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The Ba’ath Party’s Rule and Fall

TaBria Majea Donkor

North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University

GEO 210: Regional Geography

Mr. David Harris

May 7, 2021
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Table of Contents

I. Title Page

II. Table of Contents

III. History of The Baa’th Party in Syria

IV. History of The Baa’th Party in Iraq

V. History of The Baa’th Party in North Africa and the End of Baathism

VI. The Fall of the Baathist Movement

VII. Bibliography

VIII. Bibliography
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The Baathist Party, formally known as The Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party was officially a

movement on April 7, 1947. In 1953, it merged with the Syrian Socialist Party to possess this

name. Ba’ath meaning “renaissance or “resurrection,” is an Arab nationalist ideology that

promotes the development and creation of a vanguard party over a progressive revolutionary

government (Wiki, 2021). This essay examines the Ba’ath Party movements and explores the

history of both Syria and Iraq among other Ba’ath parties and explains the timeline and fate of

the Baathist ideology.

The Ba’ath Party was founded in 1943 in Damascus, Syria by Michel Aflaq, an

Antiochian Christian and Salah al-Din al-Bitar, a Sunni Muslim who adopted its constitution

(Zeidan, Britannica). Michel Aflaq was a Syrian teacher whose brand of radical Arab

nationalism won supporters across the entire region. The initial slogan of the party “unity,

freedom, socialism” is what attracted a generation of Arab political activists who planned to

overthrow the European controlled governments of the Middle East and, create a modern

industrial economy (BBC). Unity stood for the creation of an independent, strong Arab Nation.

Freedom stood for absence of subjection to foreign rule and colonial oppression. Socialism is not

defined as it is in the West, but rather focused on freeing the Arab Nation and its people from

colonization and oppression in general terms (BBC).

The Constitution was crumbled in 1951 following a military ousting, this caused an

emergence in another charter. The new Constitution commands that the President will now be

elected by popular vote instead of by the Parliament. The original 1950 constitution was

reinstated after yet, another hostile takeover took place in Syria (Constitution, 1970).

The Ba’ath Party rapidly achieved political power in Syria, in 1958 Sala al-Din Bitar led

Syria into the ill-fated United Arab Republic (UAR) with Egypt. Most Ba’athists quickly
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resented the Egyptian domination, and they withdrew from the UAR in 1961. It was army

officers who played the leading role in establishing Baathist rule (BBC). Young officer, Hafez

al-Assad was among a group of Ba’ath supporters in the Syrian army who took power in 1963.

Disagreements between the civilian Baathists, for example Aflaq versus the party’s Military

Committee, which was led by Asaad, caused the pan-Arab movement to crash. By 1973, the

Syrian constitution had been amended to give the Ba’ath Party different status as the “leader of

the state and society,” they introduced it into all areas of public life (BBC).

Aflaq’s supporters were coerced into leaving the Baath Party leadership in Syria. Aflaq

and his followers found refuge in Iraq. The Iraqi Baathists elected new leaders which inserted

Saddam Hussein into the picture, which included Michel Alaq (BBC). The Ba’th’s party’s main

role was to deliver directives from the central government to regional representatives, mobilize

their communities for political activities, and gauge the responses of the general population

(BBC). In Iraq, the Ba’ath Arab Socialist Party rose to power through a military seize in July

1968. Saddam Hussein had a main role in this overthrow, they seized total control in 1979

(Parker, 2018). As time went by, party members achieved this through infiltrating governmental

and military institutions. Members of the Ba’ath Party achieved this through maintaining a grip

on the lives of military personnel and governmental employees; the party also had the capacity to

manipulate governmental power with the decisions that were made at lower levels throughout the

country (Parker, 2018).

When it comes to military spies, Baathists are a powerful force to reckon with (Coles,

2015). Baathist informers range from children to hard-core battle fighters. Many of the people

watching the network are former intelligence officers and army officers, those who assisted in

keeping Saddam Hussein and the Ba’ath Party in control for years (Coles, 2015). The Islamic
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State ousted the Sunni-ruled Ba’ath Party and seized thousands of its followers, the new

members joined the Saddam officers who had already joined the Islamic State. The Baathists

have helped to improve the Islamic State’s battlefield tactics and spy networks. The former

Ba’ath officers who served under Saddam Hussein now control the most crucial sectors of the

Islamic State. Security, military, and finance according to Hisham al-Hashimi, an analyst who

has worked with the Iraqi government (Coles, 2015). The finance minister claims that he did not

agree with Saddam’s reign and commented that the ex-Baathists that now work for the Islamic

State provide the group with effective guidance on a lot of tasks, dealing with explosives,

security, planning and strategy.

There have also been Ba’ath movements in North Africa, in Algeria to be exact. It is a

branch of the Iraqi Ba’ath Party. The Algeria Ba’ath Party was founded in 1988 and led by

Ahmed Choutri. Unfortunately, this party is currently banned and their leader Choutri was

deposed and forced to leave Iraq in the 1990s because the Algerian government did not agree

with the Algerian Ba’ath movement.

In 2003, Baathists set about collaborating with al Qaeda in Iraq, this was the early days of

what would become the Islamic State. The result was Saddam Hussein being thrown out of

Baathist leadership; his rule was very brutal (BBC). The United States took over and the

outcome was disbanding the Ba’ath Party, they banned Ba’ath officers from joining new security

services. Some ex-Ba’ath officers fled the country, others began and joined the American

insurgency. The American insurgency was a rebel force that sat out to oust the United States

from their control (BBC).

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Years after the Northern Africa and Middle East Ba’ath Parties collapsed, their countries

struggled to find a way to demolish the political structures of former regimes. When Saddam

Hussein ran the Ba’ath party, he had requirements for state employment and created a hegemonic

movement, with ties into every institution in the public (Sissons, 2013). In the following years,

the United States penetrated the Iraqi government and enacted the Coalition Provisional

Authority (CPA), the CPA established a de-Baathification process that intended to eliminate the

Ba’ath Party’s influence in the country (Sissons, 2013).

In conclusion, it appears that The Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party started its half-century of

survival as a movement that stands for freedom from foreign rule, being represented by two

opposed authoritarian regimes, in Iraq and in Syria (Delvin, 1991). Today the Ba’ath Party which

ruled Iraq, is no longer since the United States invaded in 2003, this caused an unlikely alliance

between the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

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Works Cited

“Ba'ath Party.” Infoplease, Infoplease, www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/history/asia-

africa/middle-east/baath-party.

“Ba'athism.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 16 Apr. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ba'athism.

Coles, Isabel. “How Saddam's Fighters Help Islamic State Rule.” Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 11

Dec. 2015, www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/mideast-crisis-iraq-islamicstate/.

Idea, and External Source. “Constitutional History of Syria.” ConstitutionNet, 19 Apr. 1970,

constitutionnet.org/country/syria.

John F. Devlin. “The Baath Party: Rise and Metamorphosis.” The American Historical Review, vol.

96, no. 5, 1991, pp. 1396–1407. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2165277. Accessed 7 May 2021.

Parker, Clifton B. “Ba'ath Party Archives Reveal Brutality of Saddam Hussein's Rule.” Stanford

News, 29 Mar. 2018, news.stanford.edu/2018/03/29/baath-party-archives-reveal-brutality-

saddam-husseins-rule/.

“Profile: Syria's Ruling Baath Party.” BBC News, BBC, 9 July 2012, www.bbc.com/news/world-

middle-east-18582755.
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Sissons, Miranda, and Abdulrazzaq Al-Saiedi. “Iraq's De-Baathification Still Haunts the

Country.” Middle East | Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera, 12 Mar. 2013,

www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2013/3/12/iraqs-de-baathification-still-haunts-the-country.

Zeidan, Adam. “Baʿath Party.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.,

www.britannica.com/topic/Bath-Party.