After waiting nearly a full minute for the applause to die down, Susan continued: “My friends, the spirit and promise of Salimah shows us one important ideal: that if we work together, we truly can be happy, wealthy, and fulfilled children of God. That important ideal is unity. We must become as one. Salimah is only the beginning. You can look out across that wasteland and see nothing but sand and rock, but I see much more: I see one people, one message, one common goal: peace, prosperity, and happiness. I see the future, secure and full of hope and promise for our children. I see ah Arabs and all Africans working together to secure our borders, sharing in the wealth of our land and our seas, and contributing to a brave new society where we show the world what it’s like to be free. I see our future, my brothers and sisters: I see the new United Arab Republic. God wills it, my brothers and sisters, and so let it be done.”

The cheers and joyful screaming reached an almost feverish pitch. This is what the crowd had been waiting for, and now they had heard it from the “queen’s” own lips: She was calling for the formation of the United Arab Republic.

It was not a new idea. In 1958, Egypt formed a United Arab Republic, mostly to fight against lingering European domination in Middle East affairs. With Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser as its leader, the United Arab Republic flourished for three years and grew strong; the Republic was largely responsible for reuniting the Arab world following its defeat in the first Arab-Israeli War, and for strengthening the individual power of its member nations by removing foreign domination of Arab interests and instituting self-rule and determination.

The United Arab Republic foundered for a variety of reasons: The nations involved were too diverse, too wrapped up in their own domestic difficulties, and too dependent on non-Arab nations, mostly the Soviet Union, for their military strength. But assembling a new United Arab Republic was a dream of almost every Arab leader since the fall of the first—if Europe could establish a European Union, as different as they all were in language, geography, wealth, and history, why couldn’t the Arab world do so as well?

Susan Bailey Salaam’s speech did not last longer than a few minutes—but the crowd cheered and applauded her for almost fifteen. It was truly an awe-inspiring demonstration of trust, loyalty, love, and respect for the American-born non-Muslim wife of a slain politician . ..

... for everyone except Jadallah Zuwayy. “There she goes again—calling for a United Arab Republic!” he shouted at the television set in his office at the Royal Palace in Tripoli, United Kingdom of Libya. “How dare she? Who does she think she is—Nasser? Kennedy? Cleopatra?” Zuwayy got up out of his seat and started stalking the room. “I thought we had a deal to get a piece of Salimah, Juma,” he said to his Minister of Arab Unity, Juma Mahmud Hijazi. “What happened?”