lin: K. Schwarz, 1984); Tamir Moustafa, “Conflict and
81
AF
J:
Baath Party
The Baath Party has been the ruling political
party in s
yria
since 1963, and it was the party
that governed i
raq
briefly in 1963 and then again
from 1968 until its removal by U.S. and coalition
forces in spring 2003. Two Syrian schoolteachers
who had studied at the Sorbonne in Paris during
the 1920s founded it in the 1940s: Michel Aflaq
(1910–89), a Greek Orthodox Christian, and
Salah al-Din al-Bitar (1912–80), a Sunni Muslim.
These men envisioned the Baath Party as a mod-
ern revolutionary movement that would unite
a
rab
s and liberate their lands from British and
French colonial control, which had become more
entrenched in the region as a result of the creation
of their mandate territories in Syria, Transjordan,
and Iraq after World War I. The Baath message of
pan-Arab unity held great appeal to the peoples
living in these territories in the 1940s, and by the
1960s, the party had become the major player in
Syrian and Iraqi politics.
The name of the Baath Party, officially known
as the Arab Socialist Baath Party, is based on the
Arabic word for resurrection or renewal. The
name refers to the rebirth of the glories of Arab
self-rule that the party has sought to bring about
after centuries of being governed by foreigners,
especially Turks and Europeans. The party rec-
ognizes i
slam
as the authentic spiritual force that
can make this happen but not as the source for
specific institutions, laws, and policies. Muham-
mad is looked to as an exemplary Arab leader, not
as an object of religious devotion. In other words,
Baathists conceive of religion in secular terms, not
as a system of eternal truths to be used in actu-
ally running a government or drafting legislation.
In fact, however, party ideology has drawn more
upon elements of European fascism and commu-
nism than upon Islamic ideals and values. This
secUlarism
is reflected in the party’s official motto:
“Unity, Freedom, and Arab Socialism.”
In the party’s early years, it sought to create a
base of support among the Arab masses. Failing in
this, the party allied itself with the military in the
1960s and built hierarchical networks of politi-
cal and security units that infiltrated all levels
of society down to the neighborhood and tribal
levels in the 1970s. In Iraq, the size of the army
was increased until it became one of the largest in
the region. In 1966, the Syrian and Iraqi branches
of the party divorced, and control of both fell
into the hands of local ethnoreligious minori-
ties—a
laWi
Shia in Syria, led by Hafiz al-Asad
(1930–2000), and Arab Sunnis from Tikrit in
Iraq, led by s
addam
h
Usayn
(1937–2006). These
two authoritarian rulers used their large security
B
forces to coerce and brutalize their real or imag-
ined opponents and to monopolize power in their
respective countries. This led to the massacre of
thousands of members of the m
Uslim
b
rother
-
hood
in Syria during the 1980s. In Iraq, tens of
thousands of communists, Kurds, Shiis, and oth-
ers considered disloyal by the Baathists fell victim
to the state terror apparatus during Husayn’s long
rule. At the same time, the party leadership pro-
moted the modernization of schools, agriculture,
industries, health care, and the national infra-
structure through investment of public funds and
limited privatization. Syria’s involvement in the
a
rab
-i
sraeli
conFlicts
and Iraq’s involvement in
wars with Iran, Kuwait, and Western powers in
the 1980s and 1990s had disastrous consequences
for both countries, especially Iraq. Although the
Iraqi branch of the party was officially disbanded
after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, it is thought
that many former Baath members, together with
former Iraqi soldiers, have played a leading role in
the Iraqi insurgency against American forces and
any Iraqis who cooperate with them. They have
formed a loose alliance with Muslim guerrilla
forces in this context.
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