Saddam Hussein in the context of "Nasserism"

Ba'athism, also spelled Baathism, is an Arab nationalist ideology which advocates the establishment of a unified Arab state through the rule of a Ba'athist vanguard party operating under a revolutionary socialist framework. The ideology is officially based on the theories of the Syrian intellectuals Michel Aflaq (per the Iraqi-led Ba'ath Party), Zaki al-Arsuzi (per the Syrian-led Ba'ath Party), and Salah al-Din al-Bitar. Ba'athist leaders of the modern era include the former president of Iraq Saddam Hussein, and former presidents of Syria Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar al-Assad.

The Ba'athist ideology advocates the "enlightenment of the Arabs" as well as the renaissance of their culture, values and society. It also advocates the creation of one-party states and rejects political pluralism in an unspecified length of time—the Ba'ath party theoretically uses an unspecified amount of time to develop an "enlightened" Arab society. Ba'athism is founded on the principles of Arab nationalism, pan-Arabism, and Arab socialism, as exemplified by its slogan "Unity, Freedom, Socialism".

The Gulf War was an armed conflict between Iraq and a 42-country coalition led by the United States. The coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: Operation Desert Shield, which marked the military buildup from August 1990 to January 1991; and Operation Desert Storm, which began with the aerial bombing campaign against Iraq on 17 January 1991 and came to a close with the American-led liberation of Kuwait on 28 February 1991.

On 2 August 1990, Iraq, governed by Saddam Hussein, invaded neighboring Kuwait and fully occupied the country within two days. The invasion was primarily over disputes regarding Kuwait's alleged slant drilling in Iraq's Rumaila oil field, as well as to cancel Iraq's large debt to Kuwait from the recently ended Iran–Iraq War. After Iraq briefly occupied Kuwait under a rump puppet government known as the Republic of Kuwait, it split Kuwait's sovereign territory into the Saddamiyat al-Mitla' District in the north, which was absorbed into Iraq's existing Basra Governorate, and the Kuwait Governorate in the south, which became Iraq's 19th governorate.

Sardasht (Persian: سردشت) is a city in the Central District of Sardasht County, West Azerbaijan province, Iran, serving as capital of both the county and the district.

Sardasht, far from the frontline, was notably attacked with chemical weapons by Iraqi forces under Saddam Hussein during the Iran–Iraq War. It was the first deliberate chemical attack against civilians.

The Ziggurat (or Great Ziggurat) of Ur (Sumerian: 𒂍𒋼𒅎𒅍 é-temen-ní-gùru "Etemenniguru", meaning "house whose foundation creates terror") is a Neo-Sumerian ziggurat in what was the city of Ur near Nasiriyah, in present-day Dhi Qar Province, Iraq. The structure was built during the Early Bronze Age (21st century BC) by King Ur-Nammu of the Third Dynasty of Ur. It had crumbled to ruins by the 6th century BC of the Neo-Babylonian period, when it was restored by King Nabonidus.

Its remains were excavated in the 1920s and 1930s by international teams led by Sir Leonard Woolley. Under Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, they were encased by a partial reconstruction of the façade and the monumental staircase. The Ziggurat of Ur is the best-preserved of those known from Mesopotamia, besides the ziggurat of Dur Untash (Chogha Zanbil). It is one of three well-preserved structures of the Neo-Sumerian city of Ur, along with the Royal Mausolea and the Palace of Ur-Nammu (the E-hursag).

Oil reserves in Kuwait make up 8% of the oil reserves in the world. Kuwait is OPEC's third largest oil producer and claims to hold approximately 104 billion barrels (16.5×10^ m). This includes half of the 5 billion barrels (790×10^ m) in the Saudi-Kuwaiti neutral zone, which Kuwait shares with Saudi Arabia. Most of Kuwait's oil reserves are located in the 70 billion barrels (11×10^ m) Burgan field, the second largest conventional oil field in the world, which has been producing oil since 1938. Since most of Kuwait's major oil fields are over 60 years old, maintaining production rates is becoming a problem.

During Operation Desert Storm when the Iraqi Armed Forces were retreating from Kuwait, Saddam Hussein ordered a team of engineers to enact a scorched earth policy and set fire to hundreds of oil fields which caused over one billion barrels of oil to go up in flames over the next seven months. At their height, the fires consumed more than four million barrels of oil per day.

Tikrit (Arabic: تِكْرِيت, romanized: Tikrīt [ˈtɪkriːt]) is a city in Iraq, located 140 kilometers (87 mi) northwest of Baghdad and 220 kilometers (140 mi) southeast of Mosul on the Tigris River. It is the administrative center of the Saladin Governorate. In 2012, it had a population of approximately 160,000. Tikrit is widely regarded as the cultural capital of Iraqi Sunni Arabs, with control of the city carrying symbolic weight due to its former prestige.

Originally created as a fort during the Assyrian empire, Tikrit became the birthplace of Muslim military leader Saladin. Saddam Hussein's birthplace was in a modest village (13 km) south of Tikrit, which is called "Al-Awja"; for that, Saddam bore the surname al-Tikriti. The inhabitants of this village were farmers. Many individuals from Saladin Governorate, especially from Tikrit, were government officials during the Ba'athist period until the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Following the invasion, the city has been a site of insurgency by Sunni militants, including the Islamic State who captured the city in June 2014. During the Second Battle of Tikrit from March to April 2015, which resulted in the displacement of 28,000 civilians, Iraqi government forces regained control of the city, with the city at peace since then.

The Arab Union is a theoretical political union of the Arab states. The term was first used when the British Empire and French empire promised the Arabs a united independent state in return for revolting against the Ottoman Empire, with which the United Kingdom and France was at war. It never came to fruition following the Sykes–Picot Agreement. Despite this, many in the Arab world have since called for the creation of a pan-Arab state. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser made several unsuccessful attempts to unite Egypt with other Arab countries (including Iraq and North Yemen), and briefly succeeded in forming the United Arab Republic with Syria in 1958, which dissolved in 1971. The union is considered as one of the solutions to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Similar attempts were made by other Arab leaders, such as Hafez al-Assad, Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, Faisal I of Iraq, Muammar Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Gaafar Nimeiry and Anwar Sadat.

The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party (spelled "Ba'th" or "Baath", "resurrection" or "renaissance"; Arabic: حزب البعث العربي الاشتراكي Ḥizb al-Ba‘th al-‘Arabī al-Ishtirākī), also referred to as the pro-Iraqi Ba'ath movement, is a Ba'athist political party which was headquartered in Baghdad, Iraq, until 2003. It is one of two parties (with identical names) which emerged from the 1966 split of the original Ba'ath Party.

In 1966, the original Ba'ath Party was split in half; one half was led by the Damascus leadership of the Ba'ath Party which established a party in Syria and the other half with its leadership in Baghdad. The two Ba'ath parties retained the same name and maintained parallel structures in the Arab world, but relations became so antagonistic that Syria supported Iran against Iraq during the bloody Iran–Iraq War; it also joined the U.S.-led coalition against Iraq in the Gulf War. The Ba'athists seized power in Iraq for the first time in 1963, but were deposed several months later. The party's regional organisation governed Iraq between 1968 and 2003, for many years under the leadership of Saddam Hussein. The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Iraq Region was banned in 2003 by the Coalition Provisional Authority following the invasion of Iraq by the US and its allies. Other branches of the party have continued to operate.