From the early 1970s Saddam was widely recognized as the power behind President al-Bakr, who after 1977 was little more than a figurehead. Saddam reached this position through his leadership of the internal security apparatus, a post that most senior Baʿathist figures had been too squeamish to fill. Saddam, however, had drawn hard lessons from the party’s failure in 1963 and resolved that no dissent should be allowed in party ranks, no opposition outside the party should be tolerated, and ideological commitment to party ideals alone was insufficient to guarantee the loyalty of internal security officers. Kinship bonds were, to him, much more promising. President al-Bakr concurred on that issue, and soon after the Baʿath takeover al-Bakr appointed his young relative (both al-Bakr and Saddam belonged to the tribe of Āl Bū Nāṣir) to the powerful posts of deputy chairman of the RCC, deputy secretary-general of the RL, and vice president. Al-Bakr also allowed Saddam to form the Presidential Guard, mostly from members of the Āl Bū Nāṣir and allied Sunni tribes. Between 1968 and the mid-1970s Saddam became the unchallenged leader of internal security. After he jailed, executed, or assassinated the regime’s opponents, he turned against his own opponents inside the ruling party, using the same tools and methods: a plethora of ubiquitous and ruthless internal security organs loyal to him personally.

It was virtually taken for granted that when al-Bakr relinquished the presidency, Saddam would succeed him. Nevertheless, his succession was not carried out without complications. Perhaps the two most important complicating factors were Egyptian President Sadat’s decision to make peace with Israel and Syrian Pres. Hafez al-Assad’s bid for economic and political union with Iraq. These two events were not unrelated. Despite ongoing tensions between the two branches of the Baʿath Party, Arab unity had been a long-standing party goal in both Syria and Iraq. Assad, however, was prompted to call for union with Iraq only after Egypt’s rapprochement with Israel in 1977. While President al-Bakr hesitated, Saddam strongly resisted this move. After Egypt and Israel signed the Camp David Accords in 1978, however, there was no way he could avoid the issue.

The initial negotiations showed great promise. Talks in October 1978 led to the signing of a “charter for joint national action,” which declared the two countries’ intent to establish military unity. By 1979 it was clear that the eventual aim was full political union. Iraq and Syria also cooperated with other Arab leaders in taking a firm stand against Sadat. By March 1979, however, when Sadat signed a peace treaty with Israel, negotiations for a Syro-Iraqi union had slowed. The main stumbling block was the question of whether the leadership of the unified state would be primarily Syrian or Iraqi.

Relations between the two countries deteriorated, and by that time Saddam had an additional reason for avoiding ties with Damascus: Iran’s Islamic revolution had installed a regime that was clearly anti-Iraqi and had close ties with Syria. The Iraqi regime also saw a vague religious threat, inasmuch as many among Syria’s ruling elite adhered to a branch of Shiʿism (the ʿAlawī sect) that was faintly related to that practiced in revolutionary Iran. Given Iraq’s large—and for the most part disfranchised—Shiʿi population, Baghdad perceived relations between Syria and Iran as an unprecedented threat.

On July 16, 1979, the eve of the anniversary of the revolution of 1968, al-Bakr officially announced his resignation. There is little doubt that Saddam forced him to resign. Al-Bakr was placed under de facto house arrest and died in 1982. Saddam immediately succeeded him as president, chairman of the RCC, secretary-general of the RL, and commander in chief of the armed forces.

Less than two weeks after Saddam claimed leadership, it was announced that a plot to overthrow the government had been uncovered. This announcement had been preceded some days earlier by the arrest of Muḥyī ʿAbd al-Ḥusayn al-Mashhadī, the secretary of the RCC (and, uncoincidentally, Shiʿi). Mashhadī made a public confession that was, in all likelihood, coerced. He stated that he and other Baʿath leaders, including four other members of the RCC, in collaboration with the Syrian government, had conspired to overthrow the regime. It is doubtful such a conspiracy existed, and it is unclear why those individuals were eliminated—all had been, at one time or another, protégés of Saddam. However, they had opposed al-Bakr’s resignation and Saddam’s ascendancy to the presidency. Thus, Saddam had finally managed to abort rapprochement between Iraq and Syria and, at the same time, send a message to all party members that the new president would not tolerate even the slightest dissent. A special court was set up, and 22 other senior officials were tried and executed; a number of others were sentenced to prison terms.

Syria denied complicity in any plot, but Saddam accused it of planning acts of sabotage and murder, and the Syrian ambassador and his staff were expelled. The Syrians reciprocated. With the de facto termination of diplomatic ties, economic relations between the two Baʿathist regimes started to deteriorate. In April 1982, at the height of its war with Iran, Iraq needed additional maritime outlets. Syria responded by closing its border with Iraq—ostensibly to prevent Iraqi arms smuggling—and shutting down the Iraqi-Syrian oil pipeline. A few days later Damascus officially severed diplomatic relations with Baghdad.