The revolution of 1968

The second Baʿath government

After ʿAbd al-Salām ʿĀrif took control in 1963, the Baʿath Party was forced underground and began to make sweeping changes in its leadership and strategy in order to recapture power. Al-Bakr became secretary of the Regional Leadership (RL) of the Baʿath Party in 1964. He was assisted in reorganizing the party by Saddam Hussein, who proved to be instrumental in rallying civilian Baʿathist support for al-Bakr. A premature attempt to seize power in September 1964 led to the imprisonment of the principal Baʿath leaders, including al-Bakr and Saddam. In 1965 al-Bakr was released because of illness, and in 1966 Saddam escaped.

The revolution of 1968

In July 1968 the government was overthrown by the army, with some assistance from civilian party activists. The reasons given were the corruption of the ʿĀrif regime, Kurdish disturbances in the north, the government’s failure to adequately support other Arab countries in the Six-Day War of 1967, and ʿĀrif’s subservience to Nasser’s Egypt. Except for the charge of corruption (ʿĀrif had no bank accounts abroad and had little property inside Iraq), the charges were valid but were only circumstantial. The root causes went much deeper. The ʿĀrif regime, because it had not held popular elections, had failed to attain legitimacy. Barring that, it failed even to attempt to build a party structure or mobilize mass support. Instead, it depended completely on military support, which since 1936 had been inconsistent and capricious. Finally, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ʿĀrif was anything but an inspiring leader. When the Baʿath Party persuaded a few officers in key positions to abandon the regime, the fate of the ʿĀrif government was sealed.

Four officers agreed to cooperate with the Baʿath Party. These were Colonel ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Nāyif, head of military intelligence, Colonel Ibrāhīm ʿAbd al-Raḥman al-Dāʾūd, chief of the Republican Guard, Colonel Saʿdūn Ghaydān, and Colonel Hammād Shihāb. The first two agreed to cooperate on condition that al-Nāyif be the new premier and al-Dāʾūd the minister of defense. Shihāb agreed to help on the condition that ʿĀrif not be harmed. The Baʿath Party accepted this arrangement as a means to achieve power but intended to bridle the officers at the earliest-possible moment, having little confidence in their loyalty.

On the morning of July 17, President ʿĀrif’s palace was stormed by Baʿathist officers led by al-Bakr. ʿĀrif immediately surrendered and agreed to leave the country. He went to London and then to Istanbul, where he lived in modest obscurity, before returning to Iraq some 20 years later.

The first act of the new regime was to establish the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), which assumed supreme authority. The RCC elected al-Bakr president of the republic, and he invited al-Nāyif to form a cabinet. Al-Bakr was not interested in administrative details, and, as he grew older and his health deteriorated, he began to depend more heavily on Saddam to carry out the business of government.

Almost immediately a struggle for power arose between the Baʿath and the Nāyif-Dāʾūd group, ostensibly over socialism and foreign policy but in fact over which of the two groups was to control the regime. On July 30 al-Nāyif was arrested by Saddam and a group of armed party activists and officers. It was agreed that al-Nāyif’s life would be spared if he left the country, and he was sent to Morocco as ambassador; al-Dāʾūd, who was then on a mission to Jordan, was instructed to remain there.

This second bloodless coup, which did not cause any disturbances in Iraq, cleared the way for the Baʿath Party to control the regime. Al-Bakr assumed the premiership in addition to the presidency and the chairmanship of the RCC. Most cabinet posts were given to Baʿath leaders. Sympathizers of the Nāyif-Dāʾūd group were removed, and a number of civil servants considered unfriendly to the regime were retired or relieved of duty. Most important, over the next few weeks some 2,000 to 3,000 army and air force officers were forced to retire, being regarded as a security risk by the ruling party. Most were supporters of Nasser, who, despite the best efforts of the regime, maintained a following within the military until his death in 1970.

The Interim Constitution was issued in September 1968. It provided for an essentially presidential system composed of the RCC, the cabinet, and the National Assembly. Until the National Assembly was called, the RCC exercised both executive and legislative powers and, occasionally, judicial powers as well. After November 1969, with few exceptions, RCC members were elected or nominated out of the RL. In this way the civilian party—now in reality led by Vice Pres. Saddam Hussein—was able to eventually remove all army officers from power and maintain control. In the state as a whole, the Baʿath Party, already highly organized, began to infiltrate and influence almost all national organizations.

Disturbances in the Kurdish area and several attempts to overthrow the regime kept the Baʿath leaders preoccupied and prevented them from launching planned social and economic programs. The attempts to overthrow the regime were suppressed without difficulty, but the Kurdish problem proved more complicated.

Even before the Baʿath Party achieved power, the Kurdish question had been discussed in several meetings of the Baʿath Party leadership. However, in late 1968 fighting between the Kurds and the Iraqi army began once again and escalated to full-scale warfare. With military aid provided by Iran, the Kurds were able to pose a serious threat to the Baʿath regime. By early 1970 negotiations between the Baʿath leaders, with Saddam as chief government negotiator, the Kurdish leader Mustafa al-Barzani, and other leaders of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) were under way. The government agreed to officially recognize the Kurds as a “national” group entitled to a form of autonomous status called self-rule. This would eventually lead to the establishment of a provincial administrative council and an assembly to deal with Kurdish affairs. The agreement was proclaimed in the Manifesto of March 1970, to go into effect in March 1974, following a census to determine the frontiers of the area in which the Kurds formed the majority of the population.

In April 1972 Iraq and the Soviet Union signed a treaty in which the two countries agreed to cooperate in political, economic, and military affairs. The Soviet Union also agreed to supply Iraq with arms.

To strengthen the Baʿath regime, two important steps were taken. First, the conflict with the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP), which had arisen after the revolution of 1958 and had led to the death of thousands of communists under Baʿath rule, was reconciled. Second, the National Progressive Front was established to provide legitimacy to the regime by enlisting the support of other political parties. Since the March Manifesto had established a basis for settling the Kurdish problem, Kurdish political parties were willing to participate in the National Progressive Front (NPF). The ICP had also shown interest. A Charter for National Action, prepared by the Baʿath Party, was published in the press for public discussion and became the basis for cooperation with the ICP and other parties.

In March 1972 Baʿathist and ICP leaders met to discuss the content of the charter and express their views about basic principles such as socialism, democracy, and economic development. A statute was drawn up expressing the principles agreed on as the basis for cooperation among the parties of the NPF. It also provided for a 16-member central executive committee, called the High Committee, and a secretariat. The NPF officially came into existence in 1973.

In 1973–74 negotiations with al-Barzānī and the KDP to implement the March Manifesto failed. The census promised in the March Manifesto had not been taken, and al-Barzānī and the KDP refused to accept the Baʿathist determination of the borders of the Kurdish area, which excluded the oil-rich Kirkūk province. Nevertheless, in March 1974 the Baʿath regime proceeded to implement its own plan for self-rule, establishing a provincial council and an assembly in cooperation with Kurdish leaders who were opposed to al-Barzānī’s militant approach. Iraq also set up the Kurdish autonomous region in the three predominantly Kurdish governorates of Erbil, Dahūk, and Al-Sulaymāniyyah.

The Kurdish war started in March 1974. Al-Barzānī’s decision to go to war with the Baʿath government seems to have been made with the support of the shah of Iran, who sought to pressure Iraq to alter the water frontier in the Shaṭṭ al-ʿArab to the thalweg, or the deepest point of the river. (Under the terms of the 1937 treaty, the boundary was set at the low-water mark on the Iranian side, giving Iraq control of the shipping channel.) Soon after the conflict broke out, however, an agreement between Iran and Iraq caused Iran to suspend support for the Kurds and ended the Kurdish war. Al-Barzānī’s forces and political supporters were given a few days to withdraw into Iran, and the Iraqi government took full control of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Relations between the Baʿath regime and the ICP deteriorated after 1975. Baʿath policies were openly criticized in the communist press. Many communists were arrested, and by 1979 most of the principal ICP leaders were either in prison or had left Iraq. The absence of communist representation deprived the NPF of an opposition party that was willing to voice dissent on fundamental issues.