Zapatero's dangerous diplomacy

Carlos Alberto Montaner

The first consequence of Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's foreign policy was to chill Spain's relations with Washington.

Not only because of the hasty withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq and the public exhortation to other nations to follow suit, but also because of Zapatero's infantile decision to remain seated during a parade as the flag of the United States passed by, as if to emphasize a basic anti-Americanism.

Behind those postures lay something even more disquieting: There wasn't even a radical political conviction. Zapatero was just a dangerous demagogue.

Colombians soon enough came to the same conclusion. Shortly before Prime Minister José María Aznar stepped down, his administration had decided to give Colombian President Alvaro Uribe six old Mirage airplanes and a few armored vehicles. Aznar's Spain wanted to help Colombia defeat the communist narco-guerrillas and the paramilitaries, and those weapons might be useful.

But as soon as Zapatero assumed power, he canceled delivery of the equipment. The argument used was movingly angelic: Those were machines to kill, and what Colombia needed was peace and harmony.

EU and Cuba

However, while in his deals with Colombia -- which bleeds uncontrollably in a terrible four-decade war against the worst criminals on the planet -- Zapatero adopts that sweet Gandhian attitude of let's make love not war, he simultaneously sells to Hugo Chávez's bellicose Venezuela several heavily armed warships that will be built in Galician dry docks.

That renovated Venezuelan navy, along with about 50 MiG-29s acquired in Russia, can have only one purpose: a hypothetical confrontation with Colombia provoked by Chávez's imperial vocation.

But now it's the Europeans themselves who begin to observe, with great concern, Zapatero's foreign policy, in particular the ferocious campaign unleashed by Zapatero's diplomacy to get the EU to ease its moral and political pressure on the Cuban dictatorship. This came about after June 2003 as a consequence of the unjust imprisonment of 75 opposition democrats who attempted to peacefully express their points of view.

Czech role

What alarmed EU chancelleries was the true sequence of events: When Zapatero unexpectedly won the elections in spring of 2004, Cuban diplomats hurriedly approached trusted members of the new Spanish government and asked them to eliminate some sanctions that, though symbolic, were eroding the morale of Cuba's ruling structure.

Zapatero agreed, and his new foreign minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos, began an intense campaign in favor of Fidel Castro -- although that ignoble objective hid behind the alleged ineffectiveness of the sanctions, which were having exactly the opposite effect.

Fortunately, the vigorous opposition of Czech diplomacy weakened Spain's proposals to the point that it rendered them practically harmless. And EU diplomacy will continue to be supportive to opposition dissidents.

Not trustworthy

Nevertheless, the feeling that lingered in European political circles was that Zapatero's Spain, despite the quality of its diplomats (who are not at all happy with the orders that they get from Madrid), is not a trustworthy country when it comes to principles and that is not even coherent when defining its objectives.

To be anti-American and antiwar in Iraq but pro-Chávez and warmongering in Latin America was inconceivable. To insist on bailing out Castro after almost half a century of dictatorship was inexcusable.

January 5, 2005

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