From Versailles to De-Ba’athification

De‐Ba’athification, which was to rid Iraq of Ba’athist structures and ideology, has too often been compared to De‐Nazification, which aimed to rid German society and state institutions of National Socialist ideology. However, imposed rather than negotiated, demands to owe up to guilt, sectarian fragmentation, political uncertainty and the Sunnis’ association with the former regime, made De‐Ba’athification closer to the Treaty of Versailles, a victor’s justice that paved the way for more radical forces to dominate the political scene in Europe at the time.

Just as the Treaty of Versailles amounted to a botched peace, which spawned Germans’ frustrations and generated inequalities, bolstering the rise of extremism and militarism for the following decades, De ba’athification was at the core of the Sunni’s marginalisation, which fed the insurgency. The Sunni community increasingly feared that its key role in Iraq’s political and military institutions would not only disappear, but that they would also become the main targets of the new regime’s efforts to prosecute former Ba’athists…