Pedro Sánchez has revived the “no to war” slogan that mobilized the Spanish left in 2003 and was the prelude to the conservative Popular Party (PP)’s loss of power in 2004 after the March 11 terrorist attacks in Madrid. The Spanish prime minister has firmly maintained his position against the conflict waged by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, revisiting the slogan to establish himself as the great antagonist of the U.S. president. “Spain’s position is the same as in Ukraine or Gaza. No to the breakdown of international law that protects us all. No to resolving conflicts with bombs. No to war,” he said Wednesday, while recalling the conflict in Iraq. “The world has been here before. Twenty-three years ago, another U.S. administration led us into an unjust war. The Iraq War led to a dramatic increase in terrorism and a serious migration and economic crisis. That was the gift of the ‘Azores Three’ (George W. Bush, Tony Blair and former Spanish prime minister José María Aznar) : a more insecure world and a worse life,” he stressed.
The prime minister defended the Spanish government’s rejection of the Iranian regime, but also the decision to launch military operations against it. He assured that he is committed to diplomacy. “Some will say that this is naive. What is naive is to think that violence is the solution. Or to think that blind and servile obedience is leadership. We are not going to be complicit in something that is bad for the world for fear of reprisals from someone,“ he said, in clear reference to Trump’s threats to block trade with Spain. He also claimed that his position is not as much a minority as it may seem. ”We are not alone, the government is with those it should be with, with the values of the Constitution, of the EU, with the UN Charter, with peace. Millions of people around the world are in favor of peace and prosperity,” he said.
Sánchez’s institutional statement from La Moncloa, his official residence, made without journalists present and therefore without questions, was carefully measured to respond to all the queries that had been raised in recent hours and to the attacks from the Spanish political opposition, but above all to bang heads with Trump or Aznar himself, who was involved in the Iraq War, without expressly mentioning the U.S. president and without becoming embroiled in the mudslinging that the Republican wants to drag him into.
To head off any attempt by the leader of the main opposition PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, — or Israel — to align Sánchez with Tehran, the prime minister said of the Iranian regime: “No one is in favor of the ayatollahs. But the question is whether we are on the side of international law and peace. The Spanish people were against Saddam Hussein, but that did not lead them to support an unjust war. We repudiate the Tehran regime, but we call for a diplomatic solution,” he insisted.
Sánchez has appealed to progressive values in the face of a conflict in which he is convinced that the weakest will lose and arms manufacturers and other millionaires will win. “The objectives of this attack are not even clear. We know that this war will not result in a fair international order, higher wages, or a healthier environment. Governments are not here to make people’s lives worse. The only ones who win when the world stops building hospitals to build missiles are the usual suspects,” he added. And there he also alluded to the Iraq War to recall what that conflict wrought: instability, terrorism, and economic crisis.
Sánchez also pointed out that the Spanish government is preparing another social shield like the one it approved during the pandemic or when the war in Ukraine began, in view of the possibility of a prolonged conflict. “We are going to protect the Spanish people. We are looking for evacuation devices. We are going to protect our compatriots. We are studying ways to mitigate the economic impact. We have the capacity and the political will, and we will do it as we did during the pandemic,” he insisted.
As is almost always the case in his speeches, Sánchez made a historical reference to convey the extent to which Trump’s decision could lead the world toward total disaster. He recalled that when the then-German chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg was asked how World War I had started, he replied, “I wish I knew.” “This is how the great disasters of humanity begin. Very often, great wars break out because of miscalculations. We cannot play Russian roulette with the fate of millions of people,” Sánchez concluded.
Faced with criticism for adopting a different stance to France and Germany, Sánchez clarified that he will work towards a consensus position within the EU, but above all he insisted that Spain will not take a subordinate position to the United States and has the right not to do so, because it is a reliable partner in NATO and the EU that fulfills its commitments. “You cannot respond to one illegality with another,” insisted the prime minister.
Sánchez made his statement after the Spanish government rejected the United States’ use of the joint military bases in Rota and Morón, to which Trump responded by threatening an “embargo” on Spain and a possible shutdown in all trade relations, all in the context of the escalating war in the Middle East after Israel and the United States launched military attacks against Iran last Saturday and killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The government had already warned that if Trump wants to cut off trade relations, he must do so while respecting the wishes of private companies and the agreements signed with the European Union as a whole.
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