Keep Working With Spain

Let’s not repeat the farce played out on Capitol Hill against French fries and French wines, after France opposed the Bush administration on Iraq. “Freedom fries” were bad enough. Now that Spain is pulling its troops from Iraq, can “patriot paella” be far behind?

Before things get ridiculous, let’s look more closely at why newly elected Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero ordered the withdrawal.

Long before three backpacks loaded with explosives killed almost 200 people at a Madrid train station and injured more than 1,000, 90% of Spaniards had unequivocally expressed their opposition to the war in Iraq.

In March 2003, after former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar announced the country would get involved in Iraq, Zapatero promised he would get Spain out if elected. The terrorism at the Madrid train station may have pushed Zapatero to victory at the polls, but his vow to pull out Spanish troops was of much longer standing.

Now that the pullout has begun, President Bush is understandably unhappy. Not that the 1,300 Spanish troops, less than 1% of the foreign troops in Iraq, matter much militarily. The fear is that the minuscule international presence in Iraq may unravel further. Honduras has announced that its 400 troops will come home. Thailand is considering a similar move.

Bush should take a diplomatic approach to these reversals by avoiding more public scoldings, and avoiding language like his earlier accusation that Spain could give “false comfort to terrorists.”

Spain is an old ally, with deep and proven ties to the U.S. Spain’s new foreign minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos, will be in Washington today to mend fences. The administration should meet him partway by acknowledging that Spain and the U.S. continue to be deeply engaged in the fight against terrorism. Spain joined Operation Enduring Freedom in January 2002, keeping a military presence in Afghanistan and surrounding areas that has fluctuated between 125 and 400 soldiers. Now, under the command of NATO and the United Nations, it is considering an expansion of its deployment there.

The exchange of intelligence and information between the two nations about fundamentalist radical cells of international terrorists is intense and ongoing. It will not help matters to give in to pique and further isolate the United States from the international community just as more cooperation is so sorely needed.