Spanish Elections

Oxblog's Patrick Belton has a reasonable perspective on Spain's election results. Surfing around, I see both anguish that the terrorists may have gotten what they wanted and celebration that a government which played politics with tragedy was defeated. Both perspectives are, in my judgement, understandable. Without knowing what the Socialists have said on the issue of terrorism, I have no idea what I should have hoped for. As it stands, just opposing the Iraq war isn't enough to make me join the PP cheering section.

UPDATE: Jonathan Dworkin also has thoughts, while Jacob Levy brings up the Cold War, Winston Churchill, and the U.S. decision to pull troops from Saudi Arabia. Matthew Yglesias also makes some sharp comments here and here. (See his comment sections, as well.) Ocean Guy, meanwhile, makes the argument that the results did constitute appeasement.

UPDATE: I think there's a point beng lost in all this: Terrorists are going to attack us. It is only a question of when. Let's say that because of the PP's election defeat, al-Qaeda decides to blow up a subway car in New York on Halloween hoping to affect the American elections. Had the PP won, however, I believe al-Qaeda would still have decided to blow up that subway car, only perhaps at a different time. The only real way you can look at these things is deciding which group of leaders would do the best job of making sure no subway car would be blown up at all. Which brings us back to the old debate about how Iraq fits into the War on Terror.