The bombings in Spain last week strongly suggest that the ETA terrorist group, on the 50th anniversary of its foundation to fight for Basque independence, has retained much greater military capacity than most observers, including the Spanish Interior Ministry, believed.
This presents a major dilemma for the Spanish prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. He courageously attempted a negotiated peace process with ETA, which demands full Basque independence, during his first administration. He did this in the face of ferocious opposition from the conservative Popular Party, and indeed within his own Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party.
That process was bungled by all sides, but especially by ETA, which finally derailed it completely with a lethal car bomb at Madrid airport in December 2006. Since then, Mr. Zapatero has insisted that all deals are off the table, and that the group can be eradicated solely by the effective use of the police and the courts.
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