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Maybe I was wrong
It may not be the sustained reaction, but it might have been the initial one. The opposition party won the election in Spain in a last minute surge widely credited to the recent bombings. I know very little about Spanish politics and will not presume to judge the outcome. I would have no pangs of principle if Aznar’s party has lost because of their unpopular support for the Iraq war or because they were perceived as manipulating information about the attacks (that’s the way democracy works). I just hope they didn’t lose because of - in effect - successful terrorist extortion. That would be a bad security precedent for all of us.
[Update: Looks like Calpundit says the same thing better, and first.]
March 15, 2004 | Permalink
Comments
Both you and Calpundit are right, in that the perception of an Al Qaeda victory is what is most dangerous. This assumes AQ to be a rational organization; that is, AQ attacks targets not solely for the sheer joy of watching innocents die, but to effect a desired policy change. Assuming this, AQ would not waste limited materiel attacking nations if it believed that a desired policy shift would not occur. But, should Spain pull troops out of Iraq, this would reinforce AQ's perception that its attacks were effective, and would probably lead to future attacks in London, Warsaw, etc.
I do not think that Spaniards are appeasers. It may be that the new Spanish government is trying to leverage its troop commitments to force the US to hand more control over to the UN. This is still a risky strategy, because it puts the possibiliy of short-term political gain over the possibility of long-term negative consequences. Let's hope cooler heads prevail on both sides of the Atlantic.
Posted by: | Mar 21, 2004 10:14:09 PM
Sorry, I forgot to put identify myself as the author of the previous comment.
Posted by: Vishal | Mar 21, 2004 10:15:09 PM
Even better than Calpundit's post is the Daily Howler's post on the Spanish election.
What makes it better is that he actually cites poll numbers from before the election and the results of the election.
It turns out that it can't really be determined whether the bombings had an effect. The last poll before the election was taken March 7 and showed the Popular Party ahead 42-38. Now a 4% lead in a poll is basically a statistical tie because of the margin of error.
The election was won by the Socialists 43-38. If the Socialists had won by a larger margin, maybe we could say something about the results. Or even better if we had access to exit polling from the Spanish elections we could start analyzing what happened.
Also even if about 4-5% of the Spanish electorate switched their votes to Socialist from Popular because of the bombing, it's not necessarily capitulation to terrorist extortion.
It could also be seen as punishment for failure to do a better job on homeland security. Ever since the 9/11 attacks this should be one of the highest priorities of every government, and Aznar's decision to participate in Iraq could be seen as a distraction from the real priority of protecting Spain from terrorists.
Posted by: Ranjit | Mar 22, 2004 12:18:45 AM
Yours is the version of events that I’d like to believe so, in the absence of strong evidence either way, I’ll choose to believe it.
Posted by: Phil Libin | Mar 22, 2004 7:46:25 PM
