Aznar’s war: Understanding Spain’s decision to participate in the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq

Abstract

This article seeks to examine what factors influenced the Aznar government’s support of the US-led invasion of Iraq to understand the Spanish symbolic contribution to this operation as part of the Coalition of the Willing, a decision that appeared focused on the short-term benefits for Spain rather than the long-term benefits for Iraq or the international community.
Traditional approaches to state behaviour tend to focus on states as the main actors, and on decisions as a means to establish why states behave the way they do, and why states decide to participate in international military operations. However, these approaches seem too superficial and fail to take into consideration domestic dynamics and political narratives employed to justify particular political decisions. A closer look at the political narratives reveals what factors appear to be influential in the decision-making process and help us understand what lies behind states’ support for and contribution to international military operations.
The article concludes that in the months leading up to and following the Iraq crisis, it became very clear that the factors that appeared to influence the positions of political actors in Spain were different, and those that constituted the narratives of Aznar’s government were as much a response to the external environment as ideological factors.