{"id":6497,"date":"2026-04-03T11:12:32","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T11:12:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/6497\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T11:12:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T11:12:32","slug":"spains-pedro-sanchez-on-the-us-and-israeli-attack-on-iran-no-to-war-we-are-not-going-to-be-complicit-international","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/6497\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain\u2019s Pedro S\u00e1nchez, on the US and Israeli attack on Iran: \u2018No to war, we are not going to be complicit\u2019 | International"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pedro S\u00e1nchez has revived the \u201cno to war\u201d slogan that mobilized the Spanish left in 2003 and was the prelude to the conservative Popular Party (PP)\u2019s loss of power in 2004 after the March 11 terrorist attacks in Madrid<\/a>. The Spanish prime minister has firmly maintained his position against the conflict waged by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, revisiting the slogan to establish himself as the great antagonist of the U.S. president. \u201cSpain\u2019s position is the same as in Ukraine or Gaza. No to the breakdown of international law that protects us all. No to resolving conflicts with bombs. No to war,\u201d he said Wednesday, while recalling the conflict in Iraq. \u201cThe world has been here before. Twenty-three years ago, another U.S. administration led us into an unjust war. The Iraq War led to a dramatic increase in terrorism and a serious migration and economic crisis. That was the gift of the \u2018Azores Three\u2019 (George W. Bush, Tony Blair and former Spanish prime minister Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Aznar) : a more insecure world and a worse life,\u201d he stressed.<\/p>\n

The prime minister defended the Spanish government\u2019s rejection of the Iranian regime, but also the decision to launch military operations against it. He assured that he is committed to diplomacy. \u201cSome will say that this is naive. What is naive is to think that violence is the solution. Or to think that blind and servile obedience is leadership. We are not going to be complicit in something that is bad for the world for fear of reprisals from someone,\u201c he said, in clear reference to Trump\u2019s threats to block trade with Spain<\/a>. He also claimed that his position is not as much a minority as it may seem. \u201dWe are not alone, the government is with those it should be with, with the values of the Constitution, of the EU, with the UN Charter, with peace. Millions of people around the world are in favor of peace and prosperity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

S\u00e1nchez\u2019s institutional statement from La Moncloa, his official residence, made without journalists present and therefore without questions, was carefully measured to respond to all the queries that had been raised in recent hours and to the attacks from the Spanish political opposition, but above all to bang heads with Trump or Aznar himself, who was involved in the Iraq War, without expressly mentioning the U.S. president and without becoming embroiled in the mudslinging that the Republican wants to drag him into.<\/p>\n

To head off any attempt by the leader of the main opposition PP, Alberto N\u00fa\u00f1ez Feij\u00f3o, \u2014 or Israel \u2014 to align S\u00e1nchez with Tehran, the prime minister said of the Iranian regime: \u201cNo one is in favor of the ayatollahs. But the question is whether we are on the side of international law and peace. The Spanish people were against Saddam Hussein, but that did not lead them to support an unjust war. We repudiate the Tehran regime, but we call for a diplomatic solution,\u201d he insisted.<\/p>\n

S\u00e1nchez has appealed to progressive values in the face of a conflict in which he is convinced that the weakest will lose and arms manufacturers and other millionaires will win. \u201cThe objectives of this attack are not even clear<\/a>. We know that this war will not result in a fair international order, higher wages, or a healthier environment. Governments are not here to make people\u2019s lives worse. The only ones who win when the world stops building hospitals to build missiles are the usual suspects,\u201d he added. And there he also alluded to the Iraq War to recall what that conflict wrought: instability, terrorism, and economic crisis.<\/p>\n

S\u00e1nchez also pointed out that the Spanish government is preparing another social shield like the one it approved during the pandemic or when the war in Ukraine began, in view of the possibility of a prolonged conflict. \u201cWe are going to protect the Spanish people. We are looking for evacuation devices. We are going to protect our compatriots. We are studying ways to mitigate the economic impact. We have the capacity and the political will, and we will do it as we did during the pandemic,\u201d he insisted. <\/p>\n

As is almost always the case in his speeches, S\u00e1nchez made a historical reference to convey the extent to which Trump\u2019s decision could lead the world toward total disaster<\/a>. He recalled that when the then-German chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg was asked how World War I had started, he replied, \u201cI wish I knew.\u201d \u201cThis is how the great disasters of humanity begin. Very often, great wars break out because of miscalculations. We cannot play Russian roulette with the fate of millions of people,\u201d S\u00e1nchez concluded.<\/p>\n

Faced with criticism for adopting a different stance to France and Germany, S\u00e1nchez clarified that he will work towards a consensus position within the EU, but above all he insisted that Spain will not take a subordinate position to the United States and has the right not to do so, because it is a reliable partner in NATO and the EU that fulfills its commitments. \u201cYou cannot respond to one illegality with another,\u201d insisted the prime minister.<\/p>\n

S\u00e1nchez made his statement after the Spanish government rejected the United States\u2019 use of the joint military bases in Rota and Mor\u00f3n<\/a>, to which Trump responded by threatening an \u201cembargo\u201d on Spain and a possible shutdown in all trade relations, all in the context of the escalating war in the Middle East after Israel and the United States launched military attacks against Iran last Saturday and killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei<\/a>. The government had already warned that if Trump wants to cut off trade relations, he must do so while respecting the wishes of private companies and the agreements signed with the European Union as a whole.<\/p>\n

Sign up for our weekly newsletter<\/a> to get more English-language news coverage from EL PA\u00cdS USA Edition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pedro S\u00e1nchez has revived the \u201cno to war\u201d slogan that mobilized the Spanish left in 2003 and was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[129],"tags":[6612,244,12,1800,34,243,6610,304,6611,6609,479],"class_list":{"0":"post-6497","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pedro-sanchez","8":"tag-alberto-nunez-feijoo","9":"tag-benjamin-netanyahu","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-george-w-bush","12":"tag-iran","13":"tag-israel","14":"tag-jose-maria-aznar","15":"tag-pedro-sanchez","16":"tag-pp","17":"tag-tony-blair","18":"tag-washington-d-c"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116340480067254901","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}