What Zapatero Said

That was quite an extraordinary statement yesterday by incoming Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

First, he gave the lie to those wishful Americans who have suggested that Zapatero and his voters wished only to appease jihadi terrorism in Iraq while stoutly resisting jihadi terrorism everywhere else: “Fighting terrorism with bombs, with Tomahawk missiles, isn't the way to beat terrorism, but the way to generate more radicalism.”

Well of course there’s nobody, least of all in the Bush administration, who thinks that bombs and Tomahawks alone are right way to fight terrorism. And indeed, if the Bush administration did think that, its problems with Europe would be much less severe than they now are. The Europeans did not object very much over the dozen years that the US was bombing Iraq and periodically Tomahawking terrorist training camps Afghanistan. It was not the use of violence that frightens them, but the talk of democracy.

But leave that aside. Note only that Zapatero did not limit his condemnation of “bombs” to Iraq alone. He was endorsing the emerging Euro leftist thesis that the very idea of fighting terrorism is an error. Romano Prodi, the chief of the European Commission, gave utterance to the new doctrine at the beginning of the week: “"It is clear that using force is not the answer to resolving the conflict with terrorists.” Not “force alone.” “Force.” Zapatero and those like him are ready to paint their hands white and raise them in the air everywhere, and not just the Sunni Triangle.

Now, finally, please hear one more thing Zapatero said in his radio interview. “I said during the campaign I hoped Spain and the Spaniards would be ahead of the Americans for once. First we win here, we change this government, and then the Americans will do it, if things continue as they are in Kerry's favor.”

Isn’t this amazing? And doesn’t it cast a new light on all those Euroepan complaints about American “arrogance” and “unilateralism”? Has any official of the United States ever expressed a preference for one party over another in a Spanish election – or indeed an election anywhere else in democratic Europe?

Zapatero helps us to understand what is really dividing the US from Europe. The problem is not that the two continents disagree – they have often disagreed before, without lasting harm to the trans-Atlantic alliance. The problem is much deeper.

The fall of the Soviet Union dramatically increased American power – and equally dramatically reduced Europe’s relevance.

Without the Soviet Union, there was no longer a competing superpower to inhibit the United States.

And with peace descending on Europe, the international spotlight naturally shifted to other places.

Europeans have sought to compensate for their shrinking role by enticing the United States to grant Europe a veto over American action – that’s why the Europeans suddenly began attaching so much importance to the UN Security Council in the 1990s.

The Clinton administration went along with the Europeans, or anyway pretended to. (Clinton’s habitual eagerness to please almost always left behind greater offense than a direct “no” would have done. By leading people to expect a “yes” they could never have, he provoked feelings of betrayal as well as disappointment. That’s the story in a nutshell of Kyoto and the International Criminal Court.)

Now the Europeans are learning the truth. They can’t have a veto over global affairs when the nations of the EU other than Britain are essentially regional powers. They don’t like this truth, and they don’t like the president who has forced them to confront it.

Some supporters of Senator John F. Kerry are seizing on Zapatero’s words as proof that John Kerry was not mistaken when he boasted that many world leaders preferred him to George Bush. (See for example Richard Holbrooke’s piece on this morning’s Wall Street Journal oped page – not yet available online.)

But those of us who objected to Sen. Kerry’s words were not claiming that they were mistaken. Who doubts that there are many world leaders who would prefer Kerry to Bush? Kerry’s words were objectionable because they invited and legitimated Europe’s ambitions to intrude itself into America’s internal governance.

Those ambitions can never be fulfilled. If Sen. Kerry were to be elected president, he too would repudiate those ambitions. But by suggesting that those ambitions deserved respect and attention, he was not only disparaging his own country’s democratic processes and its sovereignty: He was enflaming trans-Atlantic ill-feeling for selfish personal and political advantage.

Zapatero’s remarks indicate how ready Europeans are to cast votes to which they are not entitled. Senator Kerry should not be out there distributing additional phony ballots to Europeans who are brave only against their friends.

The conceit of this man makes me want to puke. In 3-4 years time Spain is down the tubes economically and he'll be in line begging for handouts since he's going to nationalize all of Spain's social services with huge tax increases extracted from the people. Wouldn't surprise me if the people revolt and send his a** packing. I'm going to remember this post.

Europeans who are brave only against their friends

That implies they consider America their friend. Those days are past. Because America is basically a tolerant and relatively passive superpower, we stand mute while Euroweenie "leaders" like Zapazero bluster and strut in front of their adoring leftist publics about how they are standing up to America.

Don't confuse this international issue as one purely of power struggles or the legitimacy of the UN. It is an ideological struggle between the right (conservative America) and the left (most of the rest of the world) with regard to politics, and freedom vs. totalitarianism (the West vs. Islamofascism and statist powers) with regard to open warfare. The conflict between America and Europe is a smoldering version of the same conflict between America and the Islamofascists because the European soul is straddling both sides of the fence between freedom and statism. Am I the only one who sees it this way?

I think you are correct and would offer that shades of WWII loom over this WOT. Old Europe is deluding itself once again and through negotiations with its enemies will fall under the rule of any 'ism' Nazism through Islamofacism.

WTC, USS Cole and all of the other Acts of War ignored by previous Admin were treated as bank robberies. 9/11 was the latest Act of War. The difference this time is that this CIC, President Bush, is willing to confront terrorism, Islamfacism and lead. Those who do not wish to follow deserve what happens to them.

I agree with you, the battle is joined and we have better
understand who is on the right side and who is not.
I think we have a lot of ways of countering the Left and one of them is absolute repudiation of the EU and the UN!
No more cheap drugs, no more free defenses, prosecute Kofi & Co. on Iraq Food-4-Oil scam, collect the debts due us from WWII, Cold War, etc., pull out of Kosovo, Haiti & other UN BS missions. Make them stand up and pay their way, no free lunches on the back of American Taxpayers for anyone and especially not these people.

I was going to post this article. Glad to see it is all ready posted. As much as I respect David Frum, it is CAPITALISM, not Democracy that the Kerry wing of the International Hysteric Left hates.

To the European Left Capitalism is the enemy. Why do you think they are the chief supporters of Kyoto Treaty? Because Kyoto is the best weapon they have for fundamentally restructuring the World's Economy away from Capitalism. The International Left know it can only achieve it's extremist goals by panicking the people into trading their freedoms for some illusion of security. This borders on being a religion for the Kerry Left. Bush is smarter then that. He sees Socialism for what it really is. A new form of serfdom where the people are enslaved to a new aristocracy of Bureaucrats and Social Engineers. So Bush is the enemy. To the International Kerry Left, anyone who OPPOSES Bush (i.e. evil Capitalist tool) must be right.

Therefore, in the International Kerry Left's world view, as wrong as it is, the Terrorist are fighting the evil multinational business oppressor. The Liberation of Iraq is an evil attempt to impose the dread capitalism on the Iraq people and steal their natural resources. To the Kerry wing of International Socialism, who ever fights the West is automatically an ally or, at the very least, a sympathetic victim. So when you hear Kerry talk about "Internationalizing" the effort, what Kerry is REALLY advocating is surrending our foreign policy to those who hate our basic way of life and wish to change it.

America has the military might to destroy Spain in an afternoon.

Yet Zap yaps and offends America with impunity.

Has he said the same about Osama? Why not? Didn't they murder his people?

The toxic Socialist Left assume the good nature of America when they spew their vitriol.

I just happen to be someone who would like to exercise our power and flex our muscles a little more often against such disrespectful vermin, and I would do so without guilt or remorse.

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