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More on Spanish Appeasement
While I agree that the Spanish election results are probably best viewed through the lens of the decision to join in the Iraq war, I think our distance from the actual situation on the ground there causes us to shortchange other factors at work.
For example, I have heard different variations on the theme that at least a portion of the electorate was unhappy with the government's attempts to direct blame at ETA without taking the time to fully investigate (e.g. forcing through the same-day UN Security Council reso blaming ETA, ambassadors going on US news shows, etc). As we all saw in the papers over the weekend, most observers were saying that fingering ETA would benefit Aznar's govt because they have taken a strong stance against the Basque separatists. Playing politics with a national tragedy such as this surely caused a few votes to change columns, although in what magnitude compared to other reasons I don't think anyone can say.
Imagine for example if the admin had followed Cheney's advice in the hours after 9/11 and had pushed through a UN reso that Iraq was to blame. One doesn't have to work hard to imagine the political hit that the admin would have taken once the true culprits were publicized.
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