One can imagine Tony Blair giving such a speech. Indeed, he has done so in the face of strenuous opposition from his own party time and again. Unfortunately, neither Aznar nor his hand-picked successor, Mariano Rajoy, chose to try to lead in similar fashion, and so the people went with the demagogue who was willing to blame America for Spain's tragedy.
No doubt John Kerry is delighted at the outcome of the Spanish elections and hopes he'll have similar success in ousting the governing party here at home in November. But he should be worried. Spanish appeasement puts all of us at risk. The Islamists will attack again -- perhaps the next target will be France, or Italy, or even the United States.
Throughout the primaries, the Democratic presidential contenders (with the exception of Sen. Joe Lieberman and Rep. Dick Gephardt) behaved irresponsibly, using the war in Iraq to fan partisan hatred. Now that John Kerry is all but officially the party's nominee, he should be very careful in what he says and does. He should leave no doubt in any would-be terrorist's mind that any attempt to manipulate the U.S. elections through terrorism would be met with unified and deadly response.
Kerry has said almost nothing about how he would fight the war on terrorism, except to hint that he believes acts of terror are crimes that should be prosecuted accordingly. If the terrorists believe that Kerry would be a less aggressive adversary and that he would pull back from Iraq and Afghanistan, they may well try to repeat their Spanish electoral success, using the same tactics. It's up to Kerry to set them straight, and the failure to do so in unambiguous terms should weigh heavily on his conscience.