Wednesday, March 17, 2004

Did Spain cave in to terrorists?

Timothy Garten Ash makes some pragmatic observations about the turn of events in Spain this past week. He observes that al-Qaeda may will interpret the change of government in Spain as a victory for terrorism. Welcome to the Titanic Guardian 03/18/04.

But he also pleads for people to recognize:

that two things can both be true: 1) Blair was wrong to take us to war on Iraq, which has not helped us defeat al-Qaida; 2) Blair is right to warn us that we are all threatened by an Islamist terrorism which predates the Iraq war, which would target us even if we were not in Iraq, and which will be encouraged by the promised Spanish retreat from Iraq.

However, he has harsh words for those who accuse the incoming Zapatero government of "appeasement":

Rightwing American commentators charge Spanish voters with "appeasement". This is crass. More than three-quarters of the Spanish electorate turned out for a massive defence of democracy in the face of terror. Every single Spanish voter was a soldier in the "war on terror". They voted different ways for all sorts of reasons. Historically, high turn-outs have favoured the left. Some of the former communist electorate voted tactically for the socialists. Many swing voters punished the conservative government of José María Aznar for initially attributing the attacks to the Basque terrorist organisation Eta. And, yes, some emotionally blamed him for having made Spain a more likely terrorist target by supporting Bush's war on Iraq. But to say that this vote adds up to "appeasement" is a stupid slur.

A year after the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, it's becoming increasingly clear how badly this adventure has detracted from international efforts to combat al-Qaeda terrorism.

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