Word: baathist
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Major trouble could also erupt on Iraq's unstable northeast frontier. The 13-year-old civil war between Baghdad's Baathist regime and the dissident Kurds might lead to a far more serious clash between Iran and Iraq because of Iranian backing for the Kurds...
...years after it gained independence from the French in 1945, Syria underwent a generation of coups and countercoups. One of the most significant revolts happened in 1963 when the Baathist (Renaissance) movement came to power, preaching Arab unity and Arab socialism. But the Baath government eventually dissolved into fighting factions, and in 1970 Defense Minister Hafez Assad turned out President Noureddine Atassi's government and took control himself...
Assad is slowly turning Syria into a more open society. Middle-class Syrians who fled the Baathist coups are being wooed back with economic inducements, while foreign investment is being encouraged with guarantees of repatriation of profits. New hotels are being built, including a 350-room Damascus-Sheraton and a 400-room French Meridien. In the meantime, the old hotels and marketplaces are suddenly filled with Western and Japanese businessmen who sense the tantalizing opportunities that Economy Minister Imadi has outlined. If disengagement and peace work out, Damascenes will once again look westward. "We prefer the West," one government official...
Though they share the same religion, the two countries could hardly be more different. Iraq is an Arab state, governed by the left-wing Baathist regime and aligned with Moscow. Iran is a conservative, Western-oriented monarchy whose people are of predominantly Aryan origin. The Iraqis are armed by the Soviets; the Iranians bought some $2 billion worth of U.S. arms last year...
...revamping of socialism at home is already having rippling effects elsewhere. Sadat's moves, for instance, are making it easier for Syrian President Hafez Assad to convince his Baathist regime to relax restrictions on the private investment that Damascus also needs. More significantly, Sadat is finally reclaiming the Arab leadership that Egyptians had traditionally enjoyed and Nasser once held. Nasser's charisma, however, worked mainly on the masses, many of whom still listen to broadcasts of his old speeches (some of them insist that he is well and living in the Soviet Union and that he will...