The Spanish government’s decision not to allow US aircraft involved in the brutal bombing of Iran to use the two NATO military air bases on Spanish territory has been applauded by millions of people around the world. From the early days of the Zionist war against Iran in March 2026, as several European leaders kissed the boots of war criminals Trump and Netanyahu, Pedro Sánchez distanced himself from the position of Merz, Starmer and Macron—heads of state of nations that seem unable to accept the loss of their colonies and global relevance—and spoke of respect for international law and human lives, which he seemed to place above the economic and geopolitical interests that are clearly behind this war. Several other heads of state and representatives of Western institutions, including Macron and Starmer, who seem to have backtracked and no longer uncritically and publicly defend all the lies and excuses spouted by Trump and Netanyahu in this criminal war, have timidly joined in this defence of international law.
But this comes too late: the façade of the existence of impartial and universal international law and respect for it is one of the victims of the genocide in Gaza. And Pedro Sánchez and his government have also collaborated in this.
How else can we understand their allowing the genocidal US army to use NATO bases on Spanish territory from October 2023 to the end of September 2025?
Despite the Spanish government’s constant statements of concern for the Palestinian people and its supposed support, for two years it allowed the use of its air and naval bases to facilitate the genocide in Gaza, when—as we have now seen—it would have been enough to explain that Spain is sovereign and can control the use of NATO bases.
But why has it been so quick to refuse to collaborate in the war against Iran and so slow to stop the use of its bases for the genocide in Gaza? The answer is complicated, but we can see several factors that have influenced this.
On the one hand, after two years of strong and constant mobilisation by the peoples of Spain in support of Palestine, the government declared late and poorly that it would no longer allow its bases to be used for genocide in Palestine. This position does not seem to have cost it any political capital at the national level and has placed it even more firmly in the international arena in the camp of Western leadership against genocide, which this government boasts about, while ignoring other governments such as South Africa, which has done more, earlier and better.
On the other hand, in recent months there have been several regional elections in different parts of Spain in which the parties that make up the government, the PSOE and Sumar, have fared badly. In both Extremadura and Aragon, the majority of votes went to the right-wing forces of the People’s Party (PP) and Vox, and something similar is predicted for the elections on 15 March 2026 in Castile and León. Faced with what appears to be a reactionary wave and with general elections just around the corner, it may be in the government’s interest to take a firm stand against the war in Iran, as the PSOE did back in 2003, when it was in opposition against the war in Iraq.
Let’s go back in time. In 2003, Spain, under the leadership of José María Aznar of the PP, occupied one of the two-year rotating seats on the UN Security Council, and the US needed its vote. The majority of Spanish society at that time (and now) opposed the war. Millions of people demonstrated for months in the streets of hundreds of cities and towns under the sloganNo a la guerra (No to war)”. At cultural events and award ceremonies, the most famous figures in Spanish culture declared their opposition to the PP government’s decision to go to war. But Aznar did not listen and instead, smoked cigars, with his feet up on the table at Bush’s ranch in Texas, and announced his support in Spanish with anembarrassing Yankee accent. Spain’s vote in favour of the Iraq war was bought with cigars and promises ofimmense profits, and was finalised at the famous Azores summit, where Bush Jr., Blair and Aznar signed away the lives of millions of people. Months later on 11 March 2004, Madrid suffered its worst terrorist attack in history, with 192 people losing their lives and thousands injured in the Atocha death trains. With elections a couple of days later, Aznar’s government did everything possible to make the Spanish population believe that it was ETA, knowing that if it surfaced that it was Al Qaeda that carried out the attacks, they would lose the elections. The lie could not withstand the weight of the truth, and the PSOE, under Zapatero, who had opposed the war outright—and in fact famously remained seated during the US military parade on Hispanic Heritage Day on 12 October 2003—won those elections.
By reviving thet “No a la guerra” slogan, Pedro Sánchez, a tremendously skilful politician, wants to remind us what happens when the right wins. A Spanish right, that even today, continues to lick the boots of the Americans.
But perhaps the most decisive factor is that Pedro Sánchez and his team, in contrast to certain American, Israeli and German leaders, may have a modicum of humanity, and are coming to regret their role in the genocide and extermination of entire peoples whose only sin in these Zionist wars is to have been the stewards of the resource-rich lands that these unscrupulous men wish claim as their own.
