Editing Tariq Aziz (section)

== Political movement and activism ==
[[File:Iraq 1963 - Saddam and other Ba'athists.jpg|left|thumb|The Ba'athist after the coup in Iraq, 1963]]
During the 1950s and 1960s, the United States showed limited interest in the Arab Socialist Party, which later became the Ba'ath Party, and its rise to power in Iraq. In this period, the U.S. was primarily concerned with the spread of Soviet communism around the world, particularly in the Middle East, rather than focusing on the internal politics of Arab countries. According to Tariq Aziz, the U.S. did not perceive the Ba'ath Party as a significant force, either in Syria or Iraq, mainly because the U.S. lacked a deep understanding of Iraq’s political landscape. Aziz noted that while Britain and France had extensive historical involvement in the region, the United States did not have the same expertise and often viewed issues through a Cold War lens, concerned primarily with communism.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Interviews - Tariq Aziz {{!}} The Survival Of Saddam {{!}} FRONTLINE {{!}} PBS |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saddam/interviews/aziz.html |access-date=2025-03-20 |website=www.pbs.org}}</ref>

The Ba'ath Party first came to power in 1963 following the Iraq Revolution of 1958, a time when Tariq Aziz was serving as the editor-in-chief of the party's newspaper. Despite this significant political shift in Iraq, Aziz remarked that American diplomatic engagement with the country remained minimal. During the presidency of John F. Kennedy and later Lyndon B. Johnson, there was little meaningful interaction between Iraq and the U.S. government, with very few American journalists visiting Iraq compared to journalists from Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. In 1963, he was editor of the newspaper ''[[Al-Jamahir]]'' and ''Al-Thawra'', the main newspapers of the Ba'ath party.<ref>Hanna Batatu, ''The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq'' (Princeton, 1978).</ref>

Following the coup against the Ba'ath Party regime in 1963, Aziz was imprisoned in Syria for over a year and did not have direct access to firsthand information during that time. However, he recalled that rumors circulated within the Iraqi government about CIA involvement in political and business circles in Iraq. While the involvement of CIA agents in Iraq was never conclusively proven at the time, Aziz later suggested that some of these agents may have had connections with Americans, and the presence of such figures was seen as suspicious by the Ba'ath Party leadership. However, Aziz emphasized that despite these rumors, the U.S. did not appear to take any direct or aggressive action in Iraq at that time, and Iraq did not view the CIA’s involvement as part of a larger, more significant American intervention in the country.<ref name=":0" />