Here’s a new word in all the strange lexicon of a possible war with Iraq. De-baathification. That’s right. It’s a term used by some Iraqi opposition groups to imagine, not just a “regime change” but a general purging of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party.
Like its leader, the Ba’ath Party comes out of the minority Sunni community, about 20 per cent of Iraq’s population. But its leaders hold all the power: the multiple security forces and the bureaucracy. Originally, the party’s goals were far-left, revolutionary: to create socialist Arab states throughout the mideast. But all the Iraqi Ba’athists have concentrated on is their own refinement of a dictatorship. So what does regime change mean for the party?
Guests:
Laith Kubba, founding member, Iraqi National Congress, Senior Program Officer, Middle East and North Africa, National Endowment for Democracy
Jon Alterman, Director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington
Scott Peterson, correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor.