Essam Sirius

Salah Jadid (Arabic: صلاح جديد, romanized: Ṣalāḥ Jadīd; 1926 – 19 August 1993) was a Syrian military officer and politician who was the leader of the far-left bloc of the Syrian Regional Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, "head of state" and the de facto leader of Ba'athist Syria from 1966 until 1970, when he was ousted by Hafez al-Assad's Corrective Revolution.

Jadid came to power after a coup in 1966. Although he did not rule directly, preferring to remain in the shadows, he wielded all real power in Syria through his allies in key positions of power. Salah Jadid had an open passion for Qutriyun (Regionalist Ba'athism), communism and the Soviet model of government: In just four years in power, he built a totalitarian neo-Ba’athist regime, sometimes called "neo-Marxist". His imposition of radical socialist ideology, brutal repression, and anti-religious policies alienated almost all sectors of Syrian society. His foreign policy alienated most of Syria's potential allies in the Arab world and contributed to the start of the Six-Day War. Salah Jadid was overthrown by his former colleague Hafez al-Assad in 1970 in the so-called "Corrective Revolution".