A Ba'athist Insurgency? The Role of Saddam's Elites in Iraq's Civil Conflict

Since the start of the Iraqi insurgency, journalists, scholars, and politicians have argued that former Ba’ath Party officials are to blame for the Sunni insurgency. Proponents of this perspective argue that de-Ba’athification –or the exclusion of former Ba’ath Party members from government service or political office – motivated former officials to fight against the US-led coalition and, eventually, Iraqi government forces. Because the inner circle of Saddam Hussein’s regime was made up primarily of Sunni Arabs, the exclusion of Ba’athists was simultaneously the exclusion of Sunnis, explaining why the insurgency became an ethno-sectarian war, as well. Yet, there has been little scholarship examining the extent to which the exclusion of Ba’athists from the post-2003 Iraqi government can actually explain the Iraqi civil conflict. In this thesis, I examine the connections between Saddam’s regime and the insurgency at the leadership level. I find the link is not as strong as the conventional wisdom suggests; insurgents are less tribal in origin, and less likely to come from central Iraq. Insurgents are also more likely to be foreign and more likely to come from western Iraq than the Ba’athist elites. These findings suggest that a narrative focused on the unintended consequences of de-Ba’athification cannot easily explain the post-2003 insurgency. From a policy perspective, stemming the insurgency first requires expelling foreign fighters from Iraq and then on creating a more equitable distribution of political power between Sunnis and Shias.