Spain and Iraq: Aznar at bay

Date: 22/02/03

But the prime minister sees light ahead

RIDING on the coat-tails of Uncle Sam has been a hair-raising experience even for Spain's hardened prime minister, José María Aznar. His unquestioning support for President George Bush's readiness to make war on Iraq drew millions of Spaniards out in protest last weekend. And it has left him politically isolated in parliament, and subject to criticism from normally loyal or at least friendly sectors of the media. He won power in 1996, and won again still more handsomely in 2000. Now, for the first time since that second election, opinion polls show the opposition Socialist Party ahead of his own People's Party. These are the worst days of his seven years of office. Why, Spaniards ask, is Mr Aznar risking all on the war?

At times the prime minister and his defence minister, Federico Trillo, have sounded more certain of the existence of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and his regime's links to al-Qaeda than is even the Bush administration. Just as Tony Blair's critics have lampooned him as “George Bush's poodle” and accused him of stifling parliamentary debate, so have those of Mr Aznar.

Mr Aznar's argument that by lining up with Mr Bush he would win American support for Spain's fight against Basque terrorists has been mauled by the opposition parties. Is it not immoral, they asked, to support an attack on Iraq to win support for an unrelated domestic matter? One generally pro-government newspaper, El Mundo, has pitted itself wholly against the war, and even the centre-right ABC has criticised Mr Aznar's dogmatic style, though not his stance. Nearly two-thirds of the People's Party's own voters are opposed to a war without UN authority.

The prime minister feels he has been getting all the pain and none of the glory for his support of Mr Bush. So what is the pay-off he hopes for? Mr Aznar has stated that he intends to be the man who puts an end to Spain's medium-nation status. He wants Spain to come out of the shadow cast by France and Germany within the EU. His central role in drafting the joint letter of eight European leaders in support of Mr Bush underlines that. He hopes that soon Spain will become a member of the G8 group of rich countries. In sum, he hopes, as one adviser puts it, to make his country “one of the few and not one of the many”. Perhaps the weakness of Spain's armed forces and its continued reliance on EU “cohesion” funds precludes that for the moment, and indeed till after his own promised retirement from his job after next year's election. But he can dream.

And though Mr Aznar and his entourage had a bad case of the jitters at the beginning of last week they now think they have turned the corner. This week, consenting at last to a parliamentary discussion - albeit not a formal debate - on the prospect of war, and the EU's new joint position thereon, Mr Aznar told parliament: “We cannot let a no to an Iraq conflict be a yes to Saddam Hussein. Peace is possible, but only his regime has the possibility of disarming and responding to the world's desire for peace.” In the vote, the Socialists abstained - a manoeuvre which, whatever its supposed logic, seldom impresses voters - and Mr Aznar, backed by the Catalan nationalists, won handsomely.

He has also been reassured by a visit from President Bush's brother Jeb, the governor of Florida, who has promised goodies and told Spaniards that Mr Aznar has formed “a very real friendship” with the president. The prime minister is due at the president's ranch this weekend.