Couldn't be worse? Iraq after saddam

National Interest, The, Winter, 2001 by Ofra Bengio

Of the three pillars, the most intriguing and difficult to assess is the Ba'ath Party. The Ba'ath is, numerically speaking, a large party--with branches in all parts of the county except for Kurdistan. It is a well-knit and well-organized group. In fact, it is the only organized civil institution inside Iraq. In the absence of a strong opposition party, and due to the total lack of a civil society in Iraq, the chances are good that any political vacuum would be filled by members of the Ba'athi ruling elite, especially since it holds the key civilian posts in the county and has vested interests in the continuation of the regime. Still, Saddam has embarked on a "face-lifting" project for the party. Thus, at the beginning of 2000, he required all party members to pass an examination (Saddam's biography was included in the material that had to be studied) with a view to, as he said, "increase the members' political and organizational consciousness and to strengthen their leadership abilities." He also held sever al meetings with party members to raise morale. In addition, he ordered the establishment of new party branches in different parts of the county to bring new blood into the system--the young, women, Shi'a and others. This is reflected in the new Regional Command of May 2001 which has seven new faces, including Qusayy, an ex-military officer and a woman, which is quite a novelty. In addition, nine out of 19 members are Shi'a--the largest ever in the command.

Ideologically speaking, however, the Ba'ath is a spent force. Aware of this, Saddam is trying to turn it into an "Islamist" party by, among other things, ordering its members to memorize chapters of the Quran. In certain areas, too, the party has been partly superseded by what one might call "new-old forces"--the tribes and the military. This is happening because, after 33 years of rule, the Ba'ath has become a very unpopular, indeed a hated and despised, institution. Its unpopularity has been magnified by the widespread corruption produced by the past decade of sanctions. While leading party members have been enriched, an ever-widening gap has developed between the leadership and the rank-and-file membership.

Yet despite its weaknesses and declining internal cohesion, the Ba'ath seems unlikely to disappear from the Iraqi political map. It may change its name, as the Communist Party did in Romania and elsewhere; or it may retain its name and compete with other forces, as the Communists did in Russia. Even if it is altogether dismantled as an organization, individuals and groups within the Ba'ath will continue to exert influence because the party has become a kind of class unto itself. Bureaucracies have ways of surviving, regardless of changes at the top. The influence of the party in post-Saddam Iraq will be a function of its ability to develop alliances with other power centers, such as the tribes and the military (especially the Republican Guard), before the succession actually takes place.