Juan Cole on the Spanish elections

Juan Cole has some very worthwhile thoughts on the Spanish election, the Iraq War and the fight against Islamicist terrorism: Did al-Qaeda Win the Spanish Elections? 03/16/04

This silly question is being asked by billionnaire Rupert Murdoch's and Conrad Black's media outlets all over the world in blazing headlines. For some strange reason, the billionnaires aren't happy that the Socialist Workers' Party won the elections in Spain, and are trying to portray the outcome as cowardice on the part of the Spanish public.

The entire argument is specious from beginning to end. First of all, the Iraq war had nothing to do with the battle against al-Qaeda. Nothing whatsoever. Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz and others were pressing for a war against Iraq in the 1990s before al-Qaeda had even become much of a threat to the US (certainly, they do not bring it up in their writings of the period). There is no evidence for any significant collaboration between the secular socialist Arab nationalist dictatorship of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the neo-Caliphate hyper-Sunni fundamentalist movement of al-Qaeda. (Az-Zaman is reporting that Saddam proposed Bin Laden for "Man of the Year" in 2002; I believe the report is a fraud, but even if it were not, it would have been nothing more than a publicity stunt. It wasn't a terrorist operation or proof of one).

He calls attention to the disparity in the Bush Administration's financial investment in Afghanistan, where al-Qaeda has enjoyed and still enjoys a significant presence:

Let me repeat that. Maybe $1.3 billion for Afghanistan. $250 billion for Iraq. Bin Laden and his supporters are in Afghanistan. What is wrong with this picture?

And on the Spanish voters' choice:

There is no evidence at all that the Spanish public desires the new Socialist government to pull back from a counter-insurgency effort against al-Qaeda. The evidence is only that they became convinced that the war on Iraq had detracted from that effort rather than contributing to it. This is not a cowardly conclusion and it is not a victory for al-Qaeda.