Adib al-Shishakli (born 1909, Ḥamāh, Syria—died Sept. 27, 1964, Brazil) was a Syrian army officer who overthrew the Syrian government in December 1949 and dominated Syrian politics until his own overthrow in 1954.

Shishakli was a Syrian nationalist who afterWorld War II opposed movements toward the political union ofSyria andIraq. When unification seemed likely in December 1949, Shishakli executed hiscoup.

At first assuming no open authority, Shishakli forced the acceptance of an army officer as minister of defense but allowed the Syrian parliamentary structure to remain intact. The Syrian political parties did not provide effective leadership, however, and power passed to elements outside Parliament. Some politicians tried unsuccessfully to reduce Shishakli’s influence over the government by removing the police force from the jurisdiction of the minister of defense. Shishakli initiated a second coup in November 1951, when he ordered the arrest of theprime minister, Fawzi Salu, his associate in 1949, who had proposed a government that Shishakli could not accept.

The basis of Shishakli’s power was the undividedallegiance of the army, whose fighting ability he increased with French aid. Soon after the coup of 1951, he suppressed most political parties. With time, however, he came to feel a need for civilian political support and aconstitutional basis for his rule. He pressedland reform policies and refused aid from theUnited States. In August 1952 he launched theArab Liberation Movement, which was to be a mass-basedpolitical party under his leadership. No politicians of importance joined this organization, and most united against it. Thus weakened, Shishakli was overthrown by amilitary revolt that drove him into exile in February 1954.