Why did Pan-Arabism fail?

Answer 1

Pan-Arabism failed for a number of reasons. Some of those more commonly cited include:

1) National Cultural Differences: Each Arab Nation has a different ethnic, religious, and tribal makeup. President Bourguiba of Tunisia proposed a union with Muammar Qaddafi of Libya, but his own people made it clear that they were not interested. The reason for this was that Tunisia was (and still is) the most progressive state in the Arab World, embracing such concepts as "national identity", "freedom of religion", near-complete "freedom of speech", and a Western-Style Government. Libya was (and still is) one of the most conservative Arab States outside of the Arabian Peninsula. Its people were very tribal with numerous militias sprinkled across the country and a system of bribes and counter-bribes used to keep the tribes from breaking out in a revolution. With national organizational and cultural differences that were that huge, Pan-Arabism could not begin.

2) Regional Superiority: Each leader in the Arab World believes that they are smarter, more capable, and more deserving of leadership than every other. However, Pan-Arabism requires that there only be one government. This means that every other state must subordinate their power to one leader. Many Arabs joke about this bemusedly because of a conversation between Nasser of Egypt and Assad of Syria where Nasser said, "I am proud leader of the United Arab Republic based out of Cairo." and Assad said the next day, "I am proud leader of the United Arab Republic based out of Damascus." Both were referring to the same state, but each refused to really cede all control to the other. The United Arab Republic fell apart after three years.

3) Regional Disunity: Arabs have gone to war with each other at numerous times and in numerous places. Nearly every border in the Arab World has played host to a military engagement of some type. The Arab World has never had anything even close to the European Union or the Schengen Border Agreement. (The Arab League is much more like the United Nations and has no superstate components.) Although Arabs, as individuals, may feel connected across borders, like those between Morocco and Algeria or those between Syria and Lebanon or those between Egypt, Sudan, and Libya, their governments do not.

4) Oil Wealth: The Leaders of the Persian Gulf States such as Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman have little interest in giving up all of their oil wealth and power to accede to a vague hope and dream. This is especially true because it can be assumed that the leaders of such small states would definitely not become the Pan-Arab Leader (which brings everyone back to problem 2).

5) Israel: Many Arabs claim that Israel prevented Pan-Arabism from occurring even though the most successful Pan-Arab Nationalist project was the Egyptian-Syrian United Arab Republic which was physically split by Israel. Simply put, Israel drives a geographical wedge between Egypt and North Africa in the west and the Levant, Iraq, and Arabia in the east.