The Iraqi Baath Party was founded in 1952 and lost its official status in 2003 following the collapse of Saddam Hussein’ s regime. After its dissolution, party members continued to operate covertly and unofficially.

In the aftermath of World War II, as Arab nationalism was rising across the Arab world in response to Israel, the Baath Party emerged in Syria in 1940. Its founders were Michel Aflaq, a Christian, and Salah al-Din al-Bitar, a Muslim. The party formally declared its existence in 1943, and its first publication, Al-Baath, appeared in July 1946. The party’ s first congress was held in Damascus in April 1947, with 200 delegates from Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon in attendance, and Michel Aflaq serving as secretary-general. In 1954, the Baath Party merged with Akram al-Hawrani’ s Socialist Party to form the Socialist Baath Party. Baathist ideology revolves around three concepts: unity, freedom, and socialism. In Aflaq’ s view, all three are permanently and inseparably linked; unity cannot be achieved without freedom, and freedom cannot be attained without the victory of socialism. Unity meant that all Arabs should be brought under a single government, while freedom meant liberation from all forms of foreign domination and authoritarian rule.⁠[1] The party sought to unite Arabs under one banner. Its founders traced the cultural roots of Arab people not to Islam but to the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia — the Sumerian, Assyrian, and Babylonian eras — which made its message particularly appealing to non-Muslim Arabs.⁠[2] On the basis of its ideology that Arabs, despite being divided into separate countries, had always constituted a single nation, the Baath Party sought to erase the borders between Arab states. Its expansionist ambitions were not limited to the Arab world — they extended to Iran as well, since in the early Islamic period, Iran had been part of the Umayyad and Abbasid empires.⁠[3]

Following a split between the Syrian and Iraqi branches of the Baath Party, Michel Aflaq fled to Iraq. The Iraqi branch had been a small movement that took shape in 1952. It is said that when Saddam Hussein joined the party in 1957, its total membership across Iraq numbered no more than a thousand. To compensate for its limited strength, the party turned to strike operations and conspiratorial methods. This situation was ideal for restless and ambitious figures like Saddam Hussein, who gradually moved into the security apparatus. Michel Aflaq remained the intellectual leader of the Iraqi Baath Party until his death in Baghdad, pursuing his vision of a united Arab nation. Aflaq’ s thinking formed the ideological foundation of Saddam’ s worldview. On July 14, 1958, a group of sixteen Iraqi military officers who called themselves the Free Officers — inspired by Egypt’ s revolution under Gamal Abdel Nasser — ended Iraq’ s monarchy through a coup. The 19th Infantry Brigade under Brigadier Abd al-Karim Qasim and the 20th Infantry Brigade under Colonel Abd al-Salam Arif moved from Diyala Governorate toward Baghdad and seized it, then brutally murdered members of the royal family along with Prime Minister Nuri al-Said.

General Abd al-Karim Qasim seized power by forming a Revolutionary Command Council. Arab nationalists — including Nasserists and Baathists — sided with Arif, while communist sympathizers within Iraq aligned with Abd al-Karim Qasim. This division between the two coup leaders ultimately led to the overthrow of Qasim’ s government and the rise of the Arab Socialist Baath Party under Abd al-Salam Arif’ s presidency on November 18, 1963. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser welcomed the coup and supplied the Iraqi National Guard — composed of Baathist youth — with 20,000 small arms.

Abd al-Salam Arif was killed on April 13, 1966, when a military helicopter went down, and his brother Abd al-Rahman Arif succeeded him as president. He held power for roughly two years before being removed in a 1968 coup led by Hassan al-Bakr, after which Iraq fell entirely under Baath Party control.⁠[4] From the time Saddam joined the party in 1957 until this point, he had been one of its key operatives, involved in covert actions against its opponents. During Abd al‑Salam Arif’ s rule, he spent two years in prison because of National Guard activities, escaped in 1966, and then began reorganizing the party’ s clandestine operations. When Hassan al-Bakr came to power, Saddam became the head of his security apparatus — and from that point on, Saddam’ s era of dominance effectively began. Although he was nominally second in the party after al-Bakr, his founding of Iraq’ s security organization gave him enormous power throughout the country.⁠[5]

The Baathist regime’ s power structure was highly centralized, heavily bureaucratic, and organized along a strict vertical hierarchy. The government relied on the strength of the army, the capabilities of its security services, and the party’ s nationwide organization. Those working within these military and security structures enjoyed better incomes than other segments of society and held greater administrative authority. Under Baath rule, the president of Iraq had absolute authority, serving simultaneously as head of state, prime minister, secretary-general of the Baath Party, commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and chairman of the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council. Saddam was eager to be recognized as the leader of the Arab world. He was a harsh, despotic, and dictatorial figure — deeply anti-Shia and anti-Iranian — and claimed a fervent commitment to Arab identity.⁠[6]

Saddam’ s security services in Iraq allowed no military or civilian individual to accumulate power, as a safeguard against any potential uprising. The Baath Party required its members to constantly monitor those around them — including their own family members — and report any suspicious behavior. No one was permitted to oppose the party or the Baathist regime, and the security services employed various methods to eliminate opponents.⁠[7]

During the period of monarchical rule in Iraq (1920– 1958), relations between Iraq and Iran were generally good. The two countries — owing to the similarity of their systems of government and, more significantly, the presence of Shia Imam shrines in both — had stronger social and cultural ties than political ones. But the rise of the Baath Party in Iraq led to the severing of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1969 and the closure of the Iranian school in Basra. The Baath Party’ s alignment with the Soviet Union, its Arab ethnic nationalism, and its anti-Iranian outlook drove Iraq and Iran further apart. Acting on this ideology, the party expelled large numbers of Iranian immigrants — and even their children born in Iraq — and confiscated their property.

Throughout the second Pahlavi era in Iran (1941– 1979), the Baathist regime and the threat of Iraqi military incursions were a constant concern. At the same time, the Iranian government kept pressure on Iraq by supporting Kurdish groups opposed to the Baathist regime, which in turn led its rulers to view Iran as a serious threat.⁠[8]

Between 1969 and 1974, Iran and Iraq clashed along the border on twelve separate occasions, and the two countries negotiated and signed several treaties and agreements in an effort to resolve their differences.⁠[9] The most significant of these treaties was the 1975 Algiers Agreement, signed in early 1975, which brought all border disputes between the two countries to an end and led to an improvement in relations. The Baathist regime’ s main motivation for accepting the agreement was to contain the power of Iraqi Kurds and assert control over the Kurdish-populated north of the country. Iranian Prime Minister Amir-Abbas Hoveyda visited Iraq in early 1975, and later that year, Saddam Hussein — then Iraq’ s vice president — came to Iran.⁠[10]

From early 1978, as Iran’ s Islamic movement against the monarchy intensified, the Iraqi government began voicing objections to certain provisions of the Algiers Agreement. Viewing the change of government in Iran as detrimental to its interests, Iraq took extensive measures to support the Shah and oppose the revolutionary movement.⁠[11] After the victory of the Islamic Revolution, Iraq intensified its intelligence activities inside Iran and sought to activate its influence in Iran’ s border provinces. It also organized, armed, and dispatched Iranian Kurdish parties from Iraqi territory to act against the Islamic Republic.⁠[12] In the meantime, by fostering a movement known as the Arab People’ s Movement in Khuzestan, Iraq sought to dismember Iran and undermine the newly-established Islamic Republic.

In mid-1979, Saddam quietly staged an intra-party coup, using Hassan al-Bakr’ s alleged poor health as a pretext to remove him and take his place. Under Saddam, only the Baath Party was permitted to operate — all other political parties were severely restricted and eventually dissolved.⁠[13]

With Saddam’ s rise to power, the Baathist regime’ s stance toward Iran became increasingly hostile. The regime published maps in Iraq that renamed Khuzestan as “ Arabistan” and changed the names of Khuzestan’ s cities to Arabic ones, distributing these maps inside Khuzestan with the help of Arab People’ s group members operating in Iran.⁠[14]

Iran’ s efforts to resolve the disputes came to nothing.⁠[15] The Baathist regime began suppressing and expelling Iranians of Shia background from Iraq, crushing its opponents, and killing and torturing Iraqi Shia scholars such as Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, Ayatollah Hakim, and members of his family, while denying Iranian pilgrims entry.⁠[16]

After Iran severed ties with the United States in April 1980, the Baathist regime, which saw itself as the defender of Arab interests, claimed that Iranian islands in the Persian Gulf should be returned to the Arabs. By raising these issues, it was searching for a pretext to start a war and position itself as the hero of the Arab world.⁠[17] Using these justifications, it launched a full-scale, open, and formal invasion of Iran on September 22, 1980 —⁠[18] a war that lasted eight years and caused enormous damage to Iran’ s national interests. During this period, the Baathist regime also treated its own country’ s Shia population harshly, forcing many of them to flee to Iran, where some went on to fight against the Baathist regime.

Two years after the end of the Iran-Iraq War, on August 2, 1990, Saddam’ s Baathist regime invaded and occupied Kuwait. Seven months later, in February 1991, coalition forces expelled the Iraqi troops from Kuwait.⁠[19] In the aftermath of that defeat, the Baathist regime, the United Nations, and the latter’ s supporters, particularly the United States, spent twelve years locked in a standoff over inspections and the disclosure of information about Iraq’ s weapons of mass destruction.⁠[20] On March 20, 2003, the United States invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam’ s government within 21 days. Although Saddam and senior Baath Party figures fled after the fall, most were identified and captured within months. Saddam himself was arrested on December 13, 2003, tried, and sentenced to death on November 5 of the same year.⁠[21] He was executed in Baghdad on December 31, 2006.⁠[22]

After Saddam’ s execution, Baath Party members chose Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri as their interim leader. On January 22, 2007, the party under its new leadership issued a statement expelling 150 of its members. The Baath Party has since lost all of its former power and is not permitted to engage in any form of political or governmental activity.⁠[23]