Iraq-Politics

=Politics=

² President Bush created by pictures of a small portion of soldiers who have died in Iraq (1,440 soldiers)

THE BAATH PARTY
The Arabic word Ba'th means "resurrection" or "renaissance" as in the party's founder Michel Aflaq's published works "On The Way Of Resurrection". Ba’thist beliefs combine Arab Socialism, nationalism, and Pan-Arabism. The motto of the Party is "Unity, Freedom, Socialism". "Unity" refers to Arab unity, "freedom" emphasizes freedom from foreign control and interference in particular, and "socialism" refers to what has been termed Arab Socialism rather than to Marxism.

- The Arab Socialist Ba’th Party was founded in 1947 as a radical, secular Arab nationalist political party. It functioned as a pan-Arab party with branches in different Arab countries (Yemen, Lebanon, Sudan), but was strongest in Syria and Iraq, coming to power in both countries in 1963. In 1966 the Syrian and Iraqi parties split into two rival organizations. Both Ba’th parties retained the same name, and maintain parallel structures in the Arab world.

The Ba’th Party came to power in Syria in 1963 and took over the country completely in only one year. The Ba’thists ruled Iraq briefly in 1963, and then from July 1968 until 2003. After the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein's Ba’thist regime in the course of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the occupying authorities banned the Iraqi Ba’th Party. The Ba’th party is rebelling against the U.S. the United kindom and the side of the Iraqi government that is working with these other countries. However, in a televised speech on January 10, 2007, US President George W. Bush told the American people that "to allow more Iraqis to re-enter their nation's political life, the government will reform de-Ba’thification laws - and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq's constitution". President Bush made it clear that no matter what the Ba’th members do to try to rebel, the US and UK will shut them down and will not allow things to return how they were in the past.

The Shia population has been strong opposition against the Ba’th Party. The most important opposition party was Ad Dawah al Islamiyah (the Islamic Call), popularly known as Ad Dawah, which originally had been established by Shia clergy in the early 1960s. In 1963, the Ba’th party came into power and the Ad Dawah became the main target. Anyone associated with the Ad Dawah clergy was percecuted. In 1979, apparently to contain any radicalization of the Iraqi Shia clergy like that which had occurred in Iran, the regime arrested and subsequently executed Ayatollah Sayyid Muhammad Baqir as Sadr, the country's most respected Shia leader. Sadr's precise relationship to Ad Dawah was not established, but his death precipitated widespread, violent demonstrations and acts of sabotage. Ad Dawah was banned in 1980, and membership in the organization was made a capital offense. After the war with Iran had begun, Ad Dawah and other Shia political groups reorganized in exile in Europe and in Iran.

In late 1982, the Iranian authorities encouraged the Iraqi Shia parties to unite under one umbrella group known as the Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI). Headquartered in Tehran, SAIRI was under the chairmanship of Muhammad Baqir al Hakim, a prominent clergyman whose father had been the leading ayatollah of Iraq in the 1960s. SAIRI's aim was to promote the cause of Islamic revolution in Iraq by overthrowing the Ba’thist regime. To further that objective, in 1983 SAIRI established a government-in-exile. SAIRI's activities brought harsh reprisals against members of the extended Hakim family still living in Iraq but were generally ineffective in undermining the political controls of the Ba’th.³



¹ One of the American soldiers talking to the local children

THE CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ-[|Political History]
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Sources: [1] Democracy. 2005. Index of/ Archives. 30 Apr. 2007 [|]. [2] Gunderson, Lauren. Image of President Bush Made Up of Dead American Soldiers. 2006. Deepen the Mystery. 27 Apr. 2007 [|.] [3] "Iraq Political Opposition." __Translators on the WWW__. May 2004. The Library of Congress Country Studies. 20 Apr. 2007 [|.]