agreed re Australia, but not re Spain
Again, had Howard lost, it would have been treated by the Left here as a powerful anti-war mandate.
agreed, for the reasons I outlined, including the miniscule resources spent on Iraq, compared to the US. The whole thing was domestic, and people have remarked on how little Iraq came into it.
The elections in Spain, no matter what the actual motives of Spanish voters, were touted as such.
Well, Spain DID suffer terrible domestic Islamist terrorism (and just before their election), whereas Australia never has. Bali is the closest we've come so far. That was bad enough but it certainly isn't Madrid. So the Spanish election result clearly WAS an antiwar mandate, along with whatever other domestic and economic issues they had.