Pedro Sánchez has revived the “no to war” slogan that mobilized the Spanish left in 2003 and was the prelude to the conservative Popular Party (PP)’s loss of power in 2004 after the March 11 terrorist attacks in Madrid. 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. “Spain’s 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,” he said Wednesday, while recalling the conflict in Iraq. “The 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 ‘Azores Three’ (George W. Bush, Tony Blair and former Spanish prime minister José María Aznar) : a more insecure world and a worse life,” he stressed.

The prime minister defended the Spanish government’s rejection of the Iranian regime, but also the decision to launch military operations against it. He assured that he is committed to diplomacy. “Some 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,“ he said, in clear reference to Trump’s threats to block trade with Spain. He also claimed that his position is not as much a minority as it may seem. ”We 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,” he said.

Sánchez’s 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.

To head off any attempt by the leader of the main opposition PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, — or Israel — to align Sánchez with Tehran, the prime minister said of the Iranian regime: “No 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,” he insisted.

Sánchez 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. “The objectives of this attack are not even clear. 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’s lives worse. The only ones who win when the world stops building hospitals to build missiles are the usual suspects,” he added. And there he also alluded to the Iraq War to recall what that conflict wrought: instability, terrorism, and economic crisis.

Sánchez 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. “We 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,” he insisted.

As is almost always the case in his speeches, Sánchez made a historical reference to convey the extent to which Trump’s decision could lead the world toward total disaster. He recalled that when the then-German chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg was asked how World War I had started, he replied, “I wish I knew.” “This 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,” Sánchez concluded.

Faced with criticism for adopting a different stance to France and Germany, Sánchez 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. “You cannot respond to one illegality with another,” insisted the prime minister.

Sánchez made his statement after the Spanish government rejected the United States’ use of the joint military bases in Rota and Morón, to which Trump responded by threatening an “embargo” 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. 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.

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First, it was the need to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program. Then, to overthrow the regime. Later, it was the need to neutralize the missile program. Then, it was the belief that Tehran would attack first and that they had to preempt it. Later, it was the belief that Israel would attack first and Iran would retaliate against American targets. On Tuesday, Donald Trump offered yet another explanation for launching the offensive against the Islamic Republic: that he thought Iran was about to attack; if anything, he says, it was he who drew Israel into the fight.

Attacking Iran was something that had to be done, Trump maintained in remarks delivered in the Oval Office. In subsequent statements, Secretary of State Marco Rubio backtracked on Monday’s statements and insisted to reporters at the Capitol: “The bottom line is this: The president determined we were not going to get hit first. It’s that simple,” A day earlier, Rubio had unleashed a wave of indignation among Democrats and some on the right by declaring that the offensive was launched because Israel was going to attack its great enemy and the United States feared retaliatory attacks from Iran.

With public opinion strongly against the operation, the Trump movement divided over support for the war, the first combat casualties, and hasty evacuations of U.S. citizens in the region, the administration is finding it difficult to present a coherent narrative about why it is launching into a conflict whose deadlines the president keeps extending, and which Democratic opposition lawmakers, analysts, and Iran itself denounce as a “war of choice.“

Polls indicate strong opposition among voters to a conflict with the potential to become yet another one of the United States’ “forever wars” in the Middle East — something that Trump promised to avoid during his election campaign. Nearly six out of 10 citizens disapprove of the decision to launch a military operation, according to a CNN poll. Another poll for The Washington Post shows that 52% oppose the intervention, while 39% support it. Among Democrats, 90% condemn the military operation. Among independents, the figure is 60%. Eighty percent of Republicans support the offensive.

“The disparity between the successes of the operation we are seeing on the ground and the lack of clarity about what we want to achieve is striking,” Elise Ewers of the Council on Foreign Relations told reporters. “Do we want to eliminate Iran’s ability to project power beyond its borders? Regime change? Minimize its naval capabilities? All of that is possible, but not necessarily all of it is possible in the time available, when this is having real economic costs, especially in the Gulf. And this can only be sustained for a limited time until those impacts are felt, not only in oil prices but also in shipping insurance and other things.”

After weeks of failing to present a clear argument while amassing military might in the Middle East, the administration has come out to present a narrative about the reasons for going to war. The Pentagon, which had not held a single press conference this year, convened two this week. The White House will also hold one on Wednesday. The entire White House national security team traveled to Congress on Tuesday for closed-door meetings with members of Congress and the Senate, led by Rubio, who is also the National Security Advisor.

Trump himself has also been very active. On Tuesday, he answered questions from the press in the Oval Office during a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, a format that had fallen out of favor this year. The day before, he made a statement about the offensive during a ceremony in the White House. Since the attacks began on Saturday, he has given a barrage of phone interviews — nearly 20 to as many media outlets — making statements that were often contradictory.

The message was supposed to be that the offensive was justified by the threat posed by Iran, that it was limited in its objectives and duration, and that it did not conflict with Trump’s “America First” platform. But a comment by Rubio exposed the contradictions. In an appearance before leading lawmakers from both parties in Congress on Monday, the Secretary of State made an unprecedented statement: “We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”

The opposition went for the throat. “There was a threat to Israel. If we equate a threat to Israel as the equivalent of an imminent threat to the United States, then we are in uncharted territory,” declared Democratic Senator Mark Warner. “I think Secretary Rubio inadvertently spoke the truth, that this was orchestrated by Benjamin Netanyahu and now we are embroiled in a major conflict,” added his Senate colleague Angus King.

Even among Trump’s most ardent supporters in the MAGA movement, criticism was rife: “So he’s flat out telling us that we’re in a war with Iran because Israel forced our hand,” tweeted Matt Walsh, a commentator from the far right. “This is basically the worst possible thing he could have said.”

Even Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reacted on social media: “Mr. Rubio admitted what we all knew: US has entered a war of choice on behalf of Israel. There was never any so-called Iranian ‘threat,’” he wrote.

A wary Trump — who launched a tirade against two European allies, Spain and the United Kingdom — corrected his top diplomat on Tuesday: “It was my opinion that they were going to attack first and I didn’t want that to happen. So if anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand.”

In his latest appearance before the media at the Capitol, Rubio attempted to quell the controversy, without apparent success, and denied having attributed the decision to attack to Israel.

In a midday call with reporters, two senior Trump administration officials described the events on the eve of the launch of Operation Epic Fury, including the rounds of talks on the Iranian nuclear program held in Geneva between Araghchi and U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, under the mediation of Oman.

These sources indicated that the two U.S. representatives continually pressured Iran to abandon uranium enrichment. But Tehran’s offer allowed the country to enrich uranium at a facility near the capital. “They were unwilling to give up the building blocks of what they needed to preserve in order to get to a bomb,” said one of the senior officials.

The two envoys informed Trump on Thursday, the same day as the last round of talks, that a deal similar to the one brokered by the Barack Obama administration in 2015, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, would still be possible, but would take months. The president gave the green light to the offensive the following day, Friday. The attacks began on Saturday.

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The Islamic Republic, which in the days leading up to the offensive that now threatens its survival asserted it would limit any response to attacks against Israeli and U.S. military bases in the region, has escalated its retaliation by bombing energy facilities and civilian targets. Far from being isolated incidents, Iranian forces attacked an oil refinery in Saudi Arabia and a liquefied gas plant in Qatar on Monday. In the two days prior, Tehran had already targeted numerous airports, ports, and hotels in the Gulf countries, undermining the image of these locations perceived as safe havens for recreation and investment by the world’s wealthy elite.

These attacks have intensified the rhetoric of the targeted governments and have shaken energy markets three days after the administrations of U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched a military offensive that has already claimed nearly 800 lives in Iran, according to the Red Crescent. The bombs are tracing increasingly diverse trajectories across the map of the Middle East, after Hezbollah, the largest of the pro-Iranian militias, entered the conflict by opening fire on Israel this Monday. The Israeli army has responded forcefully, striking all areas of Lebanon where the organization is present, causing 52 deaths according to figures from the Lebanese Ministry of Health.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein, a Kurd, lamented that his country — like millions of citizens in the region — is powerless in the crossfire. “Iran continues to bomb the [Iraqi] Kurdistan region, especially Erbil, while the opposing side [alluding to the U.S. and Israel] attacks [pro-Iranian Iraqi militia] targets in southern and western Iraq,” he stated.

The Iraqi complaint has been echoed by the Saudi Arabian Defense Minister, who denounced in a statement that two drones “attempted to attack” the Ras Tanura refinery, located on the country’s east coast. It is one of the world’s largest crude oil processing facilities and a cornerstone of the Saudi energy sector. The “small” fire mentioned in the statement following the interception of the projectiles contrasts sharply with images circulating on social media — verified by Reuters — showing the evacuation of workers and enormous plumes of smoke rising from various points within the plant.

The Qatari Ministry of Defense reported two attacks: one against an energy facility in Ras Lafan Industrial City, belonging to the state-owned Qatar Energy, and a second against a power plant. According to the statement from Qatari authorities — the world’s third-largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG) — the attacks resulted in no fatalities, while the economic damage and losses are still being assessed. They have, however, caused a 45% increase in the price of LNG on the European market, to €46 ($53) per megawatt-hour, and have also subjected the market to significant volatility.

Attacks in the Strait of Hormuz

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard announced Monday a new attack against oil tankers in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil passes daily. Reports from Iranian news agencies, cited by Reuters, indicate that a vessel caught fire after being struck by two drones. These reports, which do not specify who carried out the attack, suggest that the target was a Honduran-flagged vessel accused of having ties to the United States.

Tehran had already announced similar attacks in the preceding days. The strait is a strategic route for the global supply of crude oil, connecting the largest oil producers — Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, and the UAE — with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. This has been disrupted since Saturday with the outbreak of fighting in the region and threats from Tehran, whose geographic control over this channel on the southern coast of Iran grants it significant influence over global affairs. The insecurity has led to fewer and fewer ships venturing through this bottleneck. Iranian authorities have declared the Strait of Hormuz closed, a waterway that has faced numerous threats throughout modern history without ever being completely shut down.

Iran has not only set its sights on energy resources. Sources within the Qatari Foreign Ministry told CNN on Monday that they had intercepted attacks against an international airport. The ministry’s spokesman, Majed al-Ansari, known for his conciliatory role in the mediations Doha is promoting to resolve conflicts in the region, broke with his usual tone: he asserted that contact with Tehran is currently nonexistent and that these attacks cannot go unanswered.

Former Qatari prime minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani has taken to social media to warn against a clash between Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries after all member states — Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, and Bahrain — were bombed by another member, Iran. Both sides would “exhaust their resources,” giving “other forces an opportunity to control us under the pretext of helping us escape the crisis,” Al Thani warned.

The gradual shift of Iranian attacks toward civilian targets began with the bombing of luxury hotels, skyscrapers, and ports in several Gulf monarchies, which — along with attacks on other countries other than Israel, Iran, and Lebanon — have resulted in a dozen deaths. Iran’s state news agencies have frequently covered the offensive by the national armed forces as if it were limited to military targets. On Saturday, speaking to the Qatari network Al Jazeera, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi asserted that “what happened in Oman,” referring to an Iranian attack on the port of Duqm, “was not our choice.”

Despite these apologetic words, the diplomat concluded his statement with a troubling message for neighboring states, asserting that “the [Iranian army’s] military units are now acting independently and are, in a sense, isolated.” These units, he specified, “are acting on instructions they have received in advance.”

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