The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party (spelled "Ba'th" or "Baath", "resurrection" or "renaissance"; Ḥizb al-Ba‘th al-‘Arabī al-Ishtirākī), also referred to as the pro-Iraqi Ba'ath movement, is a Ba'athist political party which was headquartered in Baghdad, Iraq, until 2003. It is one of two parties (with identical names) which emerged from the 1966 split of the original Ba'ath Party.
In 1966, the original Ba'ath Party was split in half; one half was led by the Damascus leadership of the Ba'ath Party which established a party in Syria and the other half with its leadership in Baghdad. The two Ba'ath parties retained the same name and maintained parallel structures in the Arab world, but relations became so antagonistic that Syria supported Iran against Iraq during the bloody Iran–Iraq War; it also joined the U.S.-led coalition against Iraq in the Gulf War. The Ba'athists seized power in Iraq for the first time in 1963, but were deposed several months later. The party's regional organisation governed Iraq between 1968 and 2003, for many years under the leadership of Saddam Hussein. The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Iraq Region was banned in 2003 by the Coalition Provisional Authority following the invasion of Iraq by the US and its allies. Other branches of the party have continued to operate.
Structure
Secretaries General Portrait Name Tenure Took office Left office Duration 1 Michel Aflaq 8 February 1968 23 June 1989 Vacant (23 June 1989 – January 1992) 2 Saddam Hussein January 1992 30 December 2006 3 Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri 30 December 2006 26 October 2020 4 Salah Al-Mukhtar 3 November 2020 Incumbent
Timeline
National Congress Note: for the 1st–8th National Congresses, see the national congresses held by the unified, pre-February 1966 Ba'ath Party. 9th National Congress (February 1968) 10th National Congress (March 1970) 11th National Congress (1977) 12th National Congress (1992)
Organization Following the 1966 Syrian coup d'état, which overthrew the Aflaqite faction led by Michel Aflaq, Salah al-Din al-Bitar, Munif Razzaz and others, the original Ba'ath Party split into Iraqi-dominated and a Syrian-dominated ba'ath movements. The two movements established separate National Commands; the National Command was in theory the highest party body in both movements and controlled their respective ba'athist movements. However, in both countries the National Command was under the control of its respective Regional Command. In the Iraqi-dominated Ba'ath movement, all National Command members came from their regional branchfor instance, there was always a member representing the Ba'ath Party branch in Jordan. In theory, the National Command was the highest party organ between national congresses, with the power to control the affairs of Regional Commands in other regions (countries).
Delegates to a National Congress elected the members of the National Command, who were eligible for reelection. While the National Command had few de facto powers, many of its leading members also held seats in the Iraqi Regional Command and the Revolutionary Command Council. Aflaq was elected Secretary-General of the National Command at the Ninth National Congress, held in February 1968 in Beirut, Lebanon, by the Iraqi-dominated Ba'ath Party. He retained his post until his death in 1989, when he was succeeded by Saddam Hussein. After Saddam was executed on 30 December 2006, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri became de facto leader of the Ba'ath Party on 3 January 2007. As Secretary of the Iraqi Regional Command of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, he was the highest-ranked surviving member of the former Ba'ath party. Since 3 November 2020, the party is headed by Salah Al-Mukhtar.
Branches by region
Algeria
The party branch in Algeria, the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party of Algeria ( Hizb Al-Ba'ath Al-'Arabi Al-Ishtiraki fi Al-Jaza'ir; French: Parti Baath arabe socialiste d'Algérie), is led by Ahmed Choutri (secretary of the Regional Command). The party is banned and Choutri was forced to flee to Iraq during the 1990s because of governmental repression against the Algerian Ba'ath movement. The party sympathises with the Iraqi Ba'athist insurgency and supports Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, leader of the Iraqi branch. Following his return to Algeria in 2003, Choutri wrote The Baathist Faith of President Saddam.
Bahrain
The Nationalist Democratic Assembly (, ) represents the Iraqi-dominated Ba'ath Party in Bahrain. The group is led by Hassan Ali as Secretary General and Mahmoud Kassab as Deputy Secretary General. It was established by Bahrainis who had studied in Ba'athist Iraq during the 1960s and 1970s. The party boycotted the 2002 parliamentary election, but not the 2006 election. The 2011 parliamentary by-election was boycotted by the party in solidarity with the Bahraini uprising. It is headquartered in Zinj.
The party opposes the government's naturalisation policies and contends that it is unfair for ethnic Bahrainis to compete equally with foreign workers for jobs. The Nationalist Democratic Assembly remains pro-Saddam Hussein and according to its webpage supports the Arab Spring. It opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, considering it an act of brutality against the Iraqi people. The party actively supports the overthrow of the existing monarchy, with a peaceful transition to democracy.
Egypt
The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Egypt Region ( Hizb Al-Ba'ath Al-Arabi Al-Ishtiraki – Misr) is an active branch in Egypt.
The party supported the removing of Bashar al-Assad of Syria, although calls for no foreign intervention in the conflict, whether by Israel, Turkey or Iran, as the party believes all such countries have ulterior motives and seek to undermine Syria.
The party was outlawed in the early 1990s and two Iraqi Intelligence Officials were detained on 14 April 1991 with $38,000 in their possession, money which the Egyptian authorities claimed was to be used to fund sabotage operations in Egypt. Several other Egyptian Ba'athists, including the poet Muhammad Afifi Matar, were also detained in April 1991 on suspicion of involvement in an Iraqi terrorist plot.
Eritrea Ba'athist organizations emerged in the leadership of the Eritrean Liberation Front in the 1970s, with pro-Baghdad and pro-Damascus groups competing for political dominance over the front. This split contributed to the downfall of the ELF and the emergence of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front as the dominant liberation movement. A key pro-Iraqi Ba'athist was Abdel Gadir Jeilani, who became the leader of the ELF-PLF-Revolutionary Council in the 1980s.
Iraq
In Iraq, the Ba'ath party remained a civilian group and lacked strong support from the military. The party had little impact and the movement split into several factions after 1958 and again in 1966. The movement was reported to have lacked strong popular support,The Economist, London, 24–30 June 1978, p. 78. but through the construction of a strong party apparatus the party succeeded in gaining power. The Iraqi-based party was originally committed to pan-Arabism (like its Syrian counterpart). After taking power in 1968, the party adopted Iraqi nationalism and encouraged Iraqis to identify themselves as cultural heirs of Mesopotamia with an Islamic identity.Alexander J. Motyl. Encyclopedia of Nationalism: Leaders, Movements, and Concepts, Volume II. Academic Press, 2001. p. 240. Saddam Hussein sought to be seen as leader of a great neo-Mesopotamian Iraqi nation by having himself compared to Nebuchadnezzar II and Hammurabi.
In June 2003, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) banned the Ba'ath party. The additional step the CPA tookbanning all members of the top four tiers of the Ba'ath Party from the new government, public schools and collegeswas criticized for blocking too many experienced people from participation in the new government. Thousands were removed from their positions, including doctors, professors, schoolteachers and bureaucrats. Many teachers lost their jobs, sparking protests at schools and universities. Under previous Ba'ath-party rule, one could not reach a high position in the government or a school without becoming a party member and party membership was a prerequisite for university admission. While many Ba'athists joined for ideological reasons, many more were members because it was a way to better their options. Following pressure by the United States, the policy of de-Ba'athification was addressed by the Iraqi government in January 2008 with its controversial Accountability and Justice Act. This purported to ease the policy, but many feared it would lead to further dismissals. The Ba'ath Party was led by Saddam's former deputy Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri until his death in 2020.
Jordan
At the time of the 1966 split, the Jordanian branch had an estimated 1,000 members. It was active in the Arab Liberation Front (ALF) and the ALF's first leader was the Jordanian, Zaid Haydar. Munif al-Razzaz, who joined the pro-Iraqi Ba'ath resistance in 1966, eventually became an ALF leader. From there, he climbed the party ladder and became a member of the National Command before he was placed under house arrest by Iraqi authorities. Shahir Abu Shahut became the first leader of the party branch in Jordan after the 1966 split.
Since the establishment of the authoritarian political systems in Iraq and Syria, the popularity of the Ba'ath Party has largely diminished, as the two Ba'ath parties have replaced ideology with blind allegiance to Saddamist discourse or the al-Assad rule, respectively. However, Ba'athist ideology remains popular; a Jordanian academic, talking to the American embassy in Amman, Jordan, said that "there are far more real Ba'athists outside the party than inside", noting that the present party is downplaying (and even replacing) ideological components to get more followers.
The party was able to gain some support in the 1990s because of its status as a Ba'ath Party branch and it was able to help finance thousands of scholarships to Iraqi universities. However, with the 2003 invasion of Iraq the party was nearly forced into bankruptcy and lost most of its followers when it failed to finance the return of students from Iraq.
The Ba'ath branch was denied legal registration in 1992. The party was legally registered in 1993, but forced to change its name from the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party to the Jordanian Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party ( Hizb Al-Ba'ath Al-'Arabi Al-Ishtiraki Al-Urduniy). Khalil Haddadeen, Jordan's former minister of information, was elected to Parliament during the 1993 and 1997 elections on a pro-Iraqi, Saddamist platform. Currently, the Ba'ath branch has no members of parliament.
In its first regional congress since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Regional Command alleged it would publicize an alleged letter from Saddam Hussein. However, the Jordanian press largely ignored the event. Today, in contrast to Ba'athist ideology both the pro-Iraq and pro-Syrian Ba'ath branches are considered largely irrelevant in the Jordanian political scene. It is suffering from financial problems and it is criticized by religious Jordanians for its secularism, while others are weary of its Arab nationalist ideology.
In a 1995 poll, 16.8 percent of Jordanians said they were aware that the Iraqi Ba'ath branch existed, making the Ba'ath branch the third-best-known political party in Jordan (surpassing the Ba'ath Arab Progressive Party, the Syrian Ba'athist branch, by over 10 percent in the poll). In 2003 it was estimated that the party had fewer than 200 members. According to a Cablegate document dating back to 2007, the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party figure Ahmed Al Dmour was considered one of the biggest threats to Islamic Action Front dominance on the political scene. In 2023, the Jordanian Ba'ath Party's licence to participate in the local elections was renewed, causing criticism from Iraqi figures.
Kuwait