests, and to assassinate key Syrian officials; all in order to remove the democratically elected government.

According to the U.S. ambassador at the time, Wappen was “a particularly clumsy CIA plot” with six of the Syrian officers approached reporting back to the government immediately. On August 12, 1957, the main CIA officials behind the plot were expelled from the country, Syrian dissidents arrested, and the embassy placed under surveillance. To top off the failures of Wappen, Colonel Bizri used this CIA plot as an excuse to push out moderates in the army and install left-wing control.

A Possible Invasion

Given the coup’s failure, Dulles and Eisenhower convened a meeting to discuss invoking the Eisenhower Doctrine with Turkey, Iraq, and other Arab countries assisting in military action. Fortunately, Eisenhower soon realized he would struggle to justify military action to Congress without overt Soviet action, and his Arab allies were hedging too.

Turkey, on the other hand, was committed to military action and massed 50,000 troops on the Syrian border. Eisenhower realized if Turkey invaded, the Soviets would likely respond, and with Turkey (a NATO member) WWIII could occur. Luckily, Turkey was persuaded to back off and Syria realized they did not like the idea of either Turkey invading or the Soviets controlling them. This led the Ba’athist leaders to create a union, the United Arab Republic (UAR), with Egypt in 1958.

Post-1958 Timeline

• As leader of the UAR, Nasser orders the dissolution of Syrian political parties.
• 1961: Syrian army officers revolt against Egyptian domination of the UAR, take power, and end the union with Egypt.
• 1963: another military coup appoints a Ba’athist cabinet.
• 1966: another coup removes the Ba’ath leadership and Hafez al-Assad becomes defense minister.
• 1970: Hafez al-Assad overthrows the government and begins his dictatorial rule.
• 1982: the Muslim Brotherhood starts an uprising and tens of thousands of civilians are killed in the army’s crackdown, a prime example of Hafez’s brutal regime
• 2000: Bashar al-Assad takes power after Hafez’s death and releases 600 political prisoners giving the country hope, but in 2001 crackdowns on activists resume.

Following 2000, Syrian-world relations ebbed and flowed until 2011 when a nationwide uprising began and was met with a brutal and deadly government response. These protests and brutal crackdowns continue today as does the Syrian government’s support for terror groups. Much of the recent history may not be well known in the U.S., but it is well reported on, so we will move on to summarizing the repercussions of the multiple CIA-backed coups.

The Repercussions

Of course, no one can predict what would have occurred in Syria without U.S. support and planning of coups to overthrow democratically elected governments, but the outcome would probably have been better than the current situation. Even with American interference, Syria had second and third chances to have a democracy, but the chaos U.S. interference started made that nearly impossible. CIA efforts directly led to two democratic regimes being overthrown simply because they would not support Western plans and the failed coups just led to more crackdowns and less democratic rule.

Along with all of this, the U.S. had pushed Syria to form the UAR out of necessity, which directly led to the uprisings eventually placing the Assad family in power with their iron fist and brutal hold over the country since 1970. Obviously, no country should foment insurrection and crush democracy for self-gain, but even worse is that the U.S. and British got no tangible benefits out of their actions.

Overall, it can be seen that self-serving American actions created mass suffering for Syrians and essentially took away the chance of democracy. Unfortunately, many still do not know what/who kickstarted the problems in Syria or why any Syrian could dislike or distrust America, so hopefully this article provides some more understanding and clarity.

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