Interrogation of Saddam Hussein age of 20, Saddam Hussein joined the nascent Ba'ath Party, which was founded on a socialist form of Pan-Arabism. After participating in an unsuccessful 1959 assassination attempt on then Prime Minister of Iraq Abd al-Karim Qasim, Saddam became a fugitive, and eventually fled to Syria and then Egypt. Following the Ba'athists overthrow of the prime minister in the February 1963 Iraqi coup d'état, and the counter-coup half a year later, Saddam was jailed in Iraq from 1964 to 1966. The Ba'ath party returned to power after another successful coup in 1968. General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, a relative of Saddam Hussein,
Ba'athist Iraq means Arab socialism. Arab socialism is distinct from the international socialist movement, opposing Marx's rejection of nationalism. 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. Saddamism ("Saddamiyya") is a political ideology based on the politics related to (and pursued by) Saddam Hussein. It has also been referred to by Iraqi politicians as Saddamist Ba'athism ("Al-Ba'athiyya Al-Saddamiyya"). It is officially described as a distinct variation of Ba'athism. It espouses Iraqi nationalism and an Iraq-centred Arab world that calls upon