No one has a penchant for coming down on the wrong side of the issue like Spain’s Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. Whenever there is a critical juncture, a challenge from brute force, he has a way of placing himself on the illiberal side of the issue.

So now he’s made a new string of appeasing statements about the Islamofascists, right in the middle of the Denmark cartoon crisis – taking the side of the rioters. In part his actions may be due to fear, considering that Spain gets more immigrants from Islamic countries than elsewhere. But such people are varied and can’t be painted with one brush or all called Islamofascists although some are. So a Zapatero fear of immigrants is probably one factor.

But it goes beyond that. The guy is just plain soft on terrorism. He has emboldened the ETA terrorists up north who were all but dying out until he came along. He fired a judge last week who was busy prosecuting them.

Although he’s anti-American, this cartoon crisis is centered around Western Europe and the U.S. has been oddly detached. He should be, at a minimum, interested in going to the side of his European allies. But Zapatero is refusing to display solidarity with his closest allies and instead is issuing a soft appeasatory line, something that will characterize his leadership for years to come, Terrorists are going to take note.

Jose at Barcepundit has the story here.