Spain 2

I wrote yesterday about one aspect of the public reaction to Spain's tragedy. Today I want to follow up by commenting briefly on another. For my own part I haven't rushed in with judgements about the result of the Spanish election and its aftermath, partly because I don't feel I know enough about the politics of Spain to be able confidently to read what happened, and partly also because the various hypotheses in play about how these events will now affect developments in the international arena depend on so many variables that I'm less than sure on that score as well.

I very much regret, however, that Spain's prime minister elect, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, chose to declare as soon as he did that Spanish troops would be withdrawn from Iraq. I think this is a mistake. Notwithstanding his, his party's and the majority of the Spanish people's opposition to the war, that war has now been fought, the regime it was fought against has gone, and the key tasks are to help ensure transition to a stable democratic order in Iraq. Spanish participation in that effort, as the participation and support of others who opposed the war but nevertheless give some genuine recognition to the goods it has brought about and now makes possible, would not come amiss. It is a better option than the option of the kind of political dead-enders who are still opposing something that is over, and finding every way they can of refusing to look what was positive about it in the face.