The Arab Socialist Ba'th Party (also spelled Baath or Ba'ath was founded in Damascus in the 1940s as the original secular Arab nationalist movement, to combat Western colonial rule. In Arabic, ba?ath means renaissance or resurrection. It functioned as a pan-Arab party with branches in different Arab countries, but was strongest in Syria and Iraq, coming to power in both countries in 1963. In 1966 the Syrian and Iraqi parties split into rival organizations mainly for ideological reasons ? the Qotri (or Regionalist) Syria-based party being aligned with the Soviet Union while the Qawmi (or Nationalist) Iraq-based party adopted a generally more centrist stance. Both Ba'ath parties retained the same name and maintain parallel structures in the Arab world. The Ba'ath Party came to power in Syria on 8 March 1963 and has held a monopoly on political power since. Later that same year, the Ba'athists gained control of Iraq and ran the country on two separate occasions, briefly in 1963 and then for a longer period lasting from July 1968 until 2003. After the de facto deposition of President Saddam Hussein?s Ba'thist regime in the course of the 2003 Iraq War, the invading US army banned the Iraqi Ba'ath Party in May 2003. The Arabic word Ba?ath means "renaissance" or "resurrection" as in the party?s founder Michel Aflaq?s published works "On The Way Of Resurrection". Ba'thist beliefs combine Arab Socialism, nationalism, and Pan-Arabism. The mostly secular ideology often contrasts with that of other Arab governments in the Arab world, which sometimes tend to have leanings towards Islamism and theocracy.