Iraqi Baath Party logo (Al Jazeera)
An Arab political party that began as a socialist nationalist and raised the slogan “One Arab Nation with an Eternal Message” and ended as a secular one. He ruled Iraq for more than four decades, and the American invasion toppled him from power in 2003. The new governments pursued him in the state’s structures and structures, and his most prominent symbol, “Saddam Hussein,” was executed in 2006.
Origin and establishment
The Arab Baath Party was initially founded in Syria in April 1947 by thinker and politician Michel Aflaq - who initially headed it - Salah Al-Bitar, Jalal Al-Sayyid, Wahib Al-Ghanem, and Zaki Al-Arsuzi, and they issued a magazine under the name Al-Baath.
After the expansion of the party’s branches in a number of Arab countries, it now has two leaderships:
The first is a national leadership that supervises the general Arab organization, and the second is a national leadership for the party at the level of each country.
In this context, the establishment of the Iraqi Baath Party began gradually. The first phase began with spreading the party’s ideas among Iraqis in the late 1940s through two main channels: Iraqi students who were studying in Syria and Lebanon and embraced Baathist thought, and Syrian Baathist teachers who were teaching in Iraqi schools and universities.
The national leadership of the Baath Party in Syria recognized the Iraq branch in 1952, and the first regional leadership was formed, led by “Fouad Al-Rikabi” as secretary, accompanied by Fakhri Yassin Kadrawi, Jaafar Qasim Hamoudi, Shams al-Din Kazem, and Muhammad Saeed al-Aswad.
The number of party members at the time did not exceed 100 due to the dominance of other parties, especially the Communist Party, on the Iraqi party scene, and the lack of Iraqis’ response to the ideas and principles of the Baath.
However, things changed after the mid-1950s, as the party expanded among Iraqi society, especially after the coup against the monarchy in 1958, led by Abdul Karim Qasim.
Thought and ideology
The mother party initially adopted the Arab nationalist orientation and socialist thought, and announced at its founding conference in 1947 the slogan “One Arab nation with an eternal message.” It adopted three principles, which are unity, freedom, and socialism, and three goals, which are:
The struggle against colonialism for the liberation of the homeland.
Working to unify the Arabs into one sovereign state.
Reviving Arab reality by overturning the corruption that prevails in it.
The Iraqi Baath Party also established a one-party system, and bet that achieving socialism was a basic condition for the survival of the Arab nation and the possibility of its progress. It called for the separation of Arabism from Islam, and the separation of religion from politics. This was translated into stripping the Iraqi constitution of everything related to Islam, and secularism became the constitution of Iraq. The Baath beliefs and principles are the source of legislation.
Recommendations
It was stated in the fourth recommendation of the decisions of the Fourth National Conference: The Fourth National Conference considers religious reactionaryism to be one of the main dangers threatening the progressive movement at the present stage, and therefore recommends that the national leadership focus on cultural activity and work on the secularism of the party, especially in countries where sectarianism distorts political action. .
This is also confirmed by the recommendations contained in the central report of the Ninth Regional Party Conference in Baghdad in June 1982, including:
As for the religious phenomenon in the current era, it is a Salafi phenomenon and backward in outlook and practice.
The Arab Socialist Baath Party is a revolutionary, secular nationalist party with multiple intellectual proposals that are sometimes difficult to combine, let alone convince.
For him, the National League is the only existing association in the Arab state, which ensures harmony between citizens and their fusion in one crucible and curbs all other sectarian, sectarian, tribal, ethnic and regional fanaticism.
The party's philosopher, Ibrahim Khallas, said, "The only way to build Arab civilization and build Arab society is to create the new Arab socialist human being, who believes that God, religions, feudalism, capital, and all the values that prevailed in the previous society are nothing but stuffed dolls in history museums."
Structuring the Iraqi Baath Party
The party adopted a structure that sought to penetrate Iraqi society as much as possible, starting from a cell (at least three people), a division consisting of three to seven cells, a division consisting of at least two divisions, and a branch consisting of two divisions or more.
The party's branches covered all the governorates of Iraq, reaching 22 branches in 2003, including three in Baghdad Governorate.
The number of affiliated party members before the American invasion in the same year was estimated at about 11 million people, including a nominated member, an advanced supporter, a supportive supporter, and a friend.
Flags and symbols
The Syrian nationalist and political thinker, Michel Aflaq, remains the founder of the first Baath, and the party’s most prominent figure in the Arab world. In addition to him are the thinker Salah al-Din al-Bitar, who assumed the position of Prime Minister in Syria, and Jalal al-Sayyid and Waheeb al-Ghanim.
Among the most prominent symbols who left their mark on the party’s memory and history in Iraq, and who dominated others, were Engineer Fouad Al-Rikabi and Dr. Saadoun Hammadi.
And the late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri took responsibility for the party after his arrest and execution in 2006.
Major stations
The emergence of the Baath Party in Iraq to the forefront began with its contribution to the overthrow of the monarchy after the entry of a brigade led by Abdul Salam Arif on July 14, 1958 into Baghdad, seizing the radio station, declaring the revolution and killing King Faisal II, his crown princes Abdul Ilah, Nuri al-Saeed, and his aides.
Only ten days later, Baath Party ideologue Michel Aflaq visited Baghdad to persuade members of the new regime to join the United Arab Republic, which was established between Syria and Egypt, but the Iraqi Communist Party rejected this and Abdul Karim Qasim was declared leader of Iraq.
During that period, Iraq was divided between two main political currents: the Arab nationalist movement and the leftist movement. The Baath Party took advantage of the Iraqis’ hatred of the large number of coups d’etat (eight coup attempts between 1958 and 1968, four of which were successful) to its advantage, and it shared power with the portfolio of the Ministry of Reconstruction, which was assumed by Fouad al-Rikabi.
After the success of the party’s coup in alliance with Nasserist officers on February 8, 1963, against the regime of Abdul Karim Qasim, the first Baathist government was formed in Iraq under the presidency of Abdul Salam Arif, but the dispute between the moderate wing of the party and the extremist wing made Arif topple the government on November 18. The second of the same year, the Baathist officer Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr was appointed Vice President of the Republic.
In February 1964, Michel Aflaq recommended appointing Saddam Hussein as a member of the leadership of the Iraqi Baath Party.
On July 17, 1968, the party, in alliance with non-Baathist officers, overthrew the regime of Abdul Rahman Arif, and appointed Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr as Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, President of the Republic, and Commander-in-Chief of the Army, and Saddam Hussein as Vice-President of the Revolutionary Command Council, responsible for internal security.
After the party got rid of those who had allied with it in the last coup and changed the regime in Iraq, a state of liquidations began within it, as the party’s first theoretician and one of its most prominent historical leaders was assassinated.
Fouad Al-Rikabi in prison in November 1971, and on July 8, 1973, the head of the government and the Internal Security Service, Nazim Kazar, and 35 of his supporters were executed after they failed in a coup attempt.
In June 1979, Saddam Hussein became President of the Iraqi Republic after relieving his predecessor, Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, from all his positions and imposing house arrest on him.
In the following two months of the same year, a series of executions were carried out, including a third of the members of the Revolutionary Command Council and the most prominent members of the Iraqi Baath Party.
It was said that the number of people executed exceeded 500 people. Ghanem Abdel Jalil, Minister of Education, Muhammad Mahjoub, Minister of Education, Muhammad Ayesh, Minister of Industry, his close friend Adnan Al-Hamdani, Dr. Nasser Al-Hani Saeed, and dozens of party officials were also executed.
Only Izzat Ibrahim Al-Duri, Tariq Aziz and Taha Yassin Ramadan are still alive among those who participated in the 1968 coup.
The party became with Saddam after he controlled all aspects of power and life in Iraq and sought to lead the Baath within the Arab world on the intellectual and ideological level, especially after most of the symbols of the Syrian Baath moved to Iraq and the Iraqi wing, but the Syrians did not surrender to him.
The American invasion of Iraq and the dissolution of the party
The party remained in sole control of matters in Iraq until the American invasion of the country occurred on March 20, 2003, and American Governor Paul Bremer - the administrative director of what was called the Provisional Coalition Authority in Iraq - announced in May 2003 the dissolution of the Iraqi Baath Party and expelled it and its leaders from all parts of the country. The joints of the political system and power in the country.
Bremer also worked to prevent the party from returning to power by forming the National Commission for De-Baathification, which remained in operation until 2008. The new authority in Iraq was also keen to pursue the party’s followers and leaders, eliminate its ideology, and dismissed at least 30,000 Baathists from the authorities. The country, and many of them were forced to leave the country.
Izzat Ibrahim Al-Douri (former Vice President of the Republic) took over the General Secretariat of the Baath Party after the execution of Saddam Hussein by hanging on December 30, 2006. He was not known for his activity or influence except for issuing a few statements on internal and external issues, and among these statements was the dismissal of 150 prominent members. From the party, including members of the regional leadership, for holding a meeting in Syria without the approval of the national leadership.
There was then talk of a split within the party between the Al-Douri wing and the wing of Younis Al-Ahmad, who announced a reform movement for the Iraqi Baath.
Izzat Al-Douri announced in an audio recording attributed to him in July 2010 that the Baath Party is the incubator of the Iraqi resistance in all its aspects, and he returned in his outing in April 2012 on the anniversary of the party’s founding to confirm in a video recording that the party’s war had become against Iran and its influence in Iraq.
Source: Al Jazeera