“This is not the same scenario as the illegal war in Iraq,” Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez told the Spanish Parliament on Wednesday. “We are facing something far worse. Much worse. With a potential impact that is far broader and far deeper than the illegal war in Iraq.”
The Iraq war was the greatest geopolitical disaster since Vietnam, he noted. He reminded his colleagues that more than 300,000 people had died in that war, many of them women and children. With more than 5 million people displaced and forced to flee their homes, the entire country in ruins, that war fed the migration crisis in Europe.
“By the way, Iran, ladies and gentlemen, has twice the population of Iraq and a fivefold greater impact on the global economy. It is a country with more regular troops, ladies and gentlemen, than Germany, France, and Italy combined. That is the military strength Iran possesses, equipped with highly advanced technologies, as we are seeing.”
This war will be far worse. “it’s an absurd and illegal war. A cruel one that sets us back from achieving our economic, social and environmental goals… . Every bomb that falls in the Middle East eventually hits, as we are already seeing, the wallets of our families… It is not fair that some set the world on fire while others bear the ashes. It is not right that Spaniards and other Europeans should pay out of their own pockets for this illegal war,” Sánchez charged.
Sánchez’s refusal to allow the U.S. to use Spain’s military bases for strikes against Iran has won him the ire of U.S. President Donald Trump. Under long-standing U.S.-Spain defense agreements, the U.S. and Spain “jointly operate” Spain’s Rota naval base and Morón air base, in both of which the U.S. maintains a substantial, permanent military presence. However, Spain controls the authorization for how these bases are to be used.
Sanchez’s refusal to join this war has the backing of the majority of Spaniards. El País reported on March 6 that the Spanish 40db polling firm had found some 68% of those polled were against the war, and 57% supported the decision not to allow the US to use the Rota naval and Morón air bases for strikes against Iran.
