Daily it seems more apparent that Al Qaeda had a role in the Madrid bombings last Thursday. The timing of the bombings, just before the national elections, could not have been better. The influence of this disaster on the voter, turning them against the conservative government and putting the Socialist party in command of the government has played straight into Al Qaeda hands. A party that has consistently opposed Popular Party Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's support of the Iraq war.
Now the newly elected Prime Minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, is promising to bring home the Spanish troops deployed to Iraq and cease all support for the US led coalition unless the UN assumes control of the military operations there. In essence Zapatero is attempting to blackmail the US into acquiescing to his terrorist sympathizing demands.
For the United States this victory by Al Qaeda and the Spanish Socialists bodes ill for the coming elections. By swaying the vote in Spain and defeating the Popular Party, which was expected to handily defeat the Socialist, Al Qaeda may have "shot a missile over the bow" of the ship of state of George Bush.
If Osama's "party" finds a sympathetic political entity in what they consider an enemy state, he may again attempt to influence election outcomes through terrorism.
In the US, that "sympathetic" party is the Democrat Party. Like Spain's Socialists, our Democrats have consistently criticized the Bush led war against Al Qaeda and Iraq, in doing so implicitly offering sympathies to the Muslim terrorists. In the Muslim world the Democrats are viewed as united against George Bush and "his Iraqi" war.
Though some in the States may remain non-commital on the changes a Kerry administration would make in the prosecution of the Iraq war and terrorism in general, the Al Queda operatives may view John Kerry and his party as confederates in their plan to destroy the "Great Satan" and seek a November repeat their success in Spain.