I wonder if we'll end up with a Baathist Iraq again, a purified Baath party, cleansed of the elements introduced by Saddam Hussein?
It seems odd to me how little the Baath party is discussed in the news. When I talk with Fox-news-watchers about the Baath party, most of them don't even recognize the name. Those who do can't explain what kind of party it is, and usually assume it was some kind of "fundamentalist Islamist" party that existed only in Iraq.
Americans wouldn't recognize a paleo-Baathist Iraq with a fresh label, because they don't understand what the Baath party was. For that matter, a paleo-Baathist Syria wouldn't ping anyone's radar, either. In both countries, the regimes strayed off in different directions from the original Baathist ideology. Egypt, also, could go Baathist. They'd just have to put a different label on the National Socialism of the Middle East, and the West would be none the wiser.
That's not a gratuitous NS reference, either. (Nice post, Hitler...) It isn't just that the Baath Party in Syria is the Baath National Socialist party. These guys are and have been the real deal since 1941:
As far back as 1933, immediately after Hitler's accession to power, the British-appointed Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husayni, made contact with the German consul to declare his support and offer his help. After years of uncompromising struggle against the British and the Jews, the Mufti left Palestine, and with stops in Beirut, Baghdad and Tehran en route, reached Berlin in 1941. The most important of these stops was Baghdad, where in April 1941, an Iraqi politician called Rashid 'Ali al-Gaylani, with military support, seized power and established a pro-Axis regime. Despite some help from Syria, at that time still controlled by the Vichy authorities, the Axis powers were too far away to save him, and his regime was overthrown by British and British-led forces. In Syria a committee was formed to mobilize support for the Rashid 'Ali regime. This was the nucleus of what later became the Ba'ath party, rival branches of which came to govern both Syria and Iraq.
Rashid Ali fled and later joined the Mufti in Berlin. Among the many who supported or sympathized with the Axis during the war years were some who later became famous. Nasser recorded his sympathy and his disappointment at Germany's defeat; Sadat according to his own memoirs, was a willing co-operator in German espionage. Even Rashid 'Ali has been resuscitated as a hero in Saddam Husayn's Iraq.
Quote from: The Middle East. The Brief History of the Last 2000 Years. By Bernard Lewis (Scribner 1995) pp. 348-9
Not that I'm saying there's a big fat NS conspiracy - I'm saying, it's 03:37 and I should be in bed, but instead I'm up making wacky posts on the intarweb. :-)
Edit: Here's a small collection of quotes from a so-so website about the subject:
http://www.flensburg-online.de/nazizeit/baath-partei-und-nsdap.html