Why we rejected US dragging us into war in Middle East – Spain

The Government of Spain has addressed its position concerning the crisis that is raising in the Middle East.

In a statement released by the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez on Wednesday revealed that the Country’s position on this situation is clear and consistent, which is the same position maintained in Ukraine and also in Gaza.

The Prime Minister who rejected President Donald Trump’s threat to cut all trade with Spain after Madrid refused to allow United States strikes on Iran from Spanish bases said it mustn’t be assume that the world can only solve its problem through conflict and bombs.

He said the country’s position is clear. “Firstly, we reject the breach of int’l law that protects us all, especially the most vulnerable members, the civilian population.

“Secondly, we must not assume that the world can only solve its problems through conflict and bombs. And finally, we must not repeat the mistakes of the past. In short, the position of the Govt of Spain can be summed up in four words: no to war.

The Prime Minister cited twenty-three years ago, when U.S. Administration dragged the country into a war in the Middle East.
“A war which, in theory, was said at the time to be waged to eliminate Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, to bring democracy, and to guarantee global security, but which, in reality, 3
analysed with perspective, produced the opposite effect”.

Sanchez said the said war unleashed the greatest wave of insecurity that the continent had suffered since the fall of the Berlin Wall, adding that the war in Iraq war provoked drastic increase in jihadist terrorism, a severe migration crisis in the eastern Mediterranean.

“And a widespread increase in energy thus impacting in the cost of the shopping basket and the cost of living. That was the gift of “the Azores trio” to the Europeans of the time.
“A more insecure world and a worse life.
It is true that it is still too early to know whether the Iran war will consequences similar to those of Iraq.

“Whether it will lead the fall of the terrible regime of the ayatollahs in Iran or to the stabilization of the region. What we do know is that a fairer international order will not emerge from it, nor will produce higher wages, better public services, or a healthier environment.

In fact, what we can glimpse for the moment is more economic uncertainty and the raise of oil and gas prices. That is why Spain is against this disaster, because we understand that govts are here to improve people’s lives, to provide solutions to problems, not to make
people’s lives worse.
“And it is absolutely unacceptable that those leaders who are incapable of fulfilling that task make use of war to hide their failure whilst filling the pockets of a few—the usual ones. The only ones who win when the world stops building hospitals in order to build missiles”.

Meanwhile, the war began last Saturday with the US and Israel attacking Iran, while the Iran responded by bombing indiscriminately nine countries in the region and a British base located in a European state, in Cyprus.

Since then, hostilities have continued, if not increased, causing hundreds of deaths in homes, in schools, in hospitals. Also causing the collapse of international stock markets and the disruption of air traffic and of Strait of Hormuz through which, until very recently, 20% of the world’s gas and oil transited.