Akram Khater and Paul Rowe critique the “ahistorical views” that present Middle Eastern Christians either as persecuted minorities or agents of imperialism. This representation is applicable to Iraqi Assyrians, who are passingly referred to within the context of Iraq Levies or the Simele massacre of 1933. In analyzing the role of Assyrians in Iraq’s socio-ideological and political movements this paper sheds light on the ways in which minorities positioned themselves in their societies and elevated issues of significant to their community in the larger Iraqi sphere, while also identifying with Iraqis of their socio-economic class and gender. By moving away from popular representations of minorities, it contributes to new ways of addressing this subject. Ba’thist reports on the Assyrian community will be augmented with Assyrian press culture produced in Baghdad in the 1970s, in Arabic and Aramaic. In 1972 the Ba’th regime passed Law 251 giving the Assyrians cultural and linguistic rights. Ba’thist policies towards the Assyrians were reflective of the regime’s approaches to internal and external pressures exerted on it. Internally, the role of Assyrians in Iraqi oppositional parties and their transnational interactions with community members in neighbouring countries and regional governments was concerning. Externally, the regime was weary of the influence of diasporic Assyrian organizations and their influence on Western governments. Policies issued in the early 1970s were meant to bring members of this community closer to the party. Following the Algiers Agreement between Iran and Iraq in 1975, Iran stopped supporting the Iraqi opposition, leading to the opposition’s demise. Contradictory policies by the regime towards the Assyrians began to be noticed, and included village destructions and restrictions on the implementation of Law 251. Further, in Ba’th internal reports the community began to be identified differently. In the preface of Law 251, the Assyrians had been labelled a “national minority,” but in the late 1970s they came to be regarded as a “religious denomination.” This presentation will contextualize this shift in the regime’s identification taking into account the role of Assyrians in the Iraqi opposition and their cultural production in urban centres. It will also nuance the internal interplay between the ethnic (Assyrian), denominational (various Church memberships), and national Iraqi identities existing within the community.