Category Archives: Baath Party

Arab Revolutions, Baath Party, Caliphate, Iran, Iraq, Persian-American Gulf, Syria, Uncategorized

The Iranian Genesis of Wahhabi ISIS, the Baathist Roots of Salafi DAESH………..

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This week is the 35th commemorative of a watershed event that is still shaping the Middle East. Baathist Iraq under Saddam Hussein, worried about the message of the new Khomeini revolution, saw an opportunity and invaded Iran, which was weakened by continued revolutionary turmoil and internal divisions. That war did not turn out as expected, and its consequences are still unfolding in our region:

  • Saddam Hussein started the Iran-Iraq war this week in 1980. That war lasted eight years (1980-1988) and split the Arab world into those who supported the Baathist invasion (mainly some in the Gulf region) and those who opposed it (mainly Syria, Libya, Algeria, and some Palestinian groups).
  • That war did not achieve any of the declared goals set by Saddam, but it led to the bankruptcy of Iraq. I opined at an event at KISR after the war that Iraq went from a healthy supply of foreign exchange reserves before the war to a total net foreign debt that well exceeded US $100 billion (for obvious reasons I don’t have my exact original estimates now).
  • Which led a desperate Saddam to invade Kuwait in 1990 in order to plunder its wealth. That invasion led to what Americans call the “Persian Gulf War” of 1990/91. The Baathists were defeated and blockaded and kept within Iraq.
  • After the September 11 Wahhabi terrorist attacks in the USA, the Bush-ies refocused on Iraq (although not a single Iraqi was involved in that mainly-Saudi attack). It was followed by the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Later the results of the first Iraqi elections created a worsening of the sectarian tensions in the Arab world. Al Qaeda and the Wahhabi terrorists entered into Iraq in force, backed by outside Arab financing.
  • Eventually, as the Arab uprisings of the Spring of 2011 spread eastward toward the Gulf, a local Iraqi branch of Al Qaeda morphed into ISIS (ISIL, DAESH), an alliance dominated by foreign Arab Salafi Jihadis and former Baathist henchmen of Saddam.
  • The intervention of foreign Arabs, including some regimes, and the growth of local militias of both Muslim sects, have had a lot to do with the bloody sectarian turn of events across the region.
  • ISIS or DAESH now controls large parts of Iraq and Syria, mostly through sectarian exhortation and a medieval-style bloody reign of terror. It has been largely supported by the flow of foreign money and weapons facilitated through Turkey.
  • Some of those Arab potentates who helped create ISIS or DAESH are now feeling the heat and claiming to be fighting to destroy it. But apparently not seriously enough, NOT in Syria or Iraq.
  • The consequences of that fateful decision of September 1980 are still unfolding across the region. The beat goes on………..

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, Baath Party, Iraq

Death of Tariq Aziz: Last Evocation of a Bygone Potemkin Arab Order…….

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Tariq Aziz died in prison in his homeland, Iraq.

The significance of remembering the old Iraqi Baathist is not related to Tariq himself and his achievements. It is that he reminds us, me and most others, of a bygone era in Arab politics and history. Aziz was one of the last survivors of the old Arab post World War II order that almost lasted fifty years. An order that saw the rise of militarized secular Pan-Arabism through the messages of Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, the Baathists of Syria and Iraq, and the leftist young revolutionary rulers of Libya and Algeria. There was a period of hope in the fifties and sixties, but it did not last. That movement also gradually degenerated into tribal and family dynasties. A stagnant Arab order followed that was seen as stability.

That old Arab order unravelled with the Iraqi Baathist invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. The 1990-91 invasion of Kuwait and the consequent war was a direct consequence of the financial bankruptcy of the Baathist regime after the invasion of Iran in 1980 and the war that lasted eight years. The Arab order had begun to crack with the war of 1980, as Syria and other Arab states, including Libya and Algeria and some Palestinian factions, refused to support Saddam Hussein.

The Salafi terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001 and the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and their consequences formalized the collapse of the old Arab regime. The West is now back in the region in force. Even the old British colonials are establishing a military base in little Bahrain (now if they can only take it over again and rebuild its political system back to 1971).

The Arab uprisings of 2011 have mostly failed, but they showed a positive development: it underlined a new disrespect to their ruling oligarchs and dictators and a willingness by Arabs to express it. Then along came AQI, ISIS, Al Nusra, Army of Islamic Conquest, Al Tibin, Al Zift and other Salafi groups. They make even the old Al Qaeda look tame. The horrendous mass atrocities by various armed factions in Syria and Iraq and Libya and Egypt are clear signals that the old Arab order is effectively buried. What we have now is a Potemkin Order: all front but no substance behind it.

The death of Tariq Hanna Aziz, one survivor of the older order, came as a symbolic event at a convenient moment, with ISIS expanding in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and possibly the Arabian Peninsula. His death is a reminder of how much has changed and the uncertainty of the future.
That is why it is a sad occasion. Not because the old Baathist died, but because of what it reminds us of.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Revolutions, Baath Party, Jihadis, Syria

Jihadist Revolutionary Council in Syria Adopts Old Baathist Jargon……….

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“Seventy-two Syrian rebel groups on Saturday announced a new coalition to battle the government of President Bashar Assad. But hopes that moderate rebels would dominate the meeting were dashed when extremists gained more of the 17 executive positions than had been expected. Col. Muhammad Hallak, who represented a moderate faction attending the three-day organizational meeting, accused Islamists, especially Ahrar al Sham, which is known to work closely with al Qaida’s Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front, of capturing more positions than its influence in the rebellion deserved. A review of the names by McClatchy indicated that moderates hold only six or seven of the 17 executive positions. Hallak also expressed skepticism toward the October document on which the new group, the Revolutionary Command Council…………..”

Revolutionary Command Council: now that is a blast from the lousy Arab Baathist past. It was a common term in the old days, before the Wahhabi oil princes and shaikhs, with their tribal ideology and money, took control of Arab destiny. Before the fate of much of the Arab east from the Persian Gulf to Libya became hostage to Riyadh and Abu Dhabi (with some exceptions).

Whenever a few Baathist (or other Arab) officers staged a military coup and took power, they would immediately establish a Revolutionary Command Council. That was how it went. These Jihadis are merely using a term with which many Arabs, especially in Syria and Iraq are quite familiar.

Then there are the so-called ‘moderate’ Syrian rebels who believe in freedom, human rights, and representative government. As well as other aspects of the American way of life, except perhaps for changing attire in a phone booth. These rebels will reportedly be trained in such bastions of human freedom and representative government as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and possibly the UAE.

I haven’t decided which one is funnier, yet……..
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Al-Qaeda, Baath Party, GCC, Iraq, UAE

A Rehabilitation of the Iraqi Baath Party? Good Cop, Bad Cop, Ugly Cop……

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This is not about Iraqis rehabilitating the Baath: most Iraqis would have nothing to do with the party. I mean the outsiders, the foreign Arabs, seeking to rehabilitate the Baath. Seeking to rehabilitate the Baathists as guardians of the ‘eastern gate’ of the Arab world. The good old days of Iran-Iraq War, Desert Storm, Iraqis suffering an international blockade, another long war, and the rest.

There are many former, actually current, Iraqi Baathists hanging around the capitals of absolute tribal Arab potentates and princes. From Manama to Abu Dhabi, they seem to have their uses, be it as mercenaries in the security forces or interrogators or small cogs in the regime sectarian media propaganda of these Persian Gulf potentates.

The Wahhabi crazies of ISIS, the Caliphate of pink Hello-Kitty and female genital mutilation and destroying churches and shrines and chopping heads, are making a lot of noise in the northwest of Iraq. They are definitely the ‘bad cop’ of the terrorist campaign in Iraq (but not necessarily in Syria, where there are too many such groups). So who can be the ‘good cop’ of the terrorist campaign in Iraq? Who else would the forgetful fools in the neighborhood select but the remnants of the Tikriti Baath Party? The logic might go like this: if the Mubarakist remnants, the feloul, maneuvered themselves into aborting the Egyptian revolution of 2011 and regaining power in Cairo in 2013, why not the Baathist remnants in Iraq?

I don’t mean the have-been softened Baathists like Iyad Allawi who are now acting as representatives of the Al Saud and other petroleum princes. No, I mean real true blue Baathists who have now gone temporarily religious for the convenience of it.

So the ISIS and its presumptuous Caliphate is the “bad cop” which is supposed to make the Baathists the “good cop”. Then there are the “ugly cop” in the neighborhood, those potentates who aid and abet it all.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]