It was only with the creation of the Israel that the ideological motivations for the creation of a United Arab Republic came into place. The failure of the Egyptian monarchy to defeat Israel led to a coup d'etat by Egyptian officers, which promptly abolished the monarchy. The coup led to Mohammad Naguib being made president of Egypt. After nationalizing the Suez Canal and having Egypt stand its ground against a coalition of the United Kingdom, Israel, and France, Naguib would become very popular in the Arab World. In 1958, a movement in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, similar to that in Egypt, would overthrow the Saudi monarchy, and after a brief civil war lead to the creation of a Naguibist state in the Arabian peninsula. With Egypt under Naguib, Lebanon under Rashid Karami, Syria under al-Quwatli, the former Saudi Arabia under Talal al Saud, and Iraq under Abdul Salam Arif, the five nations would unite to form the United Arab Republic.
With the formation of the UAR, the goal was then to crush Israel. Israel had been firmly non-aligned, seeing as how it couldn't trust the increasingly pro-UAR, but its leftist leadership couldn't trust the US either. As such, it sought to arm itself against any possible invasion. The UAR was aware of this and also begin to arm itself to fully prepare itself against a war with Israel.
The Three Years' War began in 1963, when the UAR suspected that Israel was arming Maronite Christian militias in the restive UAR republic of Lebanon. After 50 Arabian soldiers were killed in a bomb blast done by a Maronite militia based in Israel, the UAR would declare war. Israel held out fairly well, but ultimately would fall in 1966 after a UAR blockade prevented any supplies from coming into Israel. Reprisal killings against Jews would occur, and millions of Jews would end up fleeing to the United States.
With the defeat of Israel, the ideology of Pan-Arabism would be vindicated. One after another, in Yemen, in Sudan, in Libya, in Algeria, in Oman, in the Trucial states, Arabist regimes would take over, mainly through a coup d'etat. The 1975-1977 Arab-Iran War, which would end in the UAR taking al-Ahwaz, would further bolster the ideology, and by 1980 the United Arab Republic would be the only Arab state in the world, the goal of uniting the Arab peoples having been completed.
However, after scoring victory after victory, the leadership of the United Arab Republic began to get too confident in what they could achieve. The death of Naguib in 1982 led to the formation of the Presidential Action Committee, a ten-member council of politicians from across the UAR in which they would decide the future of the UAR after Naguib. Naguib was very much the glue holding the UAR together, and none of the members of the PAC could claim to be as popular as him. As such, they needed something to hold the UAR, and more importantly, the ruling Arab Socialist Union party, together.
Abdul Salam Arif, the president of Iraq at the time it unified with the UAR, would be made president in 1983, after 210 days of PAC rule. Arif was aware of the need to unify the country after Naguib's death, and saw the civil war in Turkey as a great opportunity. Just six months after becoming president, the UAR would enter the Turkish province of Hatay and annex it. The United States, angered by a foreign country choosing to annex territory from an allied government (the US was supporting the Turkish government), would place sanctions on the UAR. Arif would end succeeding in uniting the Arabs of the UAR for a time, but soon sanctions began to hurt the Arabian economy. By 1990, the people of the UAR reached their limit, and would take out to the streets to stand against the ASU, its mismanagement of the economy, and its growing repression. Arif would try to crack down on the protests, but only succeeded in widening them. Fearing that this would lead to the dissolution of the republic, Arif announced his resignation on January 22nd, 1990, just two days before the UAR's 31st "Union Day". Arif would be succeeded by Ali Abdullah Saleh, who promised compromise, then full acceptance of the protestors entire demands. The first fair and free elections in the UAR would be held in 1991.
The three flags of the United Arab Republic: The first was in place from 1959-1992, the second was in place from 1992-1996, the third is its current flag and has been since 1996.
The UAR would face one big challenge in the 1990s, one which still persists today, in Palestine. Many extremist Zionists never forgot the defeat in the Three Years War, and would try to restore Israel, mainly through violence. Many of these terrorists would come from the United States to fight in the UAR, which would lead to the UAR imposing travel restrictions of Americans coming to the country. By committing terrorist attacks in broad daylight, many of these groups hope to wear down the authorities to where they are forced to a settlement. Of course, any government doing this will lose their legitimacy, but the strategy persists. The deadliest attack was in 2002 when three American extreme Zionists would open fire on Muslims praying in al-Aqsa, killing 200 and injuring 300. Maronite Christian, Sunni extremist, South Sudanese, and Kurdish separatist terrorism are also problems.