So El Mundo is reporting today (actually, as I write this, tomorrow) that the Socialists have won a tremendous upset. The primary upshot of this, to the American ear, is PM-apparent Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's promises to make Spain "more European" and to withdraw troops from Iraq by June 30.

Up until now, Spain has been one of those countries that George W. Bush liked to lean on to show that we were truly running a multilateral force in the Gulf. Lame-duck PM Jose Maria Aznar, who was set to retire anyway, was one of America's staunchest allies against loudest criticism at home -- perhaps louder than the criticism that British PM Tony Blair faced. Nonetheless, his Popular Front (conservative party) was supposed to win re-election, according to pundits.

Instead, Zapatero's party was elected only three days after the "3/11" attacks on Madrid commuter trains killed 200 people and injured 1,500. The attacks are now widely believed to be the work of al-Qaida.

Spaniards rightly protested the attacks, which many at first thought were the work of ETA, the Basque separatist movement which has used terrorism to campaign for an independent state in northern Spain. Some also protested the National Front government, though, alleging that Spain's support of the U.S. War on Terror had provoked the attacks.

It did. But it is very, very sad to see terrorists actually win. No matter what was the cause for Zapatero's election -- and I'm no expert on Spanish politics; this might have happened anyway -- this vote will be seen worldwide as a nearly unprecedented ballot victory for terrorists.

Whereas 9/11 galvanized American support for President Bush and his anti-Terror initiatives, making him more popular than ever before (or ever since) it now appears as though Spain's version of the World Trade Center attacks has only succeeded in crippling the very politicians who were fighting against terrorists.

I hope I am wrong, but this appears to point toward a deep divide between the American and the European mentality. If someone attacks the United States, by golly, we Americans will stand together and stamp out that evil aggressor. If someone attacks a European country, well ... are we sure we did not invite this upon ourselves? Maybe we should scale back our foreign adventures so the terrorists won't hate us.

I do not wish to suggest that Jose Q. Public, or even Jose Zapatero, is a tool of the terrorists, or that Spain has consciously voted to advance the most fundamentally evil perversion of debate. But one cannot ignore the fact that the only reason for 3/11, if indeed it does turn out to be Muslim extremists (al-Qaida or otherwise) will have been to break up the "Coalition of the Willing." By electing Zapatero, Spanish voters have granted those terrorists a victory.