By the mid-1970s, after the economic decline of many Arab states and their defeats in the 1967 and 1973 wars against Israel, the political atmosphere all over the Middle East went through a period of intense radicalization. The postcolonial regimes of the region came under pressure from below, from left-wing socialists and Islamists, and responded either by increased repression – such as in Egypt and Iran – or by transforming their regimes in a more radical direction, such as in Syria or Iraq. In spite of their hatred for each other, both Baathist regimes ended up as close allies of the Soviet Union and as the main recipients of Soviet aid in the region, especially after Egypt in 1977 began a separate peace process with Israel. The Soviets and their allies hoped that the leftward trend in Syria and Iraq, and within the PLO, could be speeded up by local Communists working within the established leaderships. The CPSU International Department believed that Sadat's treason and America's reinvigorated alliances with Israel and Iran could be turned to Moscow's advantage, by letting radical Arabs know that they had nowhere else to go for support than to the Communists and to the Soviet Union.

In reports to the top Soviet leadership in the mid-1970s, the International Department often pointed to Iraq as the best example of how Communists could gain influence within the government through an alliance with radical bourgeois nationalists, such as the Baath Party.