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[bryant]

The popular right-wing talking point of the moment: "Spain did what Al Qaeda wanted." This is all very well and good, except that Spain is not pulling out of Afghanistan and that Spain is willing to stay in Iraq under certain conditions — mainly a Security Council mandate.

This actually looks like pretty smart diplomacy to me. To the degree that Bush needs Spain to stay in the coalition, he needs to bend to their demands. This would mean giving more say to the UN than he’d like, but those are the breaks of the game, right?

Indeed, one might claim that if Bush fails to make these accomodations, he’s doing Osama’s bidding. One would be a wingnut, mind you — because it’s pretty insane to claim that a world leader is dancing on Al Qaeda’s strings simply because his sense of the right thing to do happens to be something Al Qaeda wants done. You’ve got to consider the entire picture.

Further reading: kos on the US pullout from Saudi Arabia and Josh Marshall on the whole situation.

Comments

[tayefeth.livejournal.com]

When I'm in the mood for a little hyper-paranoia, I ponder how/if the world situation would differ if the apocalyptic wingnuts of all stripes got together and planned a descent into madness. When I'm very cynical indeed, I think there wouldn't be much difference at all.