A Just Move
Prime ministers and presidents respond, in principle, to their electorate. As the Spanish saying goes, "son gajes del oficio" -- it comes with the job description. On April 27, 2004, the president of the government of Spain Jos Luis Rodrguez Zapatero responded to an electorate that had been ignored by the previous government by ordering the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq. It was the logical conclusion to months of voter rancor. Yet Peter Chen, in his op-ed on "Cowardly Spain" (The Dartmouth, May 17), wants the public to believe that Zapatero's actions represented a retreat in the face of terrorism. The elections post-March 11 were not a response wrought by cowardice: They represented the population's ire directed against a government that had ignored and misled it, regarding both Iraq and the terrorist attacks in Madrid. On the former point, polls had anywhere from 80 to 90 percent of the population against the war. On the latter, the government had blamed Basque separatists prematurely, hoping to capitalize from the outrage. The voters responded by booting the ruling party.