The long awaited visit from Condoleezza Rice finally happened last Friday. James Levy (President of Republicans Abroad in Spain) and I discussed this visit in our weekly debate TV Intereconomia just before her press conference, but unfortunately, there was no time for us to comment after.

As an American and a Democrat living in Spain, I find it appalling that the Bush administration has allowed relations deteriorate with Spain since the 2004 election. The US and Spain are longtime allies and both presidents, Bush and Zapatero, must represent all of their respective countries and not just party interests. An article in the Washington Post summarizes the deterioration of this relationship and a related article comments about the close relationship Colin Powell and Ana Palacio had.

This begs the question: should relations between two long-time allies be threatened by every administration change? Isn’t the role of the president to represent his/her entire country, not just the interest of his/her political party? Do party politics play a role in international relations? Absolutely this is the case with US-Spain relations and I personally find it outrageous. The Bush administration is so closely allied with Spain’s Popular Party that they have lost the ability to have civil working relations with Spain’s currently ruling Socialist Party.

The good news is that US-Spain economic relations have grown despite a lack of relations between Bush and Zapatero. Thankfully, diplomatic relations have also continued at lower, less-publicized levels in both administrations. Howard Dean, DNC Chair met with Zapatero during his visit in December and various PSOE MPs have been warmly welcomed in Washington DC by Democratic leaders.

I think the essential difference here is that the Democratic party believes that continued dialogue brings further understand and leads to solutions while the Republicans favor disengaging from those who don’t agree with them. Sounds a bit childish, doesn’t it?

In the aforementioned Washington Post article, there is an anecdote that I didn’t see in the Spanish press: “Talking to reporters after a long meeting, Moratinos and Rice tried to play down their differences by noting that they shared the goal of a democratic government for Cuba. But when Moratinos defended the Spanish approach of engagement with the Cuban government and suggested that eventually Rice would see the merit of that method, Rice rolled her eyes, turned to U.S. reporters and silently mouthed, “Don’t hold your breath.”

Is this how one should expect the US Secretary of State to behave at a press conference? Mocking her Spanish counterpart at a press conference? This is one more example of the arrogant Bush administrations’ mistaken policy of cutting ties with those who disagree rather than engaging them in discussions in order to build understanding and negotiate solutions.

The 2004 Democratic National Committee Platform specifies the following in regards to Cuba:

“We support effective and peaceful strategies to end the Castro regime as soon as possible and enable the Cuban people to take their rightful place in the democratic Community of the Americas. We will work with the international community to increase political and diplomatic pressure on the Castro regime to release all political prisoners, support civil society, promote the important work of Cuban dissidents, and begin a process of genuine political reform. Within this framework the Democratic Party supports a policy of principled travel to Cuba that promotes family unity and people-to-people contacts through educational and cultural exchanges.”

Further reading about this visit can be found here in a recent New York Times article.