Following the 1963 Ba'athist coup d'état, a new flag was adopted by its Revolutionary Command Council on 8 March 1963, and was used until 1 January 1972. In 1963, the Ba'athist regime came to power in Iraq as well, and the two Ba'athist governments began negotiations in Cairo in order to once again form a union between Egypt, Syria and Iraq. The process failed after the Iraqi Ba'athist government was overthrown in November 1963 but both Syria and Iraq did adopt a new flag to represent the union. This flag was not much different from the flag of the UAR, with only a change from two stars to three, in order to represent the addition of Iraq to the Federation. The three stars represented the unity of Egypt, Syria and Iraq, as well as three pillars of Ba'athism: unity, freedom, and socialism.