Michel Aflaq
To solve the ideological differences between the party factions, al-Bakr called a meeting of the National Command, the leading organ of the Ba'ath Party. The meeting did not go as al-Bakr planned, and Michel Aflaq, the Secretary General of the National Command (the Ba'ath Party leader), suggested that the National Command should take over the Iraqi Ba'ath Party cell. The meeting led Arif, the President, to lead the November 1963 Iraqi coup d'état.