The Arab defeat at the hands of Israel in the June War prompted a period
of soul-searching throughout the Arab world and led, in the cases of Syria
and Iraq, to the overthrow of the existing regimes. Prior to 1967, these two
states had acquired well-deserved reputations for political instability, but in
the post-1967 order, they developed remarkably durable regimes. In Syria
Hafiz al-Asad seized power in 1970, and in 1999, at the age of sixty-nine,
he was elected to his third seven-year term as president; in Iraq Saddam
Husayn emerged as the political strongman in 1971, was officially pro-
claimed president in 1979, and retained his hold on power even after his
country's defeat in the Gulf War of 1991 and despite its struggles under an
economic embargo that was still in effect in 1999. Both of these men ruled
their countries longer than Nasser ruled Egypt. Each of them distrusted the
other, and their two countries became engaged in a smoldering rivalry for
regional dominance in the 1970s. Yet despite their clashes over foreign pol-
icy, their two regimes had much in common.

In al-Asad and Husayn, both states had rulers whose persons and regimes
represented the rise of a new elite of rural origins at the expense of the es-
tablished urban politicians and merchants. Both regimes were authoritarian,
basing their power on the military and the Bath Party. In both, the sole
ruler held absolute power and became the object of a personality cult. Both
regimes adopted socialist economic policies and stood for egalitarian re-
form. However, a major contrast between them existed in the area of na-
tional wealth. Although Syria finally became a net exporter of oil during the

-385-