At the height of Saddam Hussein’s power, members of the Ba’ath party in Iraq planned a tribute in his honor. They commissioned a golden statue in his likeness, to be propelled into space where it would orbit Earth for all eternity, gazing upon his pan-Arabic lands and its enemies with the eye of God.
For the Ba’athists, Saddam was celebrated as a hero whose actions in favor of pan-Arabism marked him as the second coming of the mythical Saladin, who fought the Crusaders in Palestine and delivered them to justice. The rise of Saddam’s personality cult followed with colossal stone effigies erected throughout Iraq. One of these featured Saddam’s stoic gaze crowned with the holy shrine of the Dome of the Rock–conflating his rule with divine mandate and cloaking him under the mantle of the Prophet.
