Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Iraq Region changed his position on joining the UAR and started campaigning for the "Iraq first policy". To strengthen his own position within the government, Qasim created an alliance with the Iraqi Communist Party, which was opposed to the notion of pan-Arabism. The change of policy provoked several pan-Arab organisations, especially the Ba'ath Party. Later that year, the Ba'ath Party leadership was planning to assassinate Qasim and take power to continue the policy of pan-Arabism. Saddam Hussein, the Iraq region's secretary-general, was a leading member of the operation. At the time, the Ba'ath Party was more of an ideological experiment than a
History of the Middle East the easiest source of credit, armaments, and diplomatic support to the anti-western Arab regimes, weakening their position. It opened up the prospect of cheap oil from Russia, driving down the price of oil and reducing the west's dependence on oil from the Arab states. It discredited the model of development through authoritarian state socialism, which Egypt (under Nasser), Algeria, Syria, and Iraq had followed since the 1960s, leaving these regimes politically and economically stranded. Rulers such as Iraq's Saddam Hussein increasingly relied on Arab nationalism as a substitute for socialism. Saddam Hussein led Iraq into a prolonged and costly war