ABSTRACT
Our views of the military’s role in Middle Eastern politics have largely been formed by the history of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s in the region. Those years were the golden age of coups in the Arab world, a time when every Arab military officer could hope to become his country’s ruler some day. The armed forces were highly politicized, and rulers generally failed to control them. During this period, too, the armed forces were the most effective national institutions and, at times, the only effective ones.
