Ba'ath Party

Ruling political party in Iraq and Syria. Despite public support of pan-Arab unity and its foundation in 1943 as a party of Arab nationalism, its ideology has been so vague that it has fostered widely differing (and often opposing) parties in Syria and Iraq.

The Ba'ath Party was founded in Damascus, Syria, 1943 by Michel Aflaq, who became its chief ideologist, and Salah Eddin Bitar, later prime minister of Syria between 1963 and 1964 and in 1966, in opposition to both French rule and the older generation of Syrian Arab nationalists. Its constitution is an uncertain blend of neo-Marxist socialism and nationalism. Its influence spread to other Arab countries 1954-58, and branches were established in Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon. The movement split into several factions after 1958 and again 1966. In Iraq, the Ba'ath Party took control briefly 1963 and again from 1968 although its support there has always been limited. The rise of Saddam Hussein to become president of Iraq (from 1979) was due less to the popularity of the Ba'ath Party itself than to the exploitation and manipulation of an existing ideology by Hussein for his own purposes.