When Pedro Sánchez dusted off the slogan “No to war”, he knew perfectly well what he was doing. The confusion it has caused in the PP is such that the best response Feijóo's spin doctors could come up with in Wednesday's session was: “No to war and no to you”.

This morning something very interesting happened, a new strategic move by Pedro Sánchez in his long and well-known struggle to resist, to resist everything: his collaborators in prison, the indictment of his wife and brother, his party defeated in every election in Extremadura, Aragon, and Castile and León. This morning Sánchez went to Congress to explain the social measures to alleviate the cost of the war in Iran. And he went on the attack. Seeing that Europe is no longer leaving him alone with the "No to war" movement, he said that the 2026 war in Iran is like the 2003 Iraq War, which had disastrous consequences in Iraq, in the world, and on our streets with Islamist terrorism. That if that war was illegal, this one is too. And that the People's Party (PP) was complicit. But to say that Iran is like Iraq, to ​​once again use the trump card of the "No to war" movement of 2003, is déjà vu. And then, Sánchez personalized it with a tremendous attack against José María Aznar. He said that Aznar, in 2003, wanted to feel important, that he supported a war in exchange for ego, for the power to influence George Bush. He recalled that the Madrid bombings were the fault of that war. And he recalled that Aznar shows no remorse. He even went so far as to question his morality.

Twenty-two years after the 11-M attacks, the People's Party (PP) of José María Aznar's era remains obsessed with ETA. Coinciding with the anniversary of that terrible event, the former Spanish Prime Minister presented the new book by Jaime Mayor Oreja, Minister of the Interior from 1996 to 2000 and currently president of the ultraconservative Catholic foundation NEOS. An Inconvenient Truth (Espasa, 2026), Mayor Oreja reviews the "years of lead" and defends the theory that for more than twenty years Spain has been experiencing a "process" that could culminate in ETA's victory thanks to the left's "concession" to its "totalitarian plan." "ETA will win and will have a Lehendakari (President of the Basque Government). [...] We will see ETA govern in the Basque Country and Navarre," Mayor Oreja stated Wednesday night, despite the terrorist group's dissolution years ago.

Although José María Aznar says he doesn't like Donald Trump, he does agree with some of his most controversial decisions. The attack on Iran, for example. The former Spanish president, who 23 years ago involved Spain in the Iraq War, has defended the new military action in the Middle East, even though he doesn't have the same rapport with the current US president as he did with George W. Bush back then. "I don't like populists on the right or on the left," he stated this Wednesday at a geostrategy conference in Valencia, referring to both Trump and Pedro Sánchez, whom he lumped together. However, while the former leader of the People's Party criticized the position of the head of the Socialist government, in the case of the US president he considered it "more than justified to try to change a regime [the Iranian one] that completely alters international rules" and that "constitutes a threat to stability, peace, and global security." Now, unlike in 2003, he doesn't need the excuse of weapons of mass destruction.

Pedro Sánchez usually plays on the attack when he sees a clear opportunity to advance. And the diplomatic clash with Donald Trump's United States represents an unbeatable window of opportunity for him to set the debate on terms that suit him best. There are two major blocs in the world: the militarists/authoritarians (Trump, Netanyahu, Putin, etc.), and the democrats and supporters of the diplomatic path (which he currently leads, at least within the EU). In a country like Spain, with a very significant anti-militarist and anti-American sentiment (a direct legacy of Francoism), and which in 2003 and 2004 mobilized against the Iraq War in a process that would end with the PP's eviction from power, it is playing a winning card.

Julio Iglesias, besides being a renowned international artist, is not an ideologically neutral figure. On February 29, 1996, four days before the general elections, the singer appeared alongside José María Aznar in a packed bullring in Zaragoza, where he was greeted with euphoria. There, Iglesias explained that he had decided to take the step of becoming politically involved for the first time because "a country never grows without change," he said, referring to the thirteen years that Spain had been governed by Felipe González. "There will be no better president for Spain than José María Aznar!" he proclaimed after explaining that he had had long conversations with the leader of the People's Party (PP) before taking this step.

With José María Aznar's absolute majority in 2000, a process of ideological rearmament of the Spanish right began, reconnecting it with its nationalist or ultranationalist tradition. This tradition has its most immediate antecedent in Francoism, but also has roots in the Falange, the CEDA, and Lerrouxism. Regarding Francoism, the People's Party (PP) is aware of its umbilical connection, which began with the founding of the People's Alliance (AP) under the leadership of Fraga Iribarne and five other former ministers of the Francoist dictatorship. In 2002, Aznar issued a condemnation of the 1936 coup attempt and the Francoist dictatorship (a condemnation echoed by Pablo Casado in 2021), albeit ambiguous, accompanied by opportune nods to the hard right, referring to "concord" and "the victims."

Without notes or reading glasses. In a friendly auditorium, far from the tense atmosphere. José María Aznar has taken the baton from Pedro Sánchez, who was the focus of attention in the Senate that morning, and this Thursday evening he was the main event on Madrid's news agenda. However, the presentation of his new book Order and freedom (La Esfera de los Libros, 2025) had nothing to do with the appearance of the Socialist leader before the Koldo/Ábalos commission. Right from the start, the journalist fromThe World And on COPE radio, Jorge Bustos, who introduced the former Spanish president and leader of the People's Party, made clear the difference between Aznar and Sánchez as writers.

Alberto Núñez Feijóo and José María Aznar had to appear together at an event for the Faes Foundation, which the latter chairs, to try to unify their messages regarding the Gaza massacre and the malevolent strategy of the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, to disguise his preferred discourse of solidarity as social discourse. What Pedro Sánchez would like more than to be able to eliminate the judicial investigations that plague him and their social repercussions. It's not that easy. However, the truth is that he has managed to open a front of public debate that could give it oxygen.

How far gone are those days when Alberto Núñez Feijóo landed in Madrid and promised that he would not contribute to the tension or use insults in politics. And also that Feijóo who, before the Catalan business community, displayed pro-autonomist sensitivity and respect for the Catalan language. If anything has become clear at the start of this political year, it is that the Galician leader is a complete hostage to the party's hard line, which is the same as saying the Madrid PP, led by José María Aznar and Isabel Díaz Ayuso.

The position on Gaza is a headache for Alberto Núñez Feijóo. The PP leader already saw two days ago how José María Aznar and Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the party's hardline wing, They corrected him after he spoke in Congress on Wednesday about the "massacre" of the Palestinian people.At the closing ceremony of the FAES Campus this Friday, the foundation chaired by the former Spanish Prime Minister, Feijóo found himself in the awkward position of having to present his position on this issue—the theme of the conference was international politics—under the watch of Aznar, clearly aligned with Benja's government. Although Feijóo again spoke of the "massacre in Gaza," he toed the line of the former Spanish Prime Minister and the Prime Minister of Madrid. "It is not normal to condemn the Israeli people, who are still awaiting the release of their innocent hostages, and we must remember that they represent the only existing democracy in the Middle East," Feijóo stated.

Pedro Sánchez's term in office has been characterized by repeated clashes between his administration and the judiciary. Obstacles to the implementation of the amnesty law and the investigations surrounding it are just some of the reasons that have led to this escalation of tension between the executive and judicial branches. The confrontation has reached the point where the Spanish Prime Minister openly criticized some judges in this Monday's interview on Spanish National Television (TVE). "There are judges engaging in politics and politicians trying to deliver justice.", the Socialist leader emphasized. However, this isn't the first time judges have received a reprimand from the Moncloa Palace. José María Aznar also made headlines during his time at the helm of the Spanish government for openly criticizing them.

The islet of Perejil, six kilometers from Ceuta and two hundred meters from the coast of Morocco, is an inconsequential piece of land. Experts classify it as a rock because it has no inhabitants and no economic activity. However, for several generations, its name connects us with a time and a political context that arouses curiosity and jokes.

I've been following, with a sort of lazy distance, the respective mass group therapies that the two major Spanish parties, the PSOE and the PP, held this weekend. Aznar's presence, as sour and threatening as ever, and his allusions to Pedro Sánchez's possible imprisonment made me think about what all this was like a quarter of a century ago. In the summer of 2000, Spanish politics was marked by the recent absolute majority obtained by the Popular Party in the March general elections. Between 1996 and 2000, Aznar governed with the support of CiU, the PNV, and Coalición Canaria. However, the PP's overwhelming victory generated a change in the political dynamic that pathetically revealed the inconsistency of certain statements made to justify an opportunistic approach that many PP members considered unnatural at the time (the same thing that many PSOE members now consider unnatural with regard to ERC or Bildu, by the way). It must be said, in any case, that CiU, PNV and CC received more than considerable compensation for their support, and not just symbolic. This is not the case for the PSOE in relation to its current partners, who are barely surviving on promises and yahotrobaremismo (Excuse the neologism). After four years of pacts and negotiations with nationalist parties, Aznar's government no longer needed anyone's support to pass laws in 2000, which led to an unashamedly centralist policy (then known as "closure of the autonomy process"). If we consult the newspaper archives, many debates focused on how the PP would use that majority in relation to Catalonia and the Basque Country. Pujol was still in charge: it was his last term in office.

Aznar told his followers: "If you negotiate budgets in a prison, you associate with prisoners, and you negotiate an amnesty with criminals, don't be surprised if you end up in prison, because that's your environment." Then, one of Sánchez's soldiers drew his sword. It was President Isla: "It's shameful to threaten jail to anyone who thinks differently than you." Immediately afterward, a distant voice retorted: "Are you saying this because of the Catalans sent to prison because they think differently than them? Because of the infiltrators? Because of those persecuted with Pegasus when he was minister?"

"Shameful" and of "extraordinary seriousness." This is how the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, described it. the words of former Spanish President José María Aznar from this weekend in which she referred to the possibility of Pedro Sánchez ending up in prison: "It's shameful to threaten anyone who thinks differently from you with jail," she said in an interview on RNE. "She says this exclusively for her party colleagues" because a few years ago he was "quite comfortable" with the PP, Vox, and Catalan Civil Society.

The PP has made an effort to project an image of unity at its congress around its leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, but a careful reading of the speeches revealed that this unity is more fictitious than real. What has simply happened is that the hardline wing of the party, represented by José María Aznar and Isabel Díaz Ayuso, has agreed to a truce with Feijóo so that he can exhaust his last chance of reaching the Moncloa. But between Aznar's speech on Friday, in which he insinuated that Pedro Sánchez should end up in prison, and Feijóo's this Sunday, in which he refuses to reach agreements with anyone except Bildu, there is a world of difference. The two souls of the PP remain, therefore, intact.

When Alberto Núñez Feijóo stepped out onto the balcony the PP (People's Party) has prepared for important occasions at its headquarters on Génova Street in Madrid on June 23rd, a good portion of the unconditional supporters who had gathered on that city artery had already abandoned him. Despite the pomp the party intended to give him, including confetti cannons and Isabel Díaz Ayuso holding her own alongside the PP leader, the conservatives' faces bore the brunt of their own derision. They were certain that Feijóo had failed in the objective for which they had enthroned him just a year earlier. He had won the elections, yes, but he hadn't obtained a parliamentary majority sufficient to govern: an essential condition in any parliamentary system, even if the Popular Party (PP) insisted on imposing the narrative that the winning party is the one that should govern, as if Spain were a presidential system. After two years of ups and downs and trying to weather the pressures from the Ayuso faction, Feijóo now claims to have learned "his lesson."

In the mythology of modern American politics, few figures are as evil as Roy Cohn. As the legal architect of Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-communist crusade, a close associate of Nixon and Reagan, and later a mentor and personal advisor to Donald Trump, Cohn didn't just practice law: he shredded the law and turned it into a weapon that, in some hands, served not justice but revenge and, above all, business.

In sociology, there is a concept known as the "glass cliff," which means that women are more likely to assume responsibility in crisis situations. There is no doubt that the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) is currently in deep crisis after its last two organizational secretaries, José Luis Ábalos and Santos Cerdán, are under investigation for corruption, and the latter is currently in pretrial detention. To turn the page on this situation, Pedro Sánchez has opted to appoint a woman to the position, Rebeca Torró, and to increase the presence of women in the PSOE's decision-making core at Ferraz.