The Ba'ath Party, led by Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, came to power in Iraq through the bloodless 17 July 1968 Revolution, which overthrew president Abdul Rahman Arif and prime minister Tahir Yahya.

Following the 1974–1975 Shatt al-Arab clashes, Saddam met with Iranian monarch Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and signed the 1975 Algiers Agreement, ceding territory to Iran in exchange for an end to Kurdish support.

Alarmed by the Iranian Revolution, Saddam adopted an aggressive stance against Iran and its new theocratic leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, fearing his influence over Iraq's Shia majority.

Abdul Rahman Arif, the then-President of Iraq, first knew of the coup when jubilant members of the Republican Guard started shooting into the air in "a premature triumph".

[25] al-Bakr, as the leader of the coup's military operation, retained his position as Regional Secretary of the Ba'ath Party, and was elected to the posts of Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, President and Prime Minister.

However, as historian Charles Tripp notes in A History of Iraq, the campaign started "a curious game" whereby the government alternately persecuted and courted the party until 1972–1973, when the ICP was offered, and accepted, membership in the National Progressive Front (NPF).

When Aziz al-Haji broke away from the ICP, established the Iraqi Communist Party (Central Command) and initiated a "popular revolutionary war" against the government, it was duly crushed.

In January 1970, an attempted coup led by two retired officers, Major General Abd al Ghani ar Rawi and Colonel Salih Mahdi as Samarrai, was thwarted as the conspirators entered the Republican Palace.

[34] Before making himself de jure head of state, Saddam initiated an anti-communist campaign; the ICP had no real power, and most of its leading officials had left the country or been imprisoned or executed by the Ba'ath government.

There were also rumours within the top echelons of power that al-Bakr (with the assistance of Iraqi Ba'athists who opposed Saddam) was planning to designate Hafez al-Assad as his successor.

Iraq considered the newly established Iran to be "weak"; the country was in a state of continued civil unrest, and the Iranian leaders had purged thousands of officers and soldiers because of their political views.

[45] On 17 July 1981, on the 13th anniversary of the bloodless 1968 coup, Ardulfurataini was adopted as the official national anthem of Iraq, with its lyrics mentioned of prominent figures in Iraqi history, including Saladin, Harun al-Rashid and al-Muthanna ibn Haritha, along with the last verse extolled by Ba'athism.

[51] In April 1988, after a series of Iraqi military victories, a ceasefire was agreed between Iraq and Iran; the war is commonly considered status quo ante bellum.

[55] On 13 January 1991, the Iraqi flag was modified, adopting its handscript the takbīr (the phrase Allahu akbar, meaning "God is the greatest" in Arabic), at the instigation of President Saddam Hussein.

On the evening of 24 February, several days before the Gulf War ceasefire was signed in Safwan, the Saudi Arabia-based radio station Voice of Free Iraq (funded and operated by the Central Intelligence Agency) broadcast a message to the Iraqis to rise up and overthrow Saddam.

Al-Ali's radio broadcast encouraged Iraqis to "stage a revolution" and claimed that "[Saddam] will flee the battlefield when he becomes certain that the catastrophe has engulfed every street, every house and every family in Iraq".

The Security Council adopted Resolution 688, which stated that Iraq had to allow access for international humanitarian organisations and report openly about government repression.

According to Aflaq, socialism is a means to modernise the Arab world but not a system (as generally considered in the West) which opposes private property or supports economic equality.

He also expressed admiration for other communist leaders (such as Fidel Castro, Ho Chi Minh and Josip Broz Tito) for their spirit of asserting national independence, rather than for their communism.

Sunni rhetoric emitting from the Iraqi government sought to discredit Iran, with scathing criticism stating that they were subscribing to a " foreign and heretical form of religion".

While daily newspaper Babil, owned by Saddam's eldest son Uday Hussein, once was considered a staunch opponent of the campaign, arguing that it would undermine Iraq's religiously pluralistic society and encourage sectarian division,[93] at another point it railed against Shias, referring to them as rafidah, a hateful epithet normally used by ultraconservative Salafis only.

[108] According to historian Charles R. H. Tripp, the Iraqi–Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Co-operation upset "the U.S.-sponsored security system established as part of the Cold War in the Middle East.

The U.S. also disliked Iraqi support for Palestinian militant groups, which led to Iraq's inclusion on the developing U.S. list of State Sponsors of Terrorism in December 1979.

[112] Ostensibly this was because of improvement in the regime's record, although former U.S. Assistant Defense Secretary Noel Koch later stated, "No one had any doubts about [the Iraqis'] continued involvement in terrorism.

"[113][114] Since it did not have an economic policy of its own, the Ba'ath Party, when it took power in 1968, allowed the Five-Year Plan set up by the previous regime in 1965 to continue until its end date in 1969.

[118] The full nationalisation of the IPC occurred after the company cut its oil production by half in March 1972; the decision would, in the short term, hamper Iraq's economic growth.

During the early war years, ambitious development plans were followed; because of high military spending (approaching 50 percent of GNP in 1982), the Iraqi economy began showing signs of bankruptcy in the mid-to-late 1980s.

[138] While internal and external trade was revitalised, this did not lead to a significant increase in the standard of living for the majority of the population; on the contrary, the government tried to prevent benefits from flowing to Shi'ite areas to persuade more countries to oppose the sanctions.

However, the period was marked (especially under Saddam Hussein) by sectarian, religious and political strife between the government and other groups: Shia Muslims (mainly drawn from Arabs, this religious group formed an absolute majority) who sought to create an Iraqi theocracy; ethnic Kurds, who sought independence for their region; Sunnis with an Islamist ideology, and non-Ba'athists (such as the Iraqi communists who were heavily suppressed in 1978).

During the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein sought to gain support from the Muslim religious community for the government, adding the Takbir to the flag, coat of arms and motto of Iraq.