When I arrived in Spain this past week, my friends from the foreign ministry took me to Atocha, where on the eve of the Spanish general election just one week before, 190 people lost their lives and over 1,400 were injured.
Standing there in the train station, it was impossible not to be reminded of a similar day exactly two and a half years before where the acrid smell of smoke rising through the air, a sense of shock, and a feeling of pure evil accompanied a similarly devastating tragedy.
Despite what many Europeans may believe, this is not an experience that an American can reason through without being driven to embrace the most basic of emotions. Indeed, the first of many feelings experienced by all of us who lived through our own 3/11 was sympathy a sure sign to me that the transatlantic relationship still has some life in it, in spite of all that has happened.
However, the sad truth is that if al-Qaida had a board meeting this week, there is little doubt that they would tell their financial supporters that they are back on the map. The organisation has succeeded in committing the greatest terrorist atrocity in Europe since the second world war and has materially affected the results of a democratic election. By making support for the United States in Iraq the issue rather than the west fighting in a unified manner against them, al-Qaida has succeeded in changing the subject.
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The focus of many Europeans has been changed from the greatest threat of the new age, terrorism, to their feelings about the American war in Iraq. Whether the next target will be the United Kingdom, Italy, Poland, or Australia, al-Qaidas strategic goal will be to make Iraq the issue rather than itself.
Atocha was met with universal horror here in Washington. However, in its aftermath, a significant debate has begun to rage, with Democrats pointing to the sea change in the Spanish government as just one more example of the administrations inability to manage the transatlantic alliance.
Ironically, it is the Republican response that has been more divided. A number of significant neo-conservatives have seen the election of the new socialist prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, as a sign of the Spanish appeasement of terror; they point to the fact that in changing policies to suit radicals of any stripe, nations simply cant buy revolutionaries off (for example, among al-Qaidas recent demands is the return of Andalucía).
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From this perspective, the Spanish result will be met by further efforts to divide the west, as an encouraged al-Qaida looks to deepen schisms between those supporting the US in Iraq and those who do not. Many realists would agree that the result has played into the hands of the terrorists; but would be less shrill in condemning the Spanish outright. An approach that condemns neither the administration nor the Spanish people could realists be onto something here?
If there is a lesson to be learned from Atocha, it is that we recognise this tactic for what it is and thwart the enemys attempts to change the subject. Already, joint international efforts have resulted in the elimination of two-thirds of al-Qaidas senior command, including the capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, its organising genius, and a 15% reduction in overall funding.
It is imperative that this momentum not be lost. By mobilizing American diplomats, advisors and non-governmental organisations to engage in public diplomacy and work concretely with our European partners to increase police sharing, intelligence-sharing, and ultimately military cooperation, we keep the subject firmly on al-Qaida.
Also by John Hulsman on openDemocracy:
- The violations of Gerhard Schröder (December 2002)
- Cherry-picking as the future of the transatlantic alliance (February 2003)
- A realist security strategy for the United States (July 2003) (with Eric Hamilton)
- Rumsfeld v Powell: beyond good and evil (February 2004)
The reality is that Zapatero must be taken at his word that while he disagrees with the Bush administration about Iraq, he is firmly committed to fighting the war on terror. When he says that he will move more troops into Afghanistan, the US must press him to live up to this new commitment. Rather than engage in a transatlantic quarrel, we must ensure that those who lost their lives at Atocha did not do so in vain.
Tragically, there is a final point to be made in line with what the Bush administration has been saying for months. There cannot now be a doubt that we are in this fight together. At a conference in Italy as little as two weeks ago, friends and colleagues of mine told me that while they sympathise with Americas loss, Europeans do not feel that they are a part of the broader war against terrorism. After the Spanish bombings the old adage of Benjamin Franklin has never rang more true: We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately.
Whatever ones feelings about the conflict in Iraq we cannot succumb to the terrorists fervent hopes to change the discussion. This is about al-Qaida and we are all in this together.
