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Rh took it back to its starting-point. It was tested and proved wanting. Civilian control with constitutional authority was resumed.

Under al-Quwatli Syria pursued the ideal of Arab unity through rapprochement with Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Hostile to Israel, unfriendly towards Turkey, alienated from Lebanon and more recently from Iraq, she felt isolated and vulnerable. By history, geography and tradition, Iraq would have been a natural partner of Syria. But the signing by Iraq of the Baghdad pact (February 1955) allied it with Turkey and the West. Both Egypt and Syria then considered the Arab League security pact as no longer effective and the two bound themselves by a new defence treaty. The treaty established unity of command and covered training, equipment and other phases of military organization and activity. On the East-or-West issue Syria and Egypt saw eye to eye. Saudi Arabia was determined in its opposition to dealings with Russia.

The avowed policy of Syria under al-Quwatli was that of 'neutrality': rejection of foreign pacts and readiness to receive arms from any source that offered them 'with no strings'. Russia and her satellites expressed willingness to accommodate. Early in 1956 the Syrian government recalled its delegation seeking a thirty-million-dollar loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. It signed a trade and payment agreement with Rumania to export cotton, tobacco, hides, textiles and olive oil for Rumanian timber, dyes, chemicals, medicines, agricultural engines and other machinery. Similar agreements followed with Hungary, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia. Cultural missions were exchanged with Russia and Communist China. The cultural agreement with Russia involved exchange of specialists in science, art, education and scholarships. Eight of the thirty participant countries in the Damascus third international fair (September 1956) belonged to the Communist bloc. In the 1957 fair Great Rh