Was a unified Baathist Iraq and Syria possible?

I'm having trouble understanding why the pan-Arab Baathist movement ended up split with two Ba'ath states in Iraq and Syria. Could they have merged into a single state?
 
Competing factions. There was a split in 1966 within the Ba'ath party that involved the Iraqi section of the party adopting a more Iraqi-nationalist line, related to a coup in Syria in 1966. Essentially, the Syrian Ba'ath Party National Command was replaced with another junta that also espoused Ba'athist values, but the Iraqi section didn't recognize this for whatever reason (I guess it was about the age old question of "who will call the shots in a unified Arab state?"). This marked a divide between the so-called "Qotri" (regionalist) and "Qawmi" ([Arab-]nationalist) sections of the Ba'ath party, with the former more narrowminded and focusing on local interests, the latter more focused on the pan-Arab cause.

Could the two have unified? Possibly, with different people in charge, different coups happening, and a healthy dose of luck.
 
Competing factions. There was a split in 1966 within the Ba'ath party that involved the Iraqi section of the party adopting a more Iraqi-nationalist line, related to a coup in Syria in 1966. Essentially, the Syrian Ba'ath Party National Command was replaced with another junta that also espoused Ba'athist values, but the Iraqi section didn't recognize this for whatever reason (I guess it was about the age old question of "who will call the shots in a unified Arab state?"). This marked a divide between the so-called "Qotri" (regionalist) and "Qawmi" ([Arab-]nationalist) sections of the Ba'ath party, with the former more narrowminded and focusing on local interests, the latter more focused on the pan-Arab cause.

Could the two have unified? Possibly, with different people in charge, different coups happening, and a healthy dose of luck.

Not just that but I hardly picture Hafez al-Assad or Saddam Hussein either giving up power or working in some kind of power sharing agreement.
 
In 1979 Syria and Iraq actually made progress in the field of unification through a series of treaties between al-Bakr and Hafez al-Assad. However by this point al-bake was severely weakened physically while Hussein, now head of the military was beginning to excise great influence in the country. As result Saddam forced Bakr to resign and he became head of Iraq. It was also at this time that Assad had serious issues with the Muslim Brotherhood, with numerous attempts made on his life.

On the Iraqi side preventing Hussein from gaining influence in the government would be a good start, as it would mean he couldn't seize power in order to preserve his influence in the government.
 
I wrote a soc.history.what-if post on thie subject bavk in 1999:

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In 1963, there were talks on a Syria-Iraq union, the Ba'ath party being
in control of both countries. Whatever chance there was for unity was
lost on November 18, 1963 when the Iraqi Ba'athists were overthrown by
General Arif. When in 1968 the Ba'athists regained power in Iraq, there
not only was no unity, but relations between the two countries sharply
deteriorated. One reason is that the Iraqi Ba'athists' leadership (Ahmed
Hassan al-Bakr and his relative Saddam Hussein) had been selected by the
old "National Command" of the Ba'ath (led by Michel Aflaq, who had
founded the party), and the National Command had lost power in Damascus in 1966.

So the question is, had the National Command stayed in power in
Syria, would there have been a union after 1968? I doubt it, at least
whether there would have been a lasting union. By 1968 it was apparent
that Bakr and Saddam Hussein, even if originally designated by Aflaq et
al, were more Iraqi nationalist than Arab nationalist. The Syrians for
their part remembered the way Egypt had dominated the UAR and had in
effect treated Syria as a mere province. This made them reluctant to get
into any more unions with more powerful nations.

In any event, after 1963 the Syrian military was largely dominated by
religious minorities (especially Alawites like Assad) who had reason to
be suspicious that any Syria-Iraq union would be dominated by Sunnis.
After years of bitter recriminations between the two Ba'athist regimes,
there was again talk of unity in 1978-79. This was the result of Camp
David, which had put the Syrian regime in a dangerous position--it could
no longer count on Egyptian help against Israel. A "Charter of Joint
National Action" was arrived at, and a joint defense pact was supposed to
"provide the groundwork for complete military union." But nothing ever
came of this--Syria wanted military support from Iraq, including the
financing of arms purchases, but not any merger of the two armies. Syria
also balked at unifying the two Ba'ath parties. Furthermore, the Iraqis
wanted a unitary state; the Syrians nothing more than a loose federation.
Finally, the Iranian revolution gave the Syrians an alternative to an
alliance with Iraq. Soon Iraqi-Syrian relations returned to a state of
open conflict.

One final point on the "unity" moves of 1978-9: both superpowers opposed
them (as did most Arab regimes). The US viewed a union of two "radical"
Arab states as a threat to Israel and to Western interests in the Middle
East. More interesting is that the USSR while not opposed to better
relations among its Arab allies, opposed any close union. Evgenii
Primakov, then director of the Institute for Middle East Studies at the
Soviet Academy of Sciences warned at the congress of the (pro-Assad)
Syrian Communist Party in early 1979 that any such union would entail
increasing openings to the West. What he did not say, but doubtless had
in mind, was that a union of the two countries would have enhanced their
bargaining power vis-a-vis the USSR.

For a detailed discussion of the Iraq-Syrian conflict, see a book on
which I have heavily relied here: Eberhard Kienle, *Ba'th v. Ba'th: The
conflict between Syria and Iraq 1968-1989 (1990).

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/WStKhCu8UPo/8CwKWLMvqb4J

***

Anyway, the important thing to remember IMO is that Iraq, as by far the stronger of the two countries, would dominate any "union" with Syria--as Egypt had dominated the UAR. Which is why Syria never wanted anything more than a loose confederation.
 
In 1979 Syria and Iraq actually made progress in the field of unification through a series of treaties between al-Bakr and Hafez al-Assad. However by this point al-bake was severely weakened physically while Hussein, now head of the military was beginning to excise great influence in the country. As result Saddam forced Bakr to resign and he became head of Iraq. It was also at this time that Assad had serious issues with the Muslim Brotherhood, with numerous attempts made on his life.

On the Iraqi side preventing Hussein from gaining influence in the government would be a good start, as it would mean he couldn't seize power in order to preserve his influence in the government.
Perhaps Hussein has a little "accident" while he's visiting Chirac in France, courtesy of a disgruntled Iraqi expat? :p
 
I wrote a soc.history.what-if post on thie subject bavk in 1999:

***

In 1963, there were talks on a Syria-Iraq union, the Ba'ath party being
in control of both countries. Whatever chance there was for unity was
lost on November 18, 1963 when the Iraqi Ba'athists were overthrown by
General Arif.

How about this, what if Arif gets his way and Iraq joins the United Arab Republic in 1958. The rise of the Baathists could then lead to a split with Egypt and a united state lead by an alliance of Iraqi and Syrian Baathist party.
 
Reading up on this a little more, it seems another possibility would be if Qasim carried out Arif's death sentence while he was Qasim's prisoner between 59-61. When Qasim gets overthrown by Baathists in 1963 there would be common ground for Iraqi and Syrian Baathists. Given party divisions they could probably only manage some form of federation at first.
 
Question

Regardless of whether or not the union would've had a federal, confederal, or unitary structure it has always appeared to me that the 1979 Iraqi-Syrian union plan was a done deal until Saddam destroyed it. Whether or not it would've lasted is another thing entirely.

What I'm curious about is whether the union would've also led to reunification of the rival Baghdad and Damascus-based factions of the Ba'ath Party. Is it also possible that could've reversed the decline of secular pan-Arabism in region and allowed the party to gain momentum in other Arab states?

There's also the issue of sectarianism. We had a Sunni minority regime in Baghdad and a Shia/Alawite minority regime in Damascus. After unification is it possible that the two might've cancelled each other out and made sectarianism less of an issue?
 

TinyTartar

Banned
Regardless of whether or not the union would've had a federal, confederal, or unitary structure it has always appeared to me that the 1979 Iraqi-Syrian union plan was a done deal until Saddam destroyed it. Whether or not it would've lasted is another thing entirely.

What I'm curious about is whether the union would've also led to reunification of the rival Baghdad and Damascus-based factions of the Ba'ath Party. Is it also possible that could've reversed the decline of secular pan-Arabism in region and allowed the party to gain momentum in other Arab states?

There's also the issue of sectarianism. We had a Sunni minority regime in Baghdad and a Shia/Alawite minority regime in Damascus. After unification is it possible that the two might've cancelled each other out and made sectarianism less of an issue?

Secularism was thoroughly discredited by the failure of the 1973 War on Israel. Political Islam was turned to afterwards. Pan Arabism to an extent was discredited as early as post 1967 War, as was Arab Socialism.

The trappings of Pan Arabism were merely used for continual justification for minority domination rule in both Damascus and Baghdad; in reality, these countries were held together through fear and repression, as the population no longer had any confidence in secular Pan Arabism.

What we saw was eventually, Saddam's Iraq becoming basically a Fascist state and Assad simply running strict military dictatorship. I'm not using Fascist as a slur, either; Saddam genuinely started to seem a lot like Mussolini in the way that he organized and ran the country.

The Ba'ath Party was not really a Ba'ath party after all; it was merely a tool for minority rule in both countries.

You can't unite two repressive governments using a discredited ideology routinely flouted by its supposed practitioners.
 
Secularism was thoroughly discredited by the failure of the 1973 War on Israel. Political Islam was turned to afterwards. Pan Arabism to an extent was discredited as early as post 1967 War, as was Arab Socialism.

The trappings of Pan Arabism were merely used for continual justification for minority domination rule in both Damascus and Baghdad; in reality, these countries were held together through fear and repression, as the population no longer had any confidence in secular Pan Arabism.

What we saw was eventually, Saddam's Iraq becoming basically a Fascist state and Assad simply running strict military dictatorship. I'm not using Fascist as a slur, either; Saddam genuinely started to seem a lot like Mussolini in the way that he organized and ran the country.

The Ba'ath Party was not really a Ba'ath party after all; it was merely a tool for minority rule in both countries.

You can't unite two repressive governments using a discredited ideology routinely flouted by its supposed practitioners.

His regime grew more and more religious fundamentalist later.
 
His regime grew more and more religious fundamentalist later.

This was merely a political move. After the bloodbath with Iran and the humiliating loss in Kuwait, Saddam tried to move beyond Iraqi nationalism to get support from his neighbours. Since Pan-Arabism was basically dead by the 1990s he went for Pan-Islamism instead. This had two unintended consequences.

1) It made it easier for the State Department to establish links between Iraq and Al-Quaeda
2) It made it easier for Baathist commanders to create links with what became ISIS, giving the group a core of (relatively) professional military officers.
 
Secularism was thoroughly discredited by the failure of the 1973 War on Israel. Political Islam was turned to afterwards. Pan Arabism to an extent was discredited as early as post 1967 War, as was Arab Socialism.

The trappings of Pan Arabism were merely used for continual justification for minority domination rule in both Damascus and Baghdad; in reality, these countries were held together through fear and repression, as the population no longer had any confidence in secular Pan Arabism.

What we saw was eventually, Saddam's Iraq becoming basically a Fascist state and Assad simply running strict military dictatorship. I'm not using Fascist as a slur, either; Saddam genuinely started to seem a lot like Mussolini in the way that he organized and ran the country.

The Ba'ath Party was not really a Ba'ath party after all; it was merely a tool for minority rule in both countries.

You can't unite two repressive governments using a discredited ideology routinely flouted by its supposed practitioners.

Nevertheless, the union had been agreed upon by Assad and Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr (Saddam's predecessor). After Saddam seized power he demanded different conditions than what Assad and al-Bakr agreed upon. Which to me suggests that had not happened the union would've taken place.

The union of Iraq and Syria also might've renewed confidence amongst ordinary Arabs throughout the region that unity was possible and whether or not Assad, al-Bakr, or Saddam were true believers in Ba'athism, I highly doubt they would've rejected an opportunity to use the party to promote the ideology in order to expand their influence in the region.
 
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