Baathist party

[thoughtsofawanderingmind]

I have recently questioned America's motivations for taking Saddam's regime out of power, beyond the murder that was taking place between the sunnis and shias. I am wondering if it has any thing to do with the fact that the Baathist party is a socialist one.

[RadioRaheem84]

Baath Arab Socialist is really akin to National Socialism. It was still very much capitalist but the leaders were not bourgeois per se, but anyone in the Baath Party and military.

It was a conservative nationalist government that provided cheap oil to the West and was a major arms trader.

[Queercommie Girl]

I have recently questioned America's motivations for taking Saddam's regime out of power, beyond the murder that was taking place between the sunnis and shias. I am wondering if it has any thing to do with the fact that the Baathist party is a socialist one.

No it is certainly not socialism or even social democracy.

Nevertheless, it is economically very nationalist and that is why the American imperialists hated it so much, because it hinders the imperialist exploitation of the country.

[Red Commissar]

Ba'ath ideology in its early years tried to fashion itself as a radical nationalist alternative to the monarchies and other mostly pro-western regimes at the time. Part of this was this proposal of "socialism", one that would be tailored to the characteristics of the Arab people and the social conditions, hence "Arab Socialism".

It's mostly a condition of its times too. The ideology a lot of third world revolutionaries fell on was socialism, or at least promises of it, in countries that were dominated by capitalism.

It was different in practice of course. For example, the Ba'ath in Syria was different from the one that took power in Iraq in its economic management. Ba'ath in Syria tried to make a heavy-handed state capitalist regime with firm control over the economy, while the one in Iraq was more concerned about nationalising the oil industry.

Both took similar steps upon assumption of power. Syria created a "popular front" uniting it with the various socialist and communist parties, among other "radical" groups, in its government. Though of course with the Ba'ath having the majority stake.

Iraq took a similar route at formation. The old guard followed the lead of the ones in Syria and created a similar popular front thing, inviting all the formerly marginalised elements of Iraq into government- Kurds, Communists, etc.

For various reasons this fell through, and as Saddam Hussein began to increasingly consolidate power away from the feeble, Ba'thist old guard President al-Bakr, things began to shift. Kurds were the first to go, their leadership smashed, co-opted, or fled into Iran. Then the attention turned on the Communists, who in turn got driven underground. The US was pleasantly surprised. All the while the Soviets maintained warm relations with Iraq.

By 1979 Saddam was "officially" president, though arguably he had already been the leader of the country sometime before then.

To top this off the Ba'ath in Syria got into disputes with the Ba'ath in Iraq, to the point that diplomatic relations were non-existent, and trade little beyond occasional deals of oil. This began after Saddam's official assumption of power in 1979. Syria even joined in against Iraq in the First Gulf war. Syria only re-opened diplomatic channels with Iraq after the fall of the regime in 2003, either in 2006 or 2007. Syria is now influencing the Ba'ath movement there, but more in line with their conceptions.

Iraq was interested in a more non-aligned means wherein they could try and play the US and Soviet interests in the region against one another for gain. Saddam was also interested in claiming the role of the helmsman of Arab nationalism, one that had been left vacant after Nasser's death.

Now when they went to war with Iran in the 80s, the US took an "enemy of my enemy" approach and supported Iraq with bear spares program, lines of credit, and tools to created chemical weapons. Soviets continued arms shipments.

The US really got bad with Iraq when it was apparent that Iraq would disturb the regional balance of power after Kuweit's invasion (which Iraq had done after Kuweit began calling up debts). There were concerns among the American government that Saddam might had turned his attention to the Peninsula, and they used that as pretext to strike. Of course the major concern was that there was a possibility of a significant shift in the balance of power in the region if this went through.

The Americans fell short of overthrowing Saddam that time because they hoped that maybe he would play ball economically. If not the embargo was put in place by the reasoning that it would squeeze out Iraq into compliance or a government change would occur that would be more willing to do so.

When that failed to occur, along with movements in the American political scene, well, we saw what happened.

It had little to do with him being a 'socialist', he just failed in international politics and got taken out when he became a liability.