generally supported Chamoun, culminating in a civil war by May 1958. The former favoured merging with the UAR, while the latter feared the new country as a satellite of Communism. Although Nasser did not covet Lebanon, seeing it as a special case, he felt obliged to back his supporters through giving Abdel Hamid Sarraj the task of sending them money, light arms, and training officers. On 14 July 1958, Iraqi army officers staged a military coup and overthrew the Kingdom of Iraq – which had just previously united with Jordan to form the rival Arab Federation. Nasser declared his recognition of the new government and stated that "any attack on Iraq was tantamount to an attack on the UAR". The next day US Marines and British special forces landed in Lebanon and in Jordan, respectively, to protect the two countries from falling to pro-Nasser forces. To Nasser, the revolution in Iraq opened the road for Arab nationalism. Although most members of the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) favoured joining Iraq with the UAR, the new prime minister Abdel Karim Qasim disagreed. Said K. Aburish states reasons for this could have included Nasser's refusal to cooperate with and encourage the Iraqi Free Officers a year before the coup – or Qasim viewed Nasser as a threat to his supremacy as leader of Iraq. Later in July, the US government convinced Chamoun not to seek a second term. This allowed the election of Fuad Chehab as Lebanon's new president. Nasser and Chehab met at the Lebanese–Syrian border and Nasser explained to Chehab that he never wanted unity with Lebanon, but only that the country not be used as a base against the UAR. This meeting resulted in the end of the crisis in Lebanon, with Nasser ceasing to supply his partisans and the US setting a deadline for withdrawing from the area. After the overthrow of its Hashemite monarchy in 1958, Iraq became the Arab state most supportive of the UAR. Iraq sought to join the union; however, in 1959 Qasim cancelled the unity talks. After Qasim's overthrow in 1963 the union idea resurrected with the proposal of Egypt, Iraq, and Syria reforming the UAR. A new flag was proposed, with three stars symbolizing the three states constituting the proposed union. However, the plan for a tri-partite union never materialised. Iraq continued to use the three-star flag and later adopted it as