This past May, The Middle East Journal published my review of Amatzia Baram's Saddam Husayn and Iraq, 1968-2003: Ba'this Iraq from Secularism to Faith. While I found much to commend in Baram's study, he and I disagree on the role of ideology in Saddam Husayn's decision-making process and policies. Below is the review, Baram's response to the review, and my reply to his response.
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Saddam
Husayn and Islam, 1968–2003: Ba‘thi Iraq from Secularism to Faith,
by Amatzia Baram. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014. 439
pages. $59.95. Reviewed by Eric Davis
The
Middle East Journal, 72/2 (Spring 2018): 327-330.
There have been numerous studies of Saddam Husayn and Iraq’s
Arab Socialist Ba‘th Party. None, however, has examined in detail Saddam and
the party’s ideological evolution and transition from a rigid secular
nationalist focus to one which placed religion at its core. This lacuna has
been rectified with the publication of Amatzia Baram’s study, Saddam Husayn and
Islam.
This book represents a major contribution to our
understanding of modern Iraqi politics. It is the product of extensive research
and uses a wide and impressive range of sources. In addition to accessing a
large number of Arabic, English, and Hebrew documents, Baram also studied a
number of archives, including those at the Conflict Research Records Center at
the National Defense University in Washington, DC; the National Security
Archives, in Washington, DC; and the Iraq Memory Foundation archive at the
Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Baram details the modernizing
mission of the Ba‘thist regime after it seized power in a bloodless coup d’état
in 1968. He rightly argues that the regime saw the clerical classes as
reactionary and worked to marginalize them, making concessions to religion only
where they feared a popular backlash. The author’s assertion that “How and why
the Ba‘th regime and state-mosque relations changed during the 1968–2003 period
is often veiled” (p. 11) underscores the significance of his study.
While much of what Baram analyzes in the early chapters of
his study has been covered previously, he still adds considerable new material
to this section of his historical narrative. Chapter 6, “Saddam’s Faith
Campaign, 1993–2003: Imaging Islam and Jumping on the Bandwagon,” and Chapter
7, “What Kind of Islam?” constitute the core contribution of the volume. Here
the author offers many new insights into the dynamics of a regime weakened
after the January 1991 Gulf War and the subsequent March intifada (uprising) as
it tried to retain its grip on power.
Baram situates his study in a historical context that
examines the evolution of the state’s attitude and policies to particularly
sensitive issues from a religious perspective, e.g., alcohol consumption and
prostitution (pp. 51–52). In light of women comprising 60–65% of Iraq’s
population, the result of the violence that consumed the country from 1980 to
the present, Baram’s discussion of the status of women in Ba‘thist ideology is
particularly timely. He provides a detailed account of Saddam and the Ba‘th
Party’s position on women at the famous Eighth Party Congress in 1974, which
lamented the “backwardness” of the role of women in the Arab world. Whether
Saddam was ever committed to this position is unclear. Certainly, his personal
behavior toward women was either dismissive or to use them for his own personal
satisfaction.
Nevertheless, the Ba‘th Party during the 1970s did offer a
space for female intellectuals to challenge patriarchal Islamism. The author
offers a fascinating example of Bushra Bustani who criticized contemporary
Islamists who followed Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and ideologue Sayyid Qutb. In
her critique, she used the writings of the great late 19th/early 20th century
Egyptian religious thinker and grand mufti Muhammad ‘Abduh. Still fearing the
power of the clerical class, the conservative views of most Iraqi men, and
seeking to develop a base of support for his 1979 putsch to seize control of
the Ba‘th Party and the state, Saddam backtracked on the party’s support for
women’s rights, blaming his new policies on attacks by
“counter-revolutionaries” (p. 56).
In the tradition of Charles Tilly, Dina Khoury, and others,
Baram’s study of ideological transformation under Saddam and the Ba‘th can be
viewed as a contribution to the literature on war and state-building. His
insightful analysis of the impact of the 1980–88 Iran-Iraq War on producing
further backtracking on women’s rights demonstrates the strong relationship
between male identity, gender relations, and political power in post-1970s
Iraq.
However, the author fails to fully develop the logic of his
arguments, particularly the extent to which Iraq’s political economy structured
ideological outcomes under Saddam. The Iraqi leader viewed Iran as militarily
weak after the 1978/79 revolution, as different Iranian forces jockeyed for
power and many of Shah Mohammad Reza’s generals fled or were executed. Instead
of Iran’s swift defeat, the war dragged on for eight years. Much of Iraq’s oil
industry was destroyed. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait’s refusal to forgive over $25
billion of debt they had extended to Iraq during the war and their increased
oil production after 1988, which drove down global oil prices, stymied Saddam’s
efforts to return Iraq to the status quo.
Infuriated by these policies, having promised Iraqis that Iraq would be
as prosperous as it had been before the war began in 1980, and confident that
the United States would not intervene (based on his infamous 1990 interview
with US ambassador April Glaspie), Saddam invaded and plundered Kuwait in
August 1990.
An even larger miscalculation than the 1980 invasion of
Iran, the 1991 Gulf War destroyed much of Iraq’s industrial capacity and
electrical infrastructure, and led to a massive uprising which almost caused
the fall of the regime. I would argue that the political economy of two wars,
an overreach facilitated by the massive increase in Iraq’s oil revenues between
1972 and 1980 (and then their precipitous decline during the 1980s), and the
1991–2003 United Nations sanctions regime were the key variables that led
Saddam to shift from pan-Arabism — an ideology which he embraced not out of
conviction but to use as leverage in his effort to make Iraq the Arab world’s
dominant power — to a new ideological formulation based in religion.
 |
| Ba'th Party founders, Michel 'Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar with Egyptian President, Jamal 'Abd al-Nasir |
An excellent characterization of Saddam’s regime after 1979
was the late Faleh Jabar’s conceptualization of the Ba‘thist regime as morphing
into the “Family-Party State” (dawlat
hizb al-usra). What Jabar suggests is that Saddam’s worldview was not
structured by ideology but rather by what I would call “tribalist instrumentalism.”1
Saddam trusted very few people and then only those in his immediate circle with
whom he had kinship relations, namely his immediate family members and members
of his tribal clan, the Bayjat of the Albu Nasir. By instrumentalist, I mean
that Saddam constantly applied a cost-benefit analysis to any decision he took,
based on whether it would enhance or diminish his power.
In this sense, neither Saddam’s “Ba‘thism” nor Islamism
really were key drivers in his decision-making process, if by drivers we mean
decision-making caused by affective commitment. I would argue that Saddam
switched ideologies to whatever suited him at a particular point in time. One
of the best indicators of this view was Saddam adding Allahu akbar (“God is
greater”) to the Iraqi flag just prior to the 1991 Gulf War, when he realized
that the US-organized UN coalition was going to attack his forces in Kuwait.
This conceptual commentary is not meant to diminish in any
way the importance of Amatzia Baram’s contribution. Rather, it suggests that
analyses of the role of ideology in Arab politics need to question the salience
of ideological commitments. An overview of the Arab world, and indeed of most
less-developed countries, indicates the superficial veneer of ideology in the
domestic politics of most political systems. Pan-Arabism, pan-Africanism, and
pan-Islamism all have lost the primacy they once held. Saddam had long realized
that pan-Arab nationalism was dead, the realization of which was forcefully
brought home when he became isolated during the leadup to the Gulf War.
Globalization and the transnational migration it has engendered, combined with
increasing global income inequality, have challenged national identities and,
as a result, undermined formerly powerful regional and transnational
ideologies. It is not by chance that Saddam’s personal library was filled with
books on Joseph Stalin, the political opportunist par excellence.
Finally, it would have been useful
if Saddam Husayn and Islam had acknowledged the extent to which Saddam and the
Ba‘th appropriated ideological symbols from the rule of ‘Abd al-Karim Qasim
(1958–63). Qasim’s focus on folklore, tribal poetry, and ancient Mesopotamian civilizations,
epitomized in the placing of the Star of ‘Ishtar at the center of the
post-Hashemite Iraqi flag, was intended to foster national pride and overcome
ethnic, religious, and sectarian divisions. In following many of the symbolic paths
of the Qasim regime, Saddam and the Ba‘th’s pan-Arabism was always imbued with
a distinctly Iraqi flavor, as was their Islamism, which foregrounded “Saddam’s
Qadisiyya,” the purported enmity between Arabs and Persians extending back to
the Battle of Qadisiyya in southeast Iraq when the Arab Islamic armies defeated
the Persian Sassanid Empire in 636 CE.
1 Falih
cAbd al-Jabbar, الدولة
والمجتمع المدني والانتقال إلى الديمقراطية في العراق
[The state, civil
society, and the transition to democracy in Iraq]. Cairo: Ibn Khaldun Center
for Development Studies, 1995, pp. 80–104.
Eric Davis, Department of Political Science, Rutgers
University, New Brunswick, NJ, davis@polisci.rutgers.edu
To the Editor,
Eric
Davis’s evaluation of my book Saddam Husayn and Islam, 1968–2003
(Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014) in The Middle East Journal,
Volume 72, Number 2 (Spring 2018, pp. 327–30) is fair and to the point. For
that I am indebted to him. There are a few points that need explanation, but,
most importantly, Davis is bringing up the weighty question of the relation
between ideology and practice in Saddam Husayn’s Iraq.
Davis
argues that an overview of the Arab world and most less-developed countries
often “indicates the superficial veneer of ideology in domestic politics . . .”
Namely: ideology is mere froth on the waves of real politics. Davis’s view is
that “Saddam’s religious convictions were as meaningless as his commitment to
Ba’thism” and “Saddam constantly applied a cost-benefit analysis to any
decision that he took . . . ” Likewise, “Saddam switched ideologies to whatever
suited him” (p. 329) all to secure his power. Davis is correct, I think, and
this is the conclusion in my book. However, this is only the bottom line.
It seems
to me that there is much “above” or before the bottom line, and by leaving it
out we may be missing something important. Davis regards Saddam’s pan-Arabism
as an ideology “which he embraced not out of conviction but to use as a
leverage in his effort to make Iraq the Arab world’s dominant power” (p. 329).
I agree with some but disagree with “not out of conviction.” While it served
him well, Saddam also seemed to have believed in an Iraqi-hegemonic version of
secular pan-Arabism as Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasser did in Egyptian-centered Arabism. I
think so having read and listened to his memoirs and speeches and to his closed-door
talks with his closest underlings, even judging by the emotion in his voice.
Saddam was deeply attached to the glory that were the Arabs from the days of
the Prophet to the ‘Abbasid Caliphate’s golden age, namely: to Arab Islam as
history. He was similarly attached to the splendor that were Sumer and Babylon.
Yet, until the mid-1980s (or earlier, with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s rise
to power) he saw shari‘a as a guide for modern life as an obstacle
on the way to modernity and the clerics (‘ulama) as a dangerous competing
elite.
This may
sound naive, but I think that in order to lead or coerce people, most political
leaders need to convince themselves that they are doing the right thing:
serving a larger cause than oneself. The first decade of Ba‘th rule in Iraq,
dominated already by Vice President Saddam Husayn, was essentially secular.
This was a genuine Saddam. To his own admission in a top-level meeting in 1986,
changed circumstances required changed policies. The competition with Khomeini over
legitimacy, the growing popularity of the Iraqi clerics and the difficult war
conditions pushed Saddam toward Islamization. Iraq’s travails following the
defeat in Kuwait did the rest.
I share this view with Davis. Islamization was indeed a cynical new bottom line dictated by “cost-benefit calculations.” But it does not mean that Saddam had not believed in secular politics. His public policy was eventually definitely Islamized. Yet, while he was very comfortable with his Arab, Islamic cultural, local/Iraqi/Mesopotamian, and tribal identities (the latter two being problematic from party ideology viewpoint), his Islamization was different. It contradicted everything he and many of the party old-timers had truly believed in, and it seems that he was at least at first ambivalent and conflicted about it. This may explain his Islamization style. I discussed it in my book but maybe insufficiently.
I share this view with Davis. Islamization was indeed a cynical new bottom line dictated by “cost-benefit calculations.” But it does not mean that Saddam had not believed in secular politics. His public policy was eventually definitely Islamized. Yet, while he was very comfortable with his Arab, Islamic cultural, local/Iraqi/Mesopotamian, and tribal identities (the latter two being problematic from party ideology viewpoint), his Islamization was different. It contradicted everything he and many of the party old-timers had truly believed in, and it seems that he was at least at first ambivalent and conflicted about it. This may explain his Islamization style. I discussed it in my book but maybe insufficiently.
Davis
suggests that Saddam’s worldview was not “structured by ideology” but by
“tribalist instrumentalism” (p. 329). I agree with the latter, but I am not
certain about the former.
An article I published 20 years ago discussed
Saddam’s “neo-tribalism.”[1]
I updated it elsewhere, but I should have done it in the book. Either way, it
seems to me that a few identities can coexist. I also agree that I ought to
have written more on Iraq’s travails from 1980 to 2003 that explain Saddam’s
newly found religiosity. Finally, I agree that Saddam’s search for an Iraqi
identity in the alluvial plains of ancient Mesopotamia is of great importance.
I had written about it before[2]
and updated it in this book (mainly pp. 42–47, 60–63). More was needed.
Amatzia
Baram, Professor Emeritus, University of Haifa.
 |
| Ba'th Party leader Michael 'Aflaq with Saddam Husayn, 1988 |
In the
study of ideology, Baram and I differ conceptually and empirically. Although
Baram never defines what he means by ideology, he clearly adopts a linear,
functionalist view. To wit, political leaders hold certain ideological views
which then influence their decision-making processes. While such linear
causality is often true, ideology constitutes a much more nuanced and complex
concept. Further, Baram analyzes Saddam from the perspective of a “Great Man of
History.” This approach creates two problems. First, Baram limits how we
understand the role of ideology in Saddam’s Iraq by avoiding alternative conceptualizations.
Second, he tells us little about the structural constraints which shaped the
Iraqi leader’s decisions.
In his
well-known essay “Ideology as a Cultural System,” Clifford Geertz conceptualized
ideology as part of the “symbolic webs” human beings spin to create meaning and
predictability in their lives.[4]
In Memories of State, I argued that Ba‘thist
ideology became a signifier for party members and candidate members — a “web of
meaning” — through which they sought to prove their loyalty to Saddam, even if Ba‘thist
ideology was largely comprised of slogans and lacked substantive content.
In yet another
approach, Antonio Gramsci viewed ideology as just one component in the attempt by political classes to create what he
termed egemonia (hegemony). Ideology
is part of the political class’s efforts to equate its rule with the natural
order of things or, to use an anthological formulation, to have it become part
of “the taken-for-grantedness” of life. The effort to establish hegemonic rule in
the Gramscian sense parallels Michel Foucault’s notion of discipline. When the
ruled come to see what is as
synonymous with what should be, the political
class has developed an efficient method of rule because its prerogatives and
dictates are seen as “natural” and thus not subject to challenge.
Unfortunately,
much analysis of modern Iraqi politics has adopted a “Great Man of History”
model. While leadership — whether exercised by under Faisal I, Nuri al-Sa‘id, ‘Abd
al-Karim Qasim, or Saddam — is critical to understanding Iraq’s modern
politics, political leaders never operate in a structural vacuum. Theorists
from Karl Marx (“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they
please”[5])
to Douglass North and modern institutionalists, who have argued that institutional
rules constrain actor preferences, have demonstrated the shortcomings of
divorcing agency and structure.[6]
Saddam’s agency was without a doubt a critical variable in shaping Iraqi politics
under Ba‘th Party rule. However, his decisions were shaped by the socioeconomic
and political structure in which he operated. In more concrete terms, does
anyone believe Saddam would have emphasized “faith” in the 1980s and 1990s had
there been no Islamic Revolution in neighboring Iran?
 |
| Shibli al-'Aysami with Saddam and Iraqi leaders at Michel 'Aflaq's funeral, 1989 |
Finally, Baram
is unclear on the criteria he uses to ascertain ideology’s causal impact in
Saddam’s regime. He notes in his letter that, “Saddam also seemed to have believed in an Iraqi-hegemonic version of secular
pan-Arabism” (emphasis added) and adds, “The first decade of Ba‘th rule in Iraq
. . . was essentially secular. This was a genuine Saddam.” Baram then argues,
as I do, that “faith” was cynically used to combat the attraction of the regime
of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini after the Islamic Revolution and to reinforce
the legitimacy of Bacthist rule. Where then are we at the end of the
analytic day? What role exactly did ideology
play in Iraqi politics under Saddam?
Despite
our differences, Baram is to be commended for raising the important issue of the
role of ideology in political rule. Obviously, this is a topic that requires much
more conceptualization, theorizing, and empirical research.
[1] Amatzia Baram, “Neo-Tribalism in Iraq: Saddam Hussein's
Tribal Policies 1991–96,” International Journal of Middle East Studies
29, no. 1, (Feb. 1997): 1–31. doi:10.1017/S0020743800064138.
[2] See, for
example, Amatzia Baram, Culture, History and Ideology in the Formation of Ba’thist
Iraq, 1968–89
(London: Macmillan, 1991).
[3] In From Nationalism to Revolutionary Islam,
ed. Said Amir Arjomand (London: Macmillan, 1984), 134–57.
[4] In The Interpretation of Cultures (New
York: Basic Books), 195.
[5] Karl Marx, “The
Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte” [1852] in Karl Marx: Selected Writings, second edition, ed. David
McLellan (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 329.
[6] Douglass C. North, Institutions, Institutional Change and
Economic Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1990), 23.
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