Arab socialism to nationalism. Since everything in Ba'athist thought was somehow linked to Arab nationalism, Aflaq could not bridge the gap between nationalism and communist internationalism. However, he did note Josip Broz Tito's policy of self-determination while governing Yugoslavia. Another difference was that Aflaq did not support the communist idea that class struggle was the central piece throughout human history, given that role instead to nationalism. However, in the 1950s, changing attitudes of socialism within the Ba'ath Party began to be apparent. Jamal al-Atassi, in a writing dating to 1956, wrote that while Arab socialism was not communism, the party could learn
Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda link allegations Kuwait in August 1990, Osama bin Laden offered to defend Saudi Arabia by sending mujahideen from Afghanistan to repel Saddam's forces. After the Gulf War, bin Laden continued to criticize Saddam's Ba'ath administration, emphasizing that Saddam could not be trusted. Bin Laden told his biographer that "the land of the Arab world, the land is like a mother, and Saddam Hussein is fucking his mother." Saddam Hussein was a Ba'athist, and Ba'athism is a movement which combines pan-Arab nationalism with secularism and Arab Socialism. It is therefore very much at odds with political Islamism. The ideological founder of Ba'athism, Michel