Part 8/14:
The failure of the UAR taught a brutal lesson: ideology alone could not sustain power. Military officers, including Hafiz al-Assad and Saddam Hussein, learned that the only way forward was through pragmatic control backed by force. They seized power in Syria (1961) and Iraq (1968), respectively, but their victorious regimes quickly devolved into personalist rule, rife with sectarian favoritism and brutality. The early promises of Arab nationalism and unity faded into regimes predicated on personality cults, security apparatuses, and repression.