Winston Churchill once said of Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Germany, "You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war."These immortal words ring just as true today for Spain as they did in 1938.
The current Prime Minister of Spain, Jose Zapatero, won an election in the wake of an al Qaida bombing that killed 191 Spaniards. His campaign pledge was to withdraw all 1,300 Spanish troops from Iraq by the end of June, with one condition: The troops would stay if placed under a United Nations mandate. Presumably, this would lend legitimacy to the current occupation.
Regrettably, though, there is one slight problem with this. Zapatero himself publicly abandoned his position. On April 18, Zapatero announced that he would forget the June 30 deadline; the Spaniards are retreating now. Forget Zapatero's pledge to allow the troops to remain if there is a U.N. mandate. He now says that Spain will never return to Iraq. Zapatero defends his new, untenable stance by saying, "Spanish troops have spent time there and have completed their mission in Iraq. There's no point in them going back." This is about as infamous as Bush hanging up the "Mission Accomplished" banner last May. With countless recent Iraqi uprisings, a desperate coalition attempting to establish security for the June 30 handover of power to Iraqis, and Arab sentiment inflamed by recent photos of Iraqi prisoner abuse, this is the most crucial time for the future of Iraq. If the coalition fails to create a stable, democratic state, then Iraq faces the abyss of civil strife between its ethnicities and religious groups and could become a new oil-rich base for al Qaida.
Unless Zapatero's idea of his country's mission in Iraq is to raise the white flag and pull out the troops when they are most needed, Spain is derelict in its duty to the Iraqi people and to the free world. Indeed, can anyone guess where the Spanish troops were stationed? They were in Najaf, the current base of Muqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the recent Shiite insurgency. Thanks for nothing, Zapatero.
Furthermore, the messages that Spain's election and consequent retreat from Iraq send to terrorists around the world are unmistakable. First, that a terrorist attack can sway a democratic election in favor of the terrorists. Al-Qaida agents are now emboldened by a newfound ability to hold an entire free nation hostage and influence its policies. During conventions at Boston and New York City, and come November, expect terrorist attempts to disrupt the democratic process.
Second, al Qaida learns that individual nations can make a separate peace with terrorists. Last month, Osama bin Laden actually released a videotape offering the nations of Europe a peace treaty in exchange for their discontinued cooperation with the United States in the war on terror. Thankfully, no one has taken him up on it.
Zapatero has repeatedly stated that his number one priority is to combat terrorism, but all his actions have gravely undermined the war on terror. Indeed, if he seriously wished to uphold this promise, he could easily redeploy the soldiers to Afghanistan, where Spain already has a 125-man contingent as part of a NATO force.
However, Zapatero does not really want to fight terror. Doing so would be inconsistent with the central tenets of his appeasement policies: selfishness and cowardice.
The reasons that Zapatero gets away with these policies are twofold. First, countries like Spain can act as a free rider by deriving the benefits of this effort yet paying none of the costs. If the United States destroys al Qaida, Spain will no longer be attacked.
Second, Zapatero merely panders to his own electorate. Rabid anti-Americanism across Europe has made Zapatero's position a very popular one. A courageous leader would look past the opinion polls to make sacrifices to do the right thing. British Prime Minister Tony Blair is one of the few European leaders who knows, as al Qaida knows, the true worth of Iraq in the war against terrorism. Despite losing much support among Britons, Blair has remained resolute in keeping more than 7,900 British soldiers in Iraq to aid the coalition in building a stable and democratic nation.
In the end, Zapatero has much to learn from Churchill. He proudly declares, "I'm known for being all smiley in public." Contrast this with what Churchill had to say in the midst of the Battle of Britain, with his nation on the brink of a Nazi invasion: "We shall go on to the end We shall never surrender!"
