Baath Party

Yeah

... to force the political regime in Iraq at that time, uh, the Ba'ath regime, to be, uh, controlled, uh, and to kinda limit their, uh, power internationally.

But the impact-

Yeah

And part of the, the, the way this system was designed is to say, "Well, we're gonna give you free education.

We're gonna give you free training in medicine, but part of, uh, the payback to, to the state is to serve, uh, for a certain period of time to cover rural areas, to do service in, in the hospitals." It's a, it's a system of, uh, uh, um, uh, medical, uh, service, uh, within the state, and this is where this kind of s- new social, uh, contract begins to form around, uh, uh, training citizens or training locals to become the kind of the, the pioneers or the, uh, the pioneers of the healthcare system and, and those who take on the, the expansion of the, of the public health system and then of the medical system in society.

Do you feel like in those periods, from the interwar period onwards, um, through the monarchy, the socialist period, the Ba- Ba'athist period, do you think that, um...

And maybe this is unknowable, but is your, is your, um, instinct that the investment in the healthcare, um, system was connected to, um, the, uh, an investment in the state, sort of like state readiness, uh, almost akin to an investment in, in the military? Or was it a sense of like, "This is what a modern state looks like, and this is, uh, we're going to-- Th- th- a, a modern, uh, a modern citizen needs to be healthy and needs to be educated," and that's part of the idea and sort of more investment in the nation? Or was it an investment in the actual infrastructure of the state?

In the aftermath, Bush Sr. advised through a statement over Voice of America Radio and through the Air Force dropping leaflets over Iraqi army divisions.

He urged the Shiites and the Kurds to rise up and overthrow secular Sunni minority Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath Party dictatorship.

And they did.

They took him up on that.

of talked about how 9-11 itself is a culmination of much that came before it, everything that came before it, I think we can widen our discussion now to include the war on terror itself.

And the whole era that was opened up by 9-11 and which saw America, as we know, invade Afghanistan, overthrow temporarily the Taliban, invade Iraq, overthrow the Baath regime there and give Iran a lot of power as a result.

We know all of the things that happened.

We know the Arab Spring that broke out.

And at that time, only government jobs were available.

It also made sense politically because Iraq wanted new generations in the public offices and wanted actually to get rid of Ba'ath supporters in the state apparatus.

And with it obviously came as well patronage networks and as Ali mentioned also the issue of elections.

But after a while it became impossible for the state to actually be able to accommodate all these employees.

They are the downfall of this country.

They have insinuated themselves into a position where they, like, like the Ba'ath Party in Iraq, they, they, they, uh, wield more power than their numbers.

The butch haircut, angry white liberal woman, not necessarily lesbian, but sometimes, is a government administrator.

She is the person who determines whether you get your benefits, your admission, your job.