Baath Party

Baath Party
(Baathists)
   A transnational Arab party (the Arabic word Baath means "resurrection") founded in Damascus in 1940 by Michel Aflaq, a Syrian Orthodox Christian intellectual, and Salah al-Din Baitar, a Sunni Muslim Syrian intellectual. The party's historic goals were to achieve Arab unity under secularism and socialism. So-called national sections of the party presently rule in Iraq and Syria, but the two sections have long been embittered enemies. The Baath Party briefly came to power in Iraq for nine months in 1963 when it helped to overthrow Abdul Karim Kassem. It resumed power in July 1968 and has held it ever since.
   Saddam Hussein increasingly began to wield power and became the party's leader by 1979. The party's fortunes effectively became those of his and Iraq. Under Saddam Hussein, the Baathists made Iraq into a militarily powerful state that was finally able to crush the rebellious Kurds in 1975. To do this, however, Saddam Hussein increasingly used tactics of terror and murder and, against the Kurds, genocide, effectively turning Iraq into a police state. Ultimately, the Baathists under Saddam Hussein overreached themselves militarily in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s and the Gulf War of 1991 against the United States and its allies following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Although technically abolished by the occupying U.S. forces in 2003 and their leadership largely eliminated, Baathist remnants continue to exist in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. However, they play only a minor role in events, given the Shiite rise to power as well as many other contending groups.

Historical Dictionary of the Kurds. .

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  • Baath Party — Infobox Political party name english = Arab Socialist Baath Party name native = حزب البعث العربي الاشتراكي leader = president = leader1 name = foundation = 1940 headquarters = Damascus (of the Syria based party) newspaper = youth wing =… …   Wikipedia

  • Baath Party —  Formally Baath Arab Socialist Party …   Bryson’s dictionary for writers and editors

  • Baath Party — …   Useful english dictionary

  • Baath — Der Baathismus bzw. Bathismus (von arabisch Baʿth: Wiedergeburt, Auferstehung, Wiederaufleben, Erweckung) vereint nationalistischen Panarabismus, Säkularismus und Elemente eines arabischen Sozialismus. Baathismus ist die Ideologie der Baath… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • party — partyless, adj. /pahr tee/, n., pl. parties, adj., v., partied, partying. n. 1. a social gathering, as of invited guests at a private home, for conversation, refreshments, entertainment, etc.: a cocktail party. 2. a group gathered for a special… …   Universalium

  • Baath — [bäth, bath] adj. [< Ar, rebirth, resurrection] designating or of a political party formed in Syria in the 1940s: separate factions of the party have ruled Syria since 1970 and ruled Iraq from 1968 to 2003: also written Ba ath Baathism n.… …   English World dictionary

  • Baath — pan Arab socialist party, founded by intellectuals in Syria in 1943, from Arabic ba t resurrection, renaissance …   Etymology dictionary

  • Baath — Baathism, n. Baathist, n., adj. /bah ahth/, n. a socialist party of some Arab countries, esp. Iraq and Syria. Also, Ba ath, Ba th. [ < Ar ba ath lit., renaissance] * * * …   Universalium

  • Baath — noun Abbreviated name for the , a secular Arab nationalist political party present in several countries in the Mid East, most prominently Iraq and Syria …   Wiktionary

  • Baath — Baathism, n. Baathist, n., adj. /bah ahth/, n. a socialist party of some Arab countries, esp. Iraq and Syria. Also, Ba ath, Ba th. [ < Ar ba ath lit., renaissance] …   Useful english dictionary

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