The war in Iraq may well be, as Zapatero describes it, a fiasco. It probably was "based on lies." It certainly does appear that the evidence of WMD was cooked, and badly. But it's also clear to everyone now that pulling out of that country precipitously is not in the best interests of Iraq, and indeed most Iraqis don't even want that. Even Shiite leaders, who represent the majority of the country's population, especially in the Spanish troops' area of responsibility, are content to see a phased and relatively gradual transfer of power. Those who don't, have so little popular support that they're increasingly resorting to Madrid-style tactics, suicide bombings and attacks on civilians, Iraqi and foreign. It's fine for the Spanish to get on their high horse about the Iraq war, and we can even grant they're right. But if the rest of the Coalition were to follow their example and abandon Iraq, the civil war that will inevitably follow will be far worse than anything we've yet seen. Of course that won't happen; America would probably stay even in the absence of allies, with profound consequences for its relationships with the rest of the world. Either way, that would really be a victory for the wrong side in the war on terror.