Perusing the blogs and news today, I see that the socialist party has won the Spanish elections. The main talking point on both sites of the aisle here is that the terrorist attacks last week were in the hopes that it would stop the Spanish right-wing party (who have been big supporters of Bush and Blair) from winning re-election. Well, the right-wingers lost, so it seems that the terrorists have won (I’ll get back to that statement in a moment).

What’s worse is that this (apparent) al Qaeda attack on Western interests, using Iraqi occupation as an m.o., will probably be used to falsely draw a parallel between pre-war Iraq and those who attacked us on 9-11. The real reason that I can see for all the attacks that we and our allies have suffered at the hands of these terrorists is that Islamic fundamentalists don’t want us in the Middle East at all. With the implementation of the Iraqi constitution pending, I’m sure the prospects of a permanent US-friendly government scares the hell out of them. So anything they can do to punish those who are behind this thing would seem to be in their best interests.

But does that mean that the terrorists won the Spanish election? Well, yes and no.

Yes, in the sense that the attacks signaled a 180-degree opinion change in the opinion of the electorate. Whoever was behind the bombing was clearly intending to punish the people who supported Bush and Blair. So insofar that the terrorists accomplished their goal, it looks as if they succeeded.

But, c’mon. That’s not what people really mean when they say “the terrorists have won”. What they really mean is “those who disagree with me are going to help terrorists kill you.” In that sense, I definitely don’t think the terrorists have won. President Bush and his allies (both domestic and foreign) have continually dropped the ball on the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq (which, despite last week’s attack, are still separate issues). We can argue endlessly about how well Kerry (or Spain’s socialist party) would do in these wars, but we already know that Bush and co. aren’t doing as well as they could.

To paraphrase Atrios, just because the people of Spain voted to get rid of the leaders who were incapable of protecting them from a terrorist attack doesn’t mean that they are indifferent to the dangers that terrorist attacks pose.