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Spain Risks Wrath of Trump After Denying US Forces Permission to Use Jointly Operated Bases to Attack Iran

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Madrid’s words and actions regarding West Asia once again stand in stark contrast with those of the continent’s “Big Three”, Germany, France and the UK.

Spain’s Pedro Sánchez government was already in Donald J Trump’s bad books, particularly over his refusal to increase Spain’s military spending to 5% of GDP and his government’s imposition of sanctions on Israel. However, his announcement yesterday (March 2) that US planes would not be allowed to use jointly operated bases in Rota and Morón for the purpose of its war against Iran is likely to draw even more flak.

Defence Minister Margarita Robles said “no assistance of any kind, absolutely none,” had been provided from the Rota and Morón bases in southern Spain, which are shared with the US but remain under Spanish command.

“We have condemned the Iranian regime’s brutality towards its people, we have supported the brave women [of Iran] and we have voted in favour of sanctions,” said Foreign Minister Manuel Albares. “But the unilateral action of the US and Israel has no place in the UN Charter. Neither peace nor stability nor democracy ever come hand in hand with the use of violence.”

In short, Madrid sees the US-Israeli offensive against Iran as an illegal war of choice , not a defensive action, and as such feels legally bound to deny the use of its bases for anything outside its bilateral treaty with the US.

The announcement was quickly followed by confirmation from Reuters that roughly a dozen had left the two bases since Saturday, including nine tankers that departed Sunday from Morón for Germany. Flight map data from FlightRadar24 apparently showed that seven of those planes landed at NATO’s Ramstein base in Germany.

The move represents another logistical setback for the US’ war efforts. Spain is home to NATO military infrastructure and bases used by the United States, making it a key link in the Western logistics chain.

Spain’s Premier Pedro Sánchez has explicitly condemned the US and Israel’s “unilateral military action” against Iran while also criticising Iran for attacking many of its neighbours, some of them key energy providers for the EU.

“Violence is only going to bring more violence,” Sánchez warned in a speech at the Mobile Congress in Barcelona.

For his part, Albares on Monday said that while the government wanted “democracy, freedom and fundamental rights for the Iranian people”, it would on no account allow its bases to be used in the ongoing military action.

“Each country makes its decisions in foreign policy. Spain has a very clear position: the voice of Europe has to be at this time a voice of balance and moderation, of working for de-escalation and for a return to the negotiating tables,” said Albares. “A logic of violence… only leads to a spiral of violence and unilateral military actions outside the Charter of the United Nations… Europe must defend international law, de-escalation and negotiation.”

The Spanish government’s words and actions regarding West Asia once again stand in stark contrast with those of many of its European counterparts, particularly the so-called “Big Three”, Germany, France and the UK. As the BBC’s Katya Adler puts it, “since the US-Israeli attack started on Iran three days ago, this continent has looked at best uncoordinated, if not fractured and decidedly without leverage, caught up in the maelstrom of events.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is once again providing cover for Washington and Tel Aviv’s blatant war crimes. In the statement below, she doesn’t even mention the US and Israel’s role in launching this war of choice while telling Iran that it “must cease its reckless and indiscriminate attacks on its neighbours and sovereign countries.”

VdL has adopted this position even as many of Europe’s top legal minds have described the US and Israel’s attack on Iran as a flagrant war crime. The European Journal of International Law said that “this use of force by the US and Israel is manifestly illegal. It is as plain a violation of the prohibition on the use of force in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter as one could possibly have.”

Even retired Air Force Lt. Col. Rachel Van Landingham, the former legal chief at US Central Command — i.e., the people who are carrying out the bombings on Iran — had this to say:

Not only does this violate international law in numerous respects, it clearly violates the U.S. Constitution and the War Powers Resolution.

None of this has stopped the UK’s Keir Starmer, another supposed expert in international law, from allowing the US to use not only military bases in the UK to strike Iranian targets but also its Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean, describing it is a “defensive” step. The irony is that for a brief moment Starmer hesitated to make that decision, probably due to all the legal ramifications, and that was enough to draw Trump’s ire, reports the Guardian:

The UK “took far too long” to allow US forces to use its airbases to attack Iran, Donald Trump has said.

The US president added that he was “very disappointed” in Keir Starmer over the British government’s deal to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius as a means to preserve the status of the UK-US airbase on Diego Garcia, part of the Indian Ocean archipegalo.

The Chagos deal, which Trump initially supported before changing his mind, was a “very woke thing”, the US president argued…

Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Trump said Starmer was too slow to change his mind, adding: “It took far too much time. Far too much time.

“That’s probably never happened between our countries before. It sounds like he was worried about the legality.”

As commenters have pointed out, Starmer’s decision to allow the US to use UK airbases makes the UK a co-belligerent in yet another US-Israeli misadventure.

As the British journalist Matt Kennard notes, the US has over a dozen military sites in the UK as well as 135 undisclosed locations.

Once again, the leaders of Europe’s largest countries are bending over backwards to accommodate a US government that doesn’t give a family blog about them, and constantly reminds them of that fact. Meanwhile, that same US government has admitted that it joined Israel’s attack on Iran solely because it knew Israel itself had already greenlit its own attack.

As Arnaud Betrand notes below, it’s literally the equivalent of saying, “I knew that guy was a threat because I knew he’d shoot back after getting shot by my friend.”

It is also definitive proof that Israel is, and always has been, the tail that wags the US’s dog, as even CNN’s security analyst reluctantly admits in the clip below.

Like the Starmer administration, Germany’s Merz government is also allowing US planes to refuel at German bases, and may even have harboured Israel’s “wanted” prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a brief period. As the FT reports, “Merz, who is due to meet the US president at the White House on Tuesday, has suggested the strikes that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were justified while condemning Iran’s retaliatory strikes”:

“International rules have relatively little effect — all the more so when violations carry few consequences,” Merz said on Sunday. “Now is not the time to lecture our partners and allies. For all our doubts, we share many of their goals — even if we are not in a position to achieve them ourselves.”

Merz has form — when Trump joined Benjamin Netanyahu in targeting Iranian nuclear facilities last year, he said Israel was doing “our dirty work”.

Yet for Germany — long the self-styled guardian of international law, which joined France in condemning the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and helped negotiate the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran — the shift is particularly striking.

On late Sunday night, the leaders (for want of a better word) of Europe’s so-called “E3” — Germany, France and the UK — issued a statement blasting Iran for its “indiscriminate and disproportionate missile attacks… against countries in the region.”

This is a common thread in many of the official statements from European leaders — that Iran’s response to the US and Israel’s unprovoked attack that not only killed its national and religious leader but also laid waste to schools, hospitals and residential areas, killing hundreds of civilians, was somehow disproportionate.

The three leaders also said they would take steps to defend both their own and allied interests in the region by “enabling necessary and proportionate defensive actions to destroy Iran’s capability to launch missiles and drones.” They plan to coordinate these actions with the US.

Those actions will no doubt further undermine the European economy — and by extension, its political stability, social cohesion and regional unity. But that represents nothing more than an intensification of a long-term trend that began (at least) 15 years ago in Ukraine.

Sánchez’s decision to buck this trend has won him plenty of plaudits, including the government of Iran which stated on its X account that it fully recognises and respects his government’s decision not to authorise the use of Spain’s military bases for war. “It is in line with international law,” the Iranian legation said.

But Madrid’s decision has also drawn the wrath of some of Trump’s (and Israel’s) fiercest chicken hawk allies. Sen Lindsay Graham accused the Spanish government of “pathetically weak leadership” in “the face of the most bloodthirsty regime since WWII” (apparently in reference to Iran):

During my time in the U.S. Air Force in the mid-80s when I was assigned as a prosecutor in Europe at the height of the Cold War, I was tasked to American air bases in Spain as a part of my legal duties.  I have great admiration for the Spanish people and they have been great allies in the past.

However, the current government in Spain is becoming the gold standard of pathetically weak European leadership that has lost its moral way, apparently reluctant to condemn the terrorist regime in Iran and have nothing but criticism for the United States. The Spanish have righteous indignation for Putin’s invasion in Ukraine, as they should. But when it comes to the long suffering people of Iran it appears that Spain is, at best, indifferent. In times like these, you learn the true nature of your allies.

I’m hoping this current Spanish government is an aberration, not the norm. History will note where Spain was as… others try to bring down the most bloodthirsty regime since WWII. So sad.

Of all Europe’s political leaders, Sánchez has arguably gone further than any other in opposing Israel’s orgy of violence since October 7. First, his government refused to participate in the US-led mission against the Houthis in late 2023. Then, in the late summer of 2025, as nationwide pro-Palestinian protests brought the La Vuelta cycling tour to a standstill, Sánchez finally bowed to public pressure and began applying sanctions on Israel.

Political expedience has always played a part. The broad coalition Sánchez has led for almost eight years includes pacifist left-wing parties like Podemos, Bildu and Esquerra Republicana that could, and quite probably would, collapse the government if it agreed to support or facilitate the US’ attacks against Iran. On Sunday (March 1), the Podemos MEP Irene Montero warned that the US had already used the Rota base for its initial attack on Iran. 

Pro-Palestine sentiment has always been strong in Spanish society, with 82% qualifying Israel’s acts in Gaza as genocide, according to a survey late last year. Plus, Sánchez is facing myriad scandals at home and appears to have decided, quite wisely, that supporting the Gaza cause makes political sense, especially given the opposition’s unwavering support for Tel Aviv.

As Ignacio points out in the comments, if Spain’s two main opposition parties, the conservative Popular Party and far-right Vox, were to win the next election, the resulting government would not only kowtow to Trump as slavishly as most other European governments, it would also lend its full backing to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Last week, Spain hosted its annual Goya film awards, at which a succession of actors and directors spoke with unusal candour about Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, the West Bank and the broader Western Asia region. They included Susan Sarandon, who picked up a life-time award. During her acceptance speech, Sarandon discussed her recent experience being blacklisted from Hollywood for her views on the genocide:

The US and Israel will presumably respond to Madrid’s decision to play no part in their war crimes in their usual thuggish manner — pour encourager les autres, if nothing else. When Madrid unveiled its sanctions on Israel last September, Tel Aviv responded by banning two Spanish politicians from entering Israel. It also confirmed its withdrawal from the Mobile World Congress, which is held annually in Barcelona. Both, I suppose, could be considered blessings.

In a statement yesterday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said it was Hamas that had first thanked Sánchez, when his government called for an international arms embargo on Israel for its offensive in the Gaza Strip. Then it was the Houthis’ turn to express their gratitude after Spain refused to join the US mission in the Red Sea; now it is Iran that is thanking him.

“Is that being on the ‘right side’ of history?” asked Sa’ar (I’ll let readers answer that).

The US will almost certainly join the scrum, especially now that Spain has banned US forces from using Spanish military bases for this illegal war of aggression against Iran. When Spanish authorities began preventing the stopover of Israel-bound ships last year, the US Federal Maritime Commission opened a sanctioning file against Madrid. The Trump administration has also officially accused Spain of supporting Hamas through its sanction measures against Israel.

UPDATE: Here’s Trump’s response to the Sánchez government’s move (from around midday EST) in which he threatens to cut off all US trade with Spain:

Worse still, Merz appears to endorse Trump’s proposed economic punishment of Spain, citing the fact that the Sánchez government is not willing to spend 5% of its GDP on defence. European Unity once again on full display.

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32 comments

  1. DJG, Reality Czar

    Viva la Spagna.

    I think that Max Blumenthal, always stylish, gets the situation right: ‘Unelected Eurocrat warmonger gets off the phone with an unelected Gulf monarch from a family dictatorship and declares that Iran must undergo “a credible transition.”’

    Unlike the Big Boys of Northern Europe, S, M, and M, our own M, Meloni, is busily waffling. Antonio Tajani, foreign minister, is visibly waffling. The Italians are in the odd place of having thousands of fellow citizens in the Gulf States — as tourists (?). Defense minister Crosetto was trapped there, because the Italian government wasn’t notified of the impending preemptive war crime. So he had to take a taxi to Riyadh or something.

    If anything, if there is a bright side, it is that the dignitaries of the EU have displayed themselves once more as moral wrecks. I truly hope that there is no one out there who thinks that von der Leyen, Metsola, Kallas, and the thoroughly vile Pina Picierno have any moral authority left.

    And Mark Rutte and NATO, the less said, the better.

  2. mrsyk

    Thank you Nick. I wouldn’t learn most of this if it weren’t reported here. Put me down as “Yes” on that question.
    Good for Sanchez, even if “politics” was part of the forming of his stance.

  3. .Tom

    Thank you, Nick. A good collection of context.

    Since Saturday I have been wearing my Spanish army surplus officer sweater, green with a little red-yellow-red flag on the left arm above a dual pen pocket. I didn’t know until yesterday why it was important.

  4. Qwerty

    You mention the Chaos islands, but not Cyprus. Through it’s imperial machinations the UK violently resisted independence, orchestrated “troubles” to engineer it’s division, only consenting to decononization with the granting of Sovereign Base Areas, hobbled the country with an unworkable constitution to leverage an 18% preferred minority (while contemporaneously bludgeoning the 40% Catholic minority in Ulster), to then to secure its position by engineering a virtual partition for which it now claims to “protect” Cyprus from Turkey….while Cyprus is targeted for basing policies about whuch it has no agency.

    1. Yves Smith

      Your tone is COMPLETELY out of line. This is being an asshole, big time, and that alone means I am blacklisting youl

      In addition this post is about Spain and only discusses the issue of US and UK bases incidentally. Your comment additionally violates our Policies by being rhetorically bogus. Lambert called it the penguin fallacy, of complaining about an article because it did not mention penguins.

      Finally, I have seen NO evidence of the Cyprus government objecting to the UK base, in stark contrast to Iraq.

      1. Revenant

        The Cyprus government (or at least parts of it) does object to the UK bases. Their status and the scope of use, military and ancillary, are contested matters. There are issues about migrants landing there (Cyprus washes its hands) and Cypriot residents (the areas embrace some villages and farms IIRC). However, Cyprus also benefits from the expenditure and the huge number of UK tourists and residents and from its common law links to the City and off-shore banking and the big Greek Cypriot community in London. So there’s no radical popular uprising against it.

  5. DJG, Reality Czar

    Hmmm. I think that Ryan Grim posted that excerpt from Jake Tapper because his bullshit detector went off. Grim doesn’t believe the grade-B acting by these so-called confused experts. They know that the U S of A led the charge — they are mainly “confused” about how the messaging to the populace is now off kilter.

    So I’m quibbling: “It is also definitive proof that Israel is, and always has been, the tail that wags the US’s dog, as even CNN’s security analyst reluctantly admits in the clip below.”

    Esteemed commenter raspberry jam pointed out a week or so ago that Israel in many respects cannot act on its own. Israel is a pretext for Western colonialism and imperialism. So I’m not buying that Israel was going to bomb the hell out of Iran and the U S of A just wanted to go along for the ride.

    I have been wrong before. Have at it!

    1. Safety First

      I think it’s just a complicated situation. Or, in other words, a bit of both the dog wagging its tail, and the tail wagging the dog.

      On this war with Iran, for instance. The US has been in a hot and cold war with Iran for 47 odd years, with the explicit objective of returning it to being a puppet state and taking its oil. Even if you had the most anti-zionist White House and Congress in history, this would still be true, and might well have still led to a new round of hot war, if not this year, then soon; diminishing empire flailing about to snatch what it can, and all that.

      But you also have the undeniable power of the Israeli lobby – starting with the pro-Israel billionaires – in the US. I have seen every significant Presidential candidate (including ones filtered out in the primaries) since 2000s, save for Bernie Sanders, go to AIPAC and rhetorically bend the knee. That means something. And, of course, let us not forget the evangelicals, who were such a big part of Bush Jr. electoral wins, and seem to have been backing Trump also.

      But conversely you have the example of Saint Obama. Whom I differ with on many, many policy items, but he did push through the JCPOA. And the Israeli lobby hissed, but couldn’t do anything other than hope the next president would walk away from it – it is a great unanswered question whether Hillary would have done so, at least in her first term. And then there is the fact that the IDF is basically mostly supplied and funded by the Americans, to the point where I recall an Israeli general stating, in late 2023 or early 2024, that the whole Gaza thing would end in two days if the Americans stopped the supply of bombs.

      And back to Iran today. My personal view is that none of this would have happened if the Pentagon hadn’t been on board (with a pre-emptive “we told him it might not work” cover leaked to the Washington Post, of course). Remember, in 2006, when the Pentagon did not want to go to war with Iran, Rumsfeld ended up being chucked out in favor of Gates, and the Israeli lobby sat quietly by the wayside. Also, too, it was the Pentagon that basically drove things like the Obama surge in Afghanistan (per the Woodward book on the subject), the Easter bombings of Syria during Trump 1 (per contemporaneous Politico stories), and so on.

      All a long way of saying, as long as Israel’s wants more or less coincide with those of Washington (in the general sense), then Washington is fine being “wagged”. Maybe not as blatantly as this particular White House, but still. But if, let’s say, Tel Aviv wanted to, I don’t know, launch an invasion of Saudi Arabia or something, Washington just might tell them to step off irrespective of Miriam Adelson’s lobbying. Something like that.

      1. lyman alpha blob

        I think your interpretation is correct. The US was only hesitant (or pretended to be) because it worried about a bad PR fallout. The Zionist entity does not have those qualms after proving it can get away with whatever it wants, and damn those who object. They’re just Amaleks after all.

    2. ISL

      Cannot argue, as you are right.

      Israel requires US refueling to get to the edge of Iranian airspace to fire its missiles. If Israel used ballistic missiles, they have a high chance of being shot down (because – ballistic), with time for warnings to get to bomb shelters (not good for decapitation).

    3. .Tom

      I’m with raspberry jam on that. The thing about Israel controlling DC politics is a liberal sop. Like the military industrial complex is a liberal sop, as though fixing our laws to remove the corruption in procurement would allow the benevolence at the true heart of the republic to emerge. The idea that the USA does these unspeakable crimes because it is under control from Israel is completely unacceptable to me. The USA is a big, powerful country and with respect to Israel the USA does as it willingly chooses. I’ve written at least twice here before: we are Israel and Israel is us. (I say we/us because I’m citizen naturalized 2005, resident, tax payer and therefore complicit.)

      This is not to diminish crimes perpetrated in and by other states.

      And I’m well aware of how Israeli influence works but we still have agency. Taking a bribe is a choice. Standing up to bullying from ADL or whoever is also a choice. The MIC and the Israel lobby are abstractions describing systems of influence on people who have choices.

      Sometimes I shout in anger when I hear Jeffrey Sachs talk about Israel and MIC dictating what the USA does. He’s way smarter and more knowledgeable than me but seems to be implying that if only we could get our democratic systems working a bit better then the venality and brutality would be controlled. Sounds like reformist wishful thinking to me.

      Sorry, everyone, maybe I’m having a bad day. I guess my anger comes from my impotence.

      1. Dr. John Carpenter

        Nah. We aren’t going to legislate our way out of this any more than we could vote our way out of it. It isn’t a handful of bad people, it’s the whole system, rotten to the core.

        How things change, I don’t profess to know. But I share your rage and feelings of impotence.

      2. John Wright

        If Israel does little to control DC politics and the USA general population is simply observing what elite USA wants to do, anyway, in the Middle East, then why is so much money being spent by DC lobbyists?

        If a country A is willingly doing what country B wants, why would country B pay country A?

        Seems like an opportunity for country B to save some money.

      3. norbert

        I believe both things can be correct: US does what it wants and Israel has outsized influence via Aipac and zionist oligarchs. Like in any country, US interests are actually elite interests and elites are not always unified. They fight. This is what makes disparate influence possible. And this is what we currently see wrt west asia policy. The elites are not unified. Oil interests differ from MIC interests, differ from pro Saudi interests vs pro Emirates etc. When elites split, as is likely here imo, things open up (Ferguson makes this point well as did Page and Gilens paper) the direction of policy becomes far less predictable and there is room for special advocacy to play a big role. And I would suspect that this is what is happening here. Aipac is well organized with lots of disposable income and its policy preferences have support within elite circles. So Aipac can then wag a partially willing dog to where it mostly wants to go. Were the dog dead set against it or were Aipac less well organized the dog would not hunt. So is it Aipac/zionist oligarchs/Israel or US interests? Its both.

        1. Doggo

          Norbert, that’s a very reasonable and logical explanation. But it doesn’t account for the non-ordinary and special circumstance of this particular case.

          Israel is far, far more than just a ‘special advocacy”. Normal “special advocacy” does not have the power that Israel has over the sitting (and previous) US presidents and members of Congress. Which is, blackmail videos of them committing very illegal acts with underaged human captives. (in case you’ve been living under a rock, Epstein was a Mossad asset and he ran a honeypot operation)

          Of course they have a lot more than just this blackmail, they also have the “carrot” in addition to this stick. They give out hundreds of millions of dollars in graft money.

        2. .Tom

          Ofc it’s both. Israel has influence and the USA allows it. What I was objecting to is the rank immorality of using Israel as an excuse for what the USA does. I do not believe the USA acts under duress in this war. This was our choice and we should own it.

          To those who argue “this is not who we are as Americans,” I reply, it might not be who you are individually, or aspire to be, but what we collectively are is visible in our actions and we’d better be realistic about it if we want to change it.

      4. hk

        The real enablers are not AIPAC, but Christian Zionists (including the real believers and opportunists, but, in practice, they look and act the same) and the secular imperialists (Neocons snd Neolibs) who are looking for perches and allies abroad in their searches for foreign monsterd to destroy. I honestly don’t think this is unique for US-Israel: many foreign interests find US presence to be useful tools against their enemies, foreign and domestic. They’ll exploit their US connections as much as they could. It just so happens that Israel has more connections than others.

        I think the Israeli lobby story, in this sense, is wrong: they are influential because they make themselves useful to smallish, but powerful factions in US politics. Even if the Israeli lobby disappears, these factions will still have oversized influence and foreign allies–for example, the China (and Korea) lobbiss were powerful in early Cold War because they brought together Southern religious zealots (Southern Methodists were big in Asian missionary movements) and anticommunism, for example.

    4. Pat

      If I didn’t think that Israel has even more control of our political leaders than our home grown oligarchs, I would accept that argument. But there is far too much evidence that for too many of our elected officials it is Israel First, and frankly despite it being a bipartisan disgrace it actually is Democrat heavy. Many don’t even try to hide it or didn’t before the genocide became so obvious. Hell we have a Party that took a year to state the obvious that her genocide position hurt Harris. Those of us who were following along saw her losing major ground in a couple of battleground states because of it. But you just don’t.

      Some of it is AIPAC and the Evangelical Armageddon fanatics and you absolutely cannot discount shenanigans and blackmail as partially evidenced by Epstein, but however it has been achieved Israel has an inordinate say into the decisions made by our government.

      1. Jeff A

        It’s quite simple, Zionist Jews control the FED, therefore they control America. Epstein and his home pedo and snuff movies are just a bit of amusement for Israelis, they like that kind of thing.

      2. NotTimothyGeithner

        This disaster is, in part, because every time Donald Trump has blown something up, hebhas turned on the TV and received little but praise. Atrios on his blog today.

        Everything for these people still was explained by Rumsfeld’s pre-Iraq War complaints about Afghanistan not having enough CNN friendly targets.

        Obviously, Trump et al feel the Iranian elites would perceive they were all in the same club and deescalate like before. Even if there were people who the White House thought they could count on, the prospect of being killed by their minders is more pressing than hiding from bombs for a few months.

  6. The Rev Kev

    ‘Kevork Almassian
    @KevorkAlmassian
    Ursula von der Leyen just posted what might be the most revealing tweet of this escalation: after Iran gets hit by the U.S. and Israel, using regional bases and airspace, she frames Iran’s response as “unjustified attacks” and calls a special EU security meeting.’

    Yeah, Ursula is getting hammered by her calling for a special EU security meeting. In fact, it became a meme. She called for it to take place on the Monday as she did not want the EU bureaucrats to give up their weekend. Ursula really does appreciate her weekends too-

    https://www.rt.com/news/633466-von-der-leyen-iran-trolling/

  7. The Rev Kev

    I understand that there are two major US bases in Spain – the Naval Station In Cadiz and an air base in Seville. Those two bases are strategically located and cannot be given up. Trump will be fuming at the Spanish nixing the use of their air base to attack Iran as he always seems to take things like that personal. He may want to levy 1,000% tariffs against them to punish them but if he does so, the Spanish will tell him that they may as well evacuate those bases and the Pentagon will not let him do that. So I have no doubt that he will task the CIA to regime change Sánchez with somebody more pliable to the wants Trump. But he will have to be patient as the next Spanish election are not until May of 2027

  8. Carolinian

    Go Susan Sarandon. One remembers how Vanessa Redgrave was attacked after advocating for Palestinians. Hasbara Hollywood has a new movie out on Nuremberg where Russell Crowe plays Goering pretending he didn’t know about the death camps as did many German civilians. But in the TikTok 21st genociders don’t even have that excuse and have to resort to full bore Orwellian denials and daring anyone to disbelieve.

    It has always been that way with Zionism and indeed colonialism in general where the colonizers claimed they were taking on the “burden” of exploiting the undeveloped world for their own good. And the powerful come to believe their own excuses which is where Nemesis steps in.

  9. David in Friday Harbor

    El País is reporting (in Spanish) that Trump has announced that he is cutting-off all relations with Spain due to the insistence by Prime Minister Sànchez and his government on following both U.S. and International law.

    Good for them. The Spanish people still remember their bloody guerra civil that resulted in the murder of hundreds of thousands of people, followed by decades of a repressive fascist regime. They have a fundamental understanding that Jabotinsky’s Revisionist Zionist movement, directly represented today by Netanyahu’s Likud, arose from the same fascist mindset as Franco’s falange.

    You believe in the rule of law and human rights or you don’t. The firmness shown by PM Sànchez and his government in specifically pointing to American laws that are being traitorously violated by our so-called “leaders” comforts my feelings of powerlessness and anger. ¡Viva España!

    1. OIFVet

      He said it in the presence of Friedrich Merz, the head of another EU country, and Merz said nothing. European vassalhood at its finest.

      1. Nick Corbishley Post author

        It gets even finer. Not only did Merz not say anything in Spain’s defence, he actually endorsed Trump’s proposal for punishing Spain, as shown in the short video I just added to the end of the post.

        2. Ignacio

          If it wasn’t clear what kind of individual is Merz, now it is. To tell the truth, as things go now, cutting links with the empire is starting to look wise. I didn’t see this in your fine article Nick but it is important noting that the Popular Party (the Spanish conservatives) also endorse Trump.

          Everyone is showing here their true colours. Conservatives of the Collective West are all now genocidal imperialists.

          2. boshko

            IIRC, wasn’t merz also in the oval office, again grimly nodding along, as genocide joe took questions about the US bombing the nordstream and impending deindustrialization of Merz’s own country by said host?

            1. David in Friday Harbor

              That was Uncle Olaf, not Fred Merz.

              Post-reunification centerist German russophobes are so darned hard to tell apart when debasing themselves!

  10. MatF

    “ leaders (for want of a better word) of Europe’s so-called “E3” — How about the “three stooges”(r)? With Merz involved I like a little ad hominem, I swear he’s there to make everyone pinch their noses and throw the legal AFD grenade. But I can’t neither laugh, nor pinch my nose, just weep incessantly.

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