It works! Terrorism, that is. When applied in the right
place.
And the implications of the Madrid train bombing are enormous.
Rather than vent their anger in the direction of terror, the
Spanish electorate ousted their own conservative government in
favor of socialists who promise a more benign attitude toward
terror! For starters, the removal of the token force of 1,300
Spanish forces sent in as an earnest of support for the Bush
administration’s preemption in Iraq.
Before the bombings, opinion polls had indicated a comfortable
margin of support for the conservative Popular Party of prime
minister Aznar. The carnage had hardly cleared when opinion swung
to the Socialists and leader Zapatero, who promised to get the
1,300 out of Iraq pronto and make nice to France and Germany and
other Europeans who had opposed the Iraq adventure. Aznar didn’t
help matters by suggesting early on that the bombings were the work
of the long-irredentist Basques up north, a logical assumption
given their record, but suspicious because of the level of
undirected violence. The latest evidence, arrest of three Moroccans
and two Indians, swings the arrow of suspicion in the direction of
al Qaeda, or like-minded supporters. But Aznar’s support of the
American action and his inability to finger suspects immediately
were sufficient to do him in.
Ambivalence as to terrorist pedigrees confuses the media with
its insistence on unqualified simplicity. That the ETA might
participate with or encourage an al Qaeda loyalist group which is
not directly subservient to Osama is simply too much to get its
intellectual flippers around. But the other aspect is simple: Bush
has lost big here. Suddenly, the Spaniards were a “U.S. War Ally,”
to quote the Washington Post headline. A “strong ally,” in
NBC’s vernacular. And the New York Times’ lead says the
Aznar defeat is the “first electoral rebuke of one of President
Bush’s allies in the Iraq war.”
“The first” indicates of course there will be many more. You
listening, Mr. Blair? Not Jayson. Tony.
Before the glee becomes unbridled, let’s consider the grimmer
implications. If bombing a train station can have such seismic
political effect in Spain on election eve, what might a terror
strike of even moderate force have this election year in the United
States?
More especially, what might terrorist groups suppose it
might have? This is a legacy of the Spanish succession that
challenges the mind. A serious student of the American psyche would
not fall into that trap, knowing that it is the American trait of
retaliation for injury that is President Bush’s primary pillar of
support. Another version, even faint, of 9/11, and God only knows
the mythic proportion of America’s taste for revenge. This is not
Spain, which once bestrode the world a goliath but whose hegemonic
impulses are now reduced to the production of pretty fair
golfers.
There are those in America who would, like Zapatero, remove from
Iraq. “I say ‘pull out now,’” said one recently. “And leave a note:
‘no nukes, or you’ll get one of ours.’ And then stand off like
Little Black Sambo, and watch ‘em churn themselves to butter.” Ah,
but this is not nation building, is it? Just a primary impulse
which the better angels of our nature now and then must
squelch.
So, one less plate in the mess hall at the ranch. Another
victory for terror, among those susceptible to it.
