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April 13, 2005

Why doesn't Bush want to be our amigo?

”Never despair” seemed to be the Spanish Government's slogan. And now Madrid has launched a new "offensive" to try to regain George W. Bush's friendship.
Almost a year after José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero announced the pullout of Irak -which started the "ice age" between Spain and the US-Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos has flown back to the US, in another attempt to restore the relationship between both countries.

And the "offensive" doesn't stop here. After Moratinos returns to Spain, four other ministers will soon meet members of the American government. Yet the main symbolic gesture, a "real" meeting between Zapatero and Bush instead of just a short "hola, amigo", still remains unfulfilled. And, according to the Spanish press, we won't see such a meeting for a long while.

But why? Why does Bush hate or despise Zapatero so much? Why has he
forgiven German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder or French president Jacques Chirac and not our president? "El País" newspaper says the main problem is that Bush felt deceived when Zapatero announced the withdrawal of the Spanish troops, because he didn't think it would happen as fast as it did. Moreover, Bush didn't expect Zapatero to call other countries to do the same, a move he felt as disloyalty.

Besides, Zapatero, knowing the popularity of this measure in Spain and
Europe in general, still mentions it every time he can, which seems to hurt American feelings.

Also, Bush didn't like that Spain pushed forward the elimination of some of the EU's sanctions against Cuba -that never really worked- nor the sale of warplanes to Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. Even though the US buys 15 % of its oil to the same Chavez it officially calls a dictator.

Some analysts consider that Zapatero won't set foot in the White House while Bush still holds the presidency. Let alone the Crawford Ranch.

At least someone's very happy about this situation; former Spanish
conservative president José María Aznar, a very close "amigo" of Bush -he has been invited, more than once, to Crawford- likes to remind everybody of their friendship. And he has done it again in a book that will be released later this month. In "Retratos y Perfiles, de Fraga a Bush" (Portraits and Profiles, from Fraga to Bush), Aznar underlines the close friendship he still mantains with his "amigo George", whom he supported even through the Irak war, which, in the end, cost him the presidency. At least he still has a big amigo overseas. Meanwhile, Zapatero is making big friends at this side of the Atlantic, in the still same “old Europe”.

Posted April 13, 2005 02:00 PM

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