The Arab world has experienced a large number of military presidencies since General Bakr Sidki's brief rule in Iraq in 1936. The phenomenon became of great significance beginning with Colonel Jamal ʿAbd al-Nasir's presidency in Egypt in the early 1950s, which established a model for similar regimes in Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and, at least initially, Libya under the self-promoted Colonel Muʿammar al-Qadhafi. The president who exchanged his uniform for a suit; an authoritarian style of political management in the name of a revolution against an old, foreign-dominated order; and the legitimacy obtained from laudable achievements in the international and economic sphere: these were all part of al-Nasir's influence and legacy.

At the peak of the phenomenon before the revolutionary upheavals in early 2011, North Africa had three countries with military presidents—Egypt, Libya, and Sudan—as well as two others—Algeria and Tunisia—where the ruler had had significant military experience. To the east there were just two other military presidents—in Lebanon and Yemen—although there had been a third in Syria until Hafiz al-Asad's death in 2000. All except Lebanon's Süleiman ruled as presidents for life with, in almost every case, the firm intention of passing on their power to a son or other close relative. The fact that all of them also obtained U.S. support for their role in the war on terror in the early 21st century tended to make them appear yet more long lived and impregnable.

In spite of their military background and the fact that they usually had great success in keeping themselves safe from further coups, several of the new military rulers in the 20th century experienced some of the same difficulties as civilian presidents in controlling the armed forces. In the case of Egypt this involved a compromise by which President al-Nasir surrendered much of his day-to-day power over the military to his colleague, ʿAbd al-Hakim ʿAmir, in exchange for its loyalty. The result was disastrous over time as the army, weakened by promotions based on patronage rather than military skill, first failed to subdue the opponents of the Yemeni revolution it had been sent to protect in 1962 and then, in a bid for hoped-for redemption, was completely routed by Israeli forces after ʿAmir sent several divisions to Egypt's eastern border just before the start of the June 1967 war. In Syria and Iraq there was a somewhat different process: the military presidents failed to maintain control over a highly politicized officer-corps anxious to use the army for its own factional political purposes.

In all three cases, this state of affairs had serious consequences for military efficiency as demonstrated by the shattering defeat to Israel in 1967. Then, after some improvement in fighting capacity in the 1970s was instituted by new Arab military presidents—Anwar Sadat in Egypt, Hafiz al-Asad in Syria, and Ahmad Bakr in Iraq—fresh problems emerged in Egypt as a turn toward economic liberalization, combined with a desire to cut military costs, allowed the army to become an economic actor in its own right while binding in its increasingly elderly commanders as significant members of the president's crony elite. The result was a loss of military efficiency so great that the army was eventually unable to continue its annual military maneuvers with the American forces due to its outdated weapons systems and its poor staff work.

Elsewhere, almost all Arab militaries relied on military presidents to safeguard their various interests in military spending and in the promotion of military industry, backed where possible by a military man as minister of defense. This now raises serious future problems in countries like Egypt and Tunisia, where the popular revolutions of early 2011 paved the way for civilian presidents as heads of new and untried political systems. Where the army will fit in the newly emerging governmental structure remains to be seen. To judge by what has happened in Egypt in the last few months, it seems that the army will strive to achieve something like the status it has in Turkey: the protector of a popular democracy in exchange for an understanding that its own activities will remain unexamined and unregulated. Nevertheless, large questions will remain in terms of whether a new and more stable balance between the military and a popularly elected president and government can be achieved.

At the time of this writing, only four Arab military heads of state remain: one in Lebanon and three in the less strongly centralized states of Libya, Sudan, and Yemen. Of the latter, two—al-Qadhafi and Ali Abdullah Saleh—are under strong attack from inside and outside their countries and may not remain for long. Only ʿOmar al-Bashir in Sudan looks at all safe, and even he could lose his post to a colleague if his policies toward the south, oil, and Darfur are found wanting.

The system of Arab military presidents has been and will remain under strong attack. But whether it can give way to effective civilian control while maintaining what the Arab officer corps considers to be a proper system for safeguarding military interest is hard to predict. Given the difficulties posed by the contradiction between the military's economic well-being and its combat efficiency as well as the continued weakness of civilian institutions, the future for nonmilitary presidents does not look particularly promising. At best, they may find themselves wholly dependent on their armies for support with only their democratic credentials to protect them from the possibility of a creeping coup. At worst, and particularly in the context of some new national emergency of a natural or political kind, they could find themselves pushed aside by a new version of the classical military savior, a man on a white horse.