Back in the summer of 2005, Spain’s socialist prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero won parliamentary approval for proposed talks with ETA, the separatist group that had been waging a campaign of terror against Madrid for nearly 40 years. ETA seeks the full independence of the Basque region, shown in the map below, but Zapatero must have believed they would settle for less.
Courtesy of the BBC Those talks ultimately led to a “permanent ceasefire,” which Zapatero hailed as a major success of his administration, and which stood in stark contrast to the hard-line approach toward the group taken by Zapatero’s predecessor, the staunchly pro-American Aznar. On December 29, Zapatero addressed the Spanish people:
The next morning, a bomb was detonated at the Madrid airport, killing 2 people and causing significant damage to the airport’s newest terminal. Ever since, Zapatero has seen his public support seriously eroded by opposition attacks on his naive attempt at engagement with the terrorist group. Today, Zapatero reversed course, calling for a “great democratic consensus against terrorism.”
Welcome back to the war on terror.
