Early years and 14 July Revolution: 1951–1958 The Iraqi Regional Branch of the Ba'ath Party was established in 1951 or 1952. Some historians claim that the Iraqi Regional Branch was established by Abd ar Rahman ad Damin and Abd al Khaliq al Khudayri in 1947 after their return from the founding congress of the Ba'ath Party held in
Damascus,
Syria the same year. In another version,
Fuad al-Rikabi established the Iraqi Regional Branch in 1948 with
Sa'dun Hammadi, a
Shia Muslim, but became secretary of the
Regional Command in 1952. The Iraqi Regional Branch was
Arab nationalist and vague in its
socialist orientation. Al-Rikabi, expelled from the party in 1961 for being a
Nasserist, was an early follower of
Michel Aflaq, the founder of
Ba'athism. During the party's early days, members discussed topics regarding Arab nationalism, the
social inequalities that had grown out of the British "
Tribal Criminal and Civil Disputes Regulation", and the
Iraqi Parliament's Law 28 of 1932 "Governing the Rights and Duties of Cultivators". By 1953, the party, led by al-Rikabi, was engaged in
subversive activities against the government. The party initially consisted of a majority of Shia Muslims, as al-Rikabi primarily recruited his friends and family, but it slowly became
Sunni-dominated. The Ba'ath Party, and others of
pan-Arab orientation, found it increasingly difficult to recruit Shia members within the party organisation. Most Shias saw pan-Arab as largely Sunni, since most
Arabs are Sunni. As a result, more Shias joined the
Iraqi Communist Party than the Ba'ath Party. In the mid-1950s, eight of 17 members of the Ba'ath leadership were Shia. According to
Talib El-Shibib, the Ba'ath foreign minister in the
Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr government, the sectarian background of the leading Ba'ath members was considered of little importance because most Ba'athists did not know each other's
sectarian
denominations. Between 1952 and 1963, 54% of the members of the Ba'ath Regional Command were Shia Muslims, largely because of al-Rikabi's effective recruitment drive in Shia areas. Between 1963 and 1970, after al-Rikabi's resignation, Shia representation in the Regional Command had fallen to 14 percent. However, of the three factions within the Ba'ath Party, two out of three
faction leaders were Shia. By the end of 1951, the party had at least 50 members. With the collapse of the pan-Arabist
United Arab Republic (UAR), several leading Ba'ath members, including al-Rikabi, resigned from the party in protest. In 1958, the year of the
14 July Revolution that overthrew the
Hashemite monarchy, the Ba'ath Party had 300 members nationwide. Brigadier
Abd al-Karim Qasim, the leader of the Free Officers Movement which overthrew the
king, supported joining the UAR, but changed his position when he took power. Several members of the Free Officer Movement were also members of the Ba'ath Party. The Ba'ath Party considered the President of Egypt
Gamal Abdel Nasser, the leader of the pan-Arab movement, to be the leader most likely to succeed, and supported Iraq's joining the union. Of the 16 members of Qasim's cabinet, 12 were Ba'ath Party members. However, the Ba'ath Party supported Qasim on the grounds that he would join Nasser's UAR.
Qasim's Iraq: 1958–1963 and the Ba'ath Party student cell,
Cairo, in the period 1959–1963 Qasim, reluctant to tie himself too closely to Nasser's Egypt, sided with various groups within Iraq (notably the
social democrats) that told him such an action would be dangerous. Instead Qasim adopted a
wataniyah policy of "Iraq First". To strengthen his own position within the government, Qasim created an alliance with the
Iraqi Communist Party, which was opposed to the notion of pan-Arabism. Qasim's policies angered several pan-Arab organisations, including the Ba'ath Party, which later began plotting to assassinate Qasim at Al-Rashid Street on 7 October 1959 and take power. One assassin was to kill those sitting in the back of the car, the rest would kill those in front. Abdul Karim al-Shaikhly, the leader of the assassination plot, recruited a young Saddam Hussein to join the conspiracy after one of the would-be assassins left. During the ambush, Saddam (who was only supposed to provide cover) began shooting prematurely, which disorganised the whole operation. Qasim's chauffeur was killed and Qasim was hit in the arm and shoulder. The assassins thought they had killed him and quickly retreated to their headquarters, but Qasim survived.
Richard Sale of
United Press International (UPI), citing former U.S. diplomat and intelligence officials,
Adel Darwish, and other experts, reported that the unsuccessful 7 October 1959 assassination attempt on Qasim involving a young
Saddam Hussein and other Ba'athist conspirators was a collaboration between the CIA and
Egyptian intelligence. Pertinent contemporary records relating to CIA operations in Iraq have remained classified or heavily redacted, thus "allow[ing] for plausible deniability." It is generally accepted that Egypt, in some capacity, was involved in the assassination attempt, and that "[t]he United States was working with Nasser on some level." Sale and Darwish's account has been disputed by historian Bryan R. Gibson who concludes that available U.S. declassified documents show that "while the United States was aware of several plots against Qasim, it had still adhered to [a] nonintervention policy." On the other hand, historian Kenneth Osgood writes that "the circumstantial evidence is such that the possibility of US–UAR collaboration with Ba'ath Party activists cannot be ruled out," concluding that "[w]hatever the validity of [Sale's] charges, at the very least currently declassified documents reveal that US officials were actively considering various plots against Qasim and that the CIA was building up assets for covert operations in Iraq." At the time of the attack, the Ba'ath Party had less than 1,000 members, however the failed assassination attempt led to widespread exposure for Saddam and the Ba'ath within Iraq, where both had previously languished in obscurity, and later became a crucial part of Saddam's public image during his tenure as
president of Iraq. The Iraqi government arrested some members of the operation and took them into custody. At the
show trial, six of the defendants were sentenced to death and, for unknown reasons, the sentences were not carried out. Aflaq, the leader of the Ba'athist movement, organised the expulsion of leading Iraqi Ba'athist members, such as
Fuad al-Rikabi, on the grounds that the party should not have initiated the attempt on Qasim's life. At the same time, Aflaq secured seats in the Iraqi Ba'ath leadership for his supporters, including Saddam. In 1962, both the Ba'ath Party and the United States
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) began plotting to overthrow Qasim. On 8 February 1963, Qasim was finally overthrown by the Ba'athists in the
Ramadan Revolution; long suspected to be supported by the CIA, however pertinent contemporary documents relating to the CIA's operations in Iraq have remained classified by the U.S. government, although the Iraqi Ba'athists are documented to have maintained supportive relationships with U.S. officials before, during, and after the coup. Several army units refused to support the Ba'athist coup. The fighting lasted for two days, during which 1,500–5,000 were killed. Qasim was captured on 9 February and, an hour later, was
killed by firing squad. To assure the Iraqi public that Qasim was dead, as well as to terrorize his supporters, the Ba'athists broadcast a five minute long propaganda video called
The End of the Criminals of Qasim's corpse being desecrated. Upon the Ba'athist ascension to power, Saddam would return to Iraq after spending nearly three years living in exile, becoming a key organizer within the Ba'ath Party's civilian wing. In its ascension to power, the Ba'athists "methodically hunted down Communists" thanks to "mimeographed lists [...] complete with home addresses and auto license plate numbers," and while it is unlikely that the Ba'athists would've needed assistance in identifying Iraqi communists, it is widely believed that the CIA provided the Ba'athist National Guard with lists of communists and other leftists, who were then arrested or killed. Gibson emphasizes that the Ba'athists compiled their own lists, citing
Bureau of Intelligence and Research reports. On the other hand, historians Nathan Citino and Brandon Wolfe-Hunnicutt consider the assertions plausible because the
U.S. embassy in Iraq had actually compiled such lists, were known to be in contact with the National Guard during the purge, and because National Guard members involved in the purge received training in the U.S. Furthermore, Wolfe-Hunnicutt, citing contemporary U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine, notes that the assertions "would be consistent with American special warfare doctrine" regarding U.S. covert support to anti-communist "Hunter-Killer" teams "seeking the violent overthrow of a communist dominated and supported government", and draws parallels to other CIA operations in which lists of suspected communists were compiled, such as
Guatemala in 1954 and
Indonesia in 1965–66.
In power: February–September 1963 Abdul Salam Arif became the president of Iraq and
Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr became
prime minister after taking power in
February 1963.
Ali Salih al-Sa'di, secretary-general of the Regional Command of the Iraqi Ba'ath Party, became
deputy prime minister and
Minister of Interiora post he lost on 11 May. Despite not being prime minister, al-Sadi had effective control over the Iraqi Ba'ath Party. Seven out of nine members supported his leadership in the party's Regional Command. According to Coughlin, in the aftermath of the coup, the
National Guard initiated an "orgy of violence" against all communist and other
left-wing elements. This period led to the establishment in Baghdad of several interrogation chambers. The government requisitioned several private houses and public facilities, and an entire section of Kifah Street was used by the National Guard. Many of the victims of the
rout were innocent, or were victims of personal
vendettas. According to Coughlin, the most notorious
torture chamber was located at the "Palace of the End," where the royal family was killed in 1958. Nadhim Kazzer, who became director of the
Directorate of General Security, was responsible for the acts committed there. The party was
ousted from government in November 1963, due to factionalism. The question within the Ba'ath Party was whether or not it would pursue its ideological goal of establishing a union with Syria,
Egypt or both. Al-Sadi supported a union with Syria, which was ruled by the Ba'ath Party, while the more conservative military wing supported Qasim's "Iraq first policy". Factionalism and the ill-disciplined behaviour of the National Guard led the military wing to initiate a coup against the party's leadership. Al-Sadi was forced into exile in
Spain. Al-Bakr, in an attempt to save the party, called for a meeting of the
National Command of the Ba'ath Party. The meeting exacerbated the party's problems. Aflaq, who saw himself as the leader of the pan-Arab Ba'athist movement, declared his intent to take control of the Iraqi Ba'ath Party. The "Iraq first" wing was outraged. President Arif lost patience with the Iraqi Ba'ath Party, and the party was ousted from government on 18 November 1963. The 12 Ba'ath members of the government were forced to resign, and the National Guard was dissolved and replaced with the
Republican Guard. Some authorities believe that Aflaq supported Arif's coup against the Ba'athist government in order to weaken al-Sadi's position within the party and strengthen his own.
Union talks with Syria , as seen in 1974, led the Ba'athist coups of
1963 and
1968. At the time of al-Sadi's removal from the post of Interior Minister, factionalism and discontent were growing within the party. al-Sadi and Mundur al-Windawi, the leader of the Ba'ath Party's National Guard, led the civilian wing. President Arif led the military wing and
Talib El-Shibib led the pro-Aflaq wing. However, a bigger schism was underway in the international Ba'athist movement. Four major factions were being created: the Old Guard led by Aflaq; a civilian alliance between the secretaries-general of the Regional Commands of Syria and Iraq, led by
Hammud al-Shufi and al-Sadi respectively; the Syrian Ba'ath Military Committee, represented by
Salah Jadid,
Muhammad Umran,
Hafez al-Assad,
Salim Hatum and
Amin al-Hafiz; and the Iraqi military wing, which supported Arif's presidency, represented by al-Bakr,
Salih Mahdi Ammash,
Tahir Yahya and Hardan Tikriti. The military wings in Syria and Iraq opposed the creation of a pan-Arab state, whereas al-Shufi and al-Sadi supported it. Aflaq officially supported it, but privately opposed it because he was afraid al-Sadi would challenge his position as secretary-general of the National Command of the Ba'ath Party, the leader of the international Ba'athist movement.
Bilateral union Both Syria and Iraq were under Ba'athist rule in 1963. When President Arif visited Syria on a state visit,
Sami al-Jundi, a Syrian cabinet minister, proposed the creation of a
bilateral union between the two countries. Both Arif and
Amin al-Hafiz,
President of Syria, supported the idea. al-Jundi was given the task of setting up a committee to begin establishing the union. al-Jundi selected al-Sadi as Iraq's chief representative in the committee in a bid to strengthen al-Sadi's position within the Ba'ath Party. Work on the union continued with the signing of the Military Unity Charter which established the Higher Military Council, an organ which oversaw the integration and control over the Syrian and Iraqi military. Ammash, the Iraqi
Minister of Defence, became the chairman of the Higher Military Council. The unified headquarters was in Syria. The establishment of the military union became evident on 20 October 1963, when Syrian soldiers were found fighting alongside the Iraqi military in
Iraqi Kurdistan. At this stage, both Iraqi and Syrian Ba'athists feared excluding Nasser from the union talks since he had a large following. The Syrian state and its
Ba'ath Party criticised the fall of al-Bakr's first government but relented when they discovered that some members of the Iraqi cabinet were Ba'ath Party members. However, the remaining Ba'athists were slowly removed from office. The
Syrian Revolutionary Command Council responded by
abrogating the Military Unity Charter on 26 April 1964, ending the bilateral unification process between Iraq and Syria.
Underground: 1963–1968 In the aftermath of the coup-led against the Ba'ath Party, al-Bakr became the party's dominant driving force and was elected secretary-general of the Regional Command in 1964. Saddam Hussein received full party membership and a seat in the Regional Command of the Iraqi Ba'ath Party because he was a close protege of al-Bakr. With al-Bakr's consent, Hussein initiated a drive to improve the party's internal security. In 1964, Hussein established the Jihaz Haneen, the party's secretive security apparatus, to act as a counterweight to the military officers in the party and to weaken the military's hold on the party.
Ba'athist Iraq: 1968–2003 In contrast to the coup of 1963, the 1968 coup was led by civilian Ba'ath Party members. According to historian Con Coughlin, the President of Iraq
Abdul Rahman Arif, who had taken over from his brother, was a weak leader. Before the coup, Hussein, through the Jihaz Haneen, contacted several military officers who either supported the Ba'ath Party or wanted to use it as a vehicle to power. Some officers, such as
Hardan al-Tikriti, were already members of the party, while
Abdul Razzak al-Naif, the deputy head of military intelligence, and Colonel Ibrahim Daud, the commander of the
Republican Guard, were neither party members nor sympathisers. On 16 July 1968, al-Naif and Daud were summoned to the
Presidential Palace by Arif, who asked them if they knew of an imminent coup against him. Both al-Naif and Daud denied knowledge of any coup. However, when the Ba'ath Party leadership obtained this information, they quickly convened a meeting at al-Bakr's house. The coup had to be initiated as quickly as possible, even if they had to concede to give al-Naif and Daud the posts of Prime Minister and Defence Minister, respectively. Hussein said at the meeting, "I am aware that the two officers have been imposed on us and that they want to stab the party in the back in the service of some interest or other, but we have no choice. We should collaborate with them and liquidate immediately during, or after, the revolution. And I volunteer to carry out the task". The
17 July Revolution was a military coup, not a popular revolt against the incumbent government. According to Coughlin, compared to the coups of 1958 and 1963, the 1968 coup was a "relatively civil affair". The coup begun in the early morning of 17 July, when the military and Ba'ath Party
activists seized several key positions in Baghdad, such as the headquarters of the Ministry of Defence, television and radio stations and the electricity station. All the city's bridges were captured, all telephone lines were cut and at exactly 03:00, the order was given to march on the Presidential Palace. President Arif was asleep and had no control over the situation. al-Bakr masterminded the plot, but Hussein and
Saleh Omar al-Ali led operations on the ground. A power struggle began between the Ba'ath Party led by al-Naif and the military led by Daud, which al-Bakr had anticipated and planned. Daud lost his ministership during an official visit to
Jordan, while al-Naif was exiled after Hussein threatened him and his family with death. with Ba'ath Party founder
Michel Aflaq in 1979 At the time of the 1968 coup, only 5,000 people were members; by the late 1970s, membership had increased to 1.2 million. In 1974, the Iraqi Ba'athists formed the
National Progressive Front to broaden support for the government's initiatives. Wrangling within the party continued, and the government periodically purged its
dissident members, including
Fuad al-Rikabi, the party's first secretary-general of the Regional Command. Emerging as the party strongman, Hussein used his growing power to push al-Bakr aside in 1979 and ruled Iraq until the
2003 Invasion of Iraq. Several major infrastructures were laid down to assist the country's growth, and the Iraqi oil industry was nationalised with help from the
Soviet Union.
Alexei Kosygin, Chairman of the
USSR Council of Ministers, signed the bilateral Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation in 1972. In July 1979, Saddam Hussein formally assumed the presidency of Iraq, succeeding Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, thereby consolidating his authority over both the state apparatus and the Iraqi Regional Branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. Although al-Bakr had long functioned as a key figure in Iraq’s post-1968 political structure, Hussein effectively marginalized potential rivals through a systematic purge of the party’s upper echelons shortly after taking office. Under Hussein’s leadership, the Ba'ath Party evolved into a centralized instrument of governance, characterized by hierarchical control, ideological indoctrination, and increasing personalist rule. The Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988) marked a turning point in the party’s development, as it mobilized nationalistic and pan-Arab sentiment to justify an extended and costly military campaign. During this period, the party apparatus played a crucial role in disseminating state propaganda and managing internal dissent, particularly in the Kurdish regions, where counterinsurgency operations included the controversial al-Anfal Campaign—an effort widely condemned for its extensive human rights violations, including the use of chemical weapons. Following the 1991 Gulf War, internal uprisings in southern and northern Iraq posed significant challenges to Ba'athist authority. The regime responded with decisive military and security crackdowns. Concurrently, the party initiated the
Faith Campaign, a state-directed program aimed at reconciling Ba'athist ideology with Islamic values, despite the movement's traditionally secular orientation. The campaign sought to cultivate religious legitimacy and mitigate growing Islamist opposition. During the 1990s, the party’s internal structures became increasingly militarized and subordinated to Hussein’s personal authority. In 1995, the establishment of the Fedayeen Saddam, a paramilitary organization reporting directly to the presidency, exemplified the regime’s intensifying reliance on coercive institutions to maintain political stability and control. Although official estimates placed party membership at approximately 1.5 million by 2003, such figures must be interpreted within the context of an authoritarian system in which political affiliation often functioned as a prerequisite for access to education, employment, and advancement within state institutions. Consequently, the party operated not only as an ideological vanguard, but also as a mechanism of patronage and surveillance. The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 brought an abrupt end to Ba'athist rule. In May of that year, the Coalition Provisional Authority issued Order Number 1, formally dissolving the Ba'ath Party and implementing a broad policy of de-Ba'athification. This decree barred individuals affiliated with the party’s upper echelons from holding public office, a move that generated significant controversy due to its wide-reaching impact on Iraq’s professional and administrative sectors.
2003 invasion and new Iraqi government Downfall and de-Ba'athification At the time of Saddam's fall in April 2003, the Ba'ath Party had 1.5 million members. The new
Constitution of Iraq, approved by a
referendum on 15 October 2005, reaffirmed the Ba'ath Party ban, stating that "No entity or program, under any name, may adopt
racism,
terrorism, the calling of others
infidels,
ethnic cleansing, or incite, facilitate, glorify, promote, or justify thereto, especially the Saddamist Ba'ath in Iraq and its symbols, regardless of the name that it adopts. This may not be part of the political
pluralism in Iraq." Some or many of its members in the Iraqi Ba'ath Party who were purged and dismissed went on to join
Al-Qaeda in Iraq which eventually morphed into the
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
Saddam's death and party split: 2006–present On 31 December 2006, one day after
Saddam Hussein's execution by hanging, a previously unknown group called the Baghdad Citizens Gathering publicly issued a statement in
Amman, Jordan, at the
Jordanian Regional Branch of the Ba'ath Party endorsing
Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri as the new president of Iraq and the party's secretary-general following Saddam's death. The party's armed wing since al-Douri's ascension is the
Army of the Men of the Naqshbandi Order. According to Abu Muhammad, a Ba'ath Party spokesman from al-Douri's faction, on the eve of Saddam's death, "Comrade Izzat has been leading the [Ba'ath] party's political and resistance factions since 2003, but it is a matter of
protocol and internal regulation to appoint him officially as the party's secretary-general." Al-Douri was elected the party's secretary-general in early January. al-Ahmed's Ba'ath Party is based in Syria. The OCES condemned the leadership's decision of creating a primary Sunni leadership and a reserve Shiite leadership. In the wake of
Muammar Gaddafi's
downfall, the new Libyan government sent documents to the Iraqi government which claimed that Ba'athists, with help from Gaddafi, were planning a coup. Because of the revelations, the Iraqi government initiated a purge of thousands of public officials. However, in a change of tone, al-Douri stated he wished to establish good relations with the United States when the
American forces had been withdrawn and when the government had been toppled. Many analysts were afraid that the Ba'ath Party had the potential power to initiate another civil war in Iraq because of al-Douri's popularity in localities with Sunni majorities.
Al-Douri died in 2020 of
Covid. ==Ideology==