But First: Before launching into the politics of Spain's awful week, I should have posted my earlier thoughts. Having been away for a few days, I didn't get the chance to say that I feel for them terribly. Last week we were all Spaniards, and I mean that quite seriously and not in a condescending, French kind of way. Tragedy is tragedy, no matter who they picked in their election. I happen to think they picked a defeatist socialist. (And Zapatero doesn't seem to protest either description.) But I understand the conflict of emotion that suffuses their country now. On September 11th, I dialed two New York phone numbers, cell phones, until I thought the buttons would wear out. One belonged to a friend who worked in the financial district. He called safely from midtown, later, on his long walk home amid chaos.

The other number belonged to a friend who had been downtown to pick up his girlfriend. He didn't find her until that afternoon (she had been among those who sought escape on the Hudson ferries and ended up in Hoboken and Weehawken, watching the smoke rise from across the river). He called that night, drunk and pessimistic.

There was no personal tragedy for me; my friends were safe. But I remember the emotions welling inside me as I called again and again, hearing only emptiness or "no service" messages. I was frightened; I was angry. Who the hell knows whom I would have voted for a day or two later? Bush wasn't exactly a pillar of leadership in those first few days.

That was more than two years ago. Today I wonder about my friend Cynthia Rodriguez, who lives in Madrid and who tried to teach me how to say the "d" in "Madrid" like a native.

It's worth noting, and many have, that Spain is still occupied territory in the Islamist mind. I disagree with those who take the lesson that Madrid was bombed because of Iraq. Yes, Madrid was bombed because those who wish to hurt America cannot (at least not right now, though they wait for our guard to drop again), and thus Spain became a surrogate target. But others have pointed out that Turkey, after rebuffing U.S. entreaties for strategic aid in Iraq, suffered bombings just the same. In this conflict, the grievances are too old to be parsed neatly. In Istanbul or Madrid, 1918 or 1492 might as well have been yesterday for all the safety it buys them. Ataturk or Ferdinand might just as well still be in power for all the enmity they still inspire.

So I hope for a change of heart among the Spanish, and I hope their new PM will pause before he takes his country out of an alliance that, I think, is the only hope the West has.