Political/military Career
The Arab defeat in that war was a motivating factor for the military coup of Husni al-Za'im which had taken place soon after in 1949, shattering Syria's weak parliamentary system. Only months after al-Za'im's takeover, he was overthrown by a group of officers connected to the SSNP, including Shishakli and Zaim's old comrade Colonel Sami al-Hinnawi, who led the new military junta.
Za'im had previously delivered the SSNP leader Antun Saadeh to the Lebanese authorities who had him tried and executed for wanting to destroy the modern state of Lebanon. Reportedly, after Za'm was killed, Shishakli ripped off Za'im's bloodstained shirt and took it to Saadeh's widow, who was still in Syria, telling her, "We have avenged his murder!".
Shishakli worked with Sami al-Hinnawi, the new de facto ruler of Syria who refused to assume power on his own and restored Syria's parliamentary system. Hinnawi became chief-of-staff of the Syrian Army and a veteran nationalist, Hashem al-Atassi, who had been president in the 1930s, to become prime minister, and then president of Syria. Atassi wanted to create union with Hashemite Iraq, something which Shishakli greatly opposed, claiming that Hinnawi was the drive behind pro-Hashemite sentiment in Syria.
Read more about this topic: Adib Shishakli
Famous quotes containing the words political, military and/or career:
“My political enemies I can freely forgive; but as for who abused me when I was serving my country in the field, and those who attacked me for serving my countryDoctor, that is a different case.”
—Andrew Jackson (17671845)
“There was somewhat military in his nature, not to be subdued, always manly and able, but rarely tender, as if he did not feel himself except in opposition. He wanted a fallacy to expose, a blunder to pillory, I may say required a little sense of victory, a roll of the drum, to call his powers into full exercise.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)
“Work-family conflictsthe trade-offs of your money or your life, your job or your childwould not be forced upon women with such sanguine disregard if men experienced the same career stalls caused by the-buck-stops-here responsibility for children.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)