Pretty good short take on the Spanish elections by Jerry Brito over at the America’s Future Foundation. AFF is a mixed bag, some gold, some guano–see the revolting comment by AFF regular James Markels just beneath the essay–but Brito gets major props for recognizing a simple truth lost on the “appeasement”-screechers:
There is no excuse for the barbarous attack in Madrid or terrorism anywhere; terrorists must be dealt with harshly. However, Spaniards who opposed the war understood that their country had no real national security interest in effecting regime change in Iraq, while involvement would make them a target of international terrorism. Seeking a noninterventionist foreign policy is not cowardly, but simply the pursuit of an intelligently selfish realpolitik.