Lessons from Zapatero's withdrawal from Iraq

Carlos Alberto Montaner

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain's new prime minister, sounded the call to retreat with impressive speed. It was the first thing he did when he reached La Moncloa, Spain's government house. 'Tis a pity that haste is never elegant, wrote a tearful poet in love. But Zapatero went farther: he encouraged Dominican President Hipólito Mejía and Honduran President Ricardo Maduro to follow his example.

And -- if the information published the Madrid daily La Razón is correct -- he secretly asked the Iraqi warriors for a truce so that he could bring the Spanish troops home without placing them at risk in any more battles.

Zapatero thinks this is not his war. The truth is that 80 percent of the Spaniards believed the same when the previous government decided to support the United States. And it's also true that that was the traditional attitude of Spanish society throughout the 20th Century. Spain was neutral in both world wars. In the early 1980s, moreover, bringing the country into NATO was not at all a simple task. There was resistance from the right and the left of the political spectrum.

Why? Because Spain was a great empire whose fires dimmed gradually in the course of several centuries. In the 16th Century, it was the dominant power in half the planet. In the mid-17th Century, it began to decline. In the 18th Century, after the Bourbons were enthroned, it became intellectually -- and to a great degree, politically -- subordinate to France. Finally, the thrashing blows of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic invasion of early 19th Century disorganized the government, drove the country into poverty and totally removed it from the first line of Europe's nations.

Changing role

As a result, the Spaniards reduced their international horizon, psychologically assumed a secondary role and excluded themselves from the great world events, which since then have been dominated by France and England, later joined by Germany, Japan and, with overwhelming force, the United States.

When Prime Minister José María Aznar decided to lend his political support to President Bush in the war against Iraq, he did so in the conviction that it is vital to save the trans-Atlantic alliance that has given strength to the West since the 20th Century. He felt that the stance of France and Germany endangered some vital links for the security of the free world, while dangerously weakening the links between Europe and the United States.

At that moment, Aznar adopted the strategic vision of Winston Churchill after World War II: London must maintain its ties to Washington at all costs, for its survival might depend on them. Where Churchill wrote ''London,'' Aznar jotted ''Madrid'' or ``Europe.''

The problem is that this reasoning, although it may have been correct at one time from a strategic point of view, was foreign to the conventional political perceptions of a nation that had lost all bellicose drive and every vestige of imperial instinct.

But while the Spaniards must meditate carefully about this episode, the Americans must come to at least three very important conclusions.

New framework

First: Sadly, the bilateral alliances that are established to deal with temporary problems are forged not between countries but between fragile governments that change their signs and strategies. What just happened with Spain could happen tomorrow with Italy.

Second: The formula to prevent those ''desertions'' is to reach the accords within the framework of a binding international organism such as the United Nations, the OAS or NATO.

Third: It is not possible for a leading power to tighten the multilateral ties that give weight to its international initiatives and at the same time grant its partners the right to act on their own and without international consent, if the power believes that its national security is in peril. Such pacts inevitably lead to a loss of autonomy and a search for consensus.

In any case, if the United States, in its struggle against terrorism, does not wish to appeal to institutions that were created for other purposes in other times -- or finds it impossible to do so -- it may seek to create a new, more flexible organization, filled with trustworthy allies, capable of confronting the challenges of the 21st Century.

In 1949, when it became necessary to ''contain'' the imperial aspirations of the Soviets, the United States very successfully built the foundations of NATO. Perhaps now it should do something similar to lead the struggle against terrorism.

April 27, 2004