{"id":24627,"date":"2026-03-13T13:55:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T13:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/?p=24627"},"modified":"2026-03-13T13:55:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T13:55:07","slug":"spains-pedro-sanchez-and-his-extremist-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/13\/spains-pedro-sanchez-and-his-extremist-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain’s Pedro S\u00e1nchez and His Extremist Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Spain, as you know, does not have nuclear bombs… We alone cannot stop the Israeli offensive.” Critics rightly interpreted the remark as a chilling admission that if Spain did have nuclear bombs, it would have used them against Israel. That a European head of government uttered such a threat against the Middle East’s only democracy speaks volumes about the moral rot at the heart of S\u00e1nchez’s government<\/span>.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

S\u00e1nchez’s posture is hardly accidental. It flows directly from the fragile coalition that props up his Socialist Party government. To remain in office, he depends on the even further-left Podemos, a party born of radical activism…<\/em><\/p>\n

A former high-ranking Venezuelan official cooperating with America’s DEA has confirmed that Caracas and Tehran coordinated efforts to fund emerging radical-left forces in Europe, with Podemos as a prime target. The goal: weaken Western alliances from within by nurturing anti-American, anti-Israeli voices.<\/em><\/p>\n

A European government that blocks a vital operation against Iran while maintaining alliances with movements historically tied to Iranian and Venezuelan influence networks has placed itself outside the democratic consensus.<\/em><\/p>\n

When a NATO member obstructs action against a regime sworn to the destruction of America and Israel, the question is no longer whether influence exists. The question is how far it reaches \u2014 and how much damage it has already done and is planning to do.<\/em><\/p>\n

When the United States and Israel launched their joint operation against the Iranian regime this month, the geopolitical map of the Middle East\u00a0shifted<\/a>\u00a0within hours. Iran’s leadership, strategic targets, command centers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, ballistic missile launchers and nuclear facilities have been targeted in coordinated strikes aimed at dismantling Tehran’s terror machine.<\/em><\/p>\n

Yet there have been unexpected obstacles \u2014 not in Tehran, but in Madrid. Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez’s government flatly\u00a0refused<\/a>\u00a0to authorize the use of Spanish airspace or the joint bases at Rota and Mor\u00f3n for American forces. For decades, these installations have been vital logistical hubs for US military operations in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. This time, Madrid said no.<\/em><\/p>\n

President Donald Trump reacted with fury, warning of serious economic\u00a0consequences<\/a>\u00a0for a NATO ally that chose to obstruct a critical operation against one of the world’s most dangerous regimes. The White House message was blunt: when the US confronts a regime openly dedicated to\u00a0America’s<\/a>\u00a0destruction and which is responsible for decades of terrorism, “neutrality” is not neutrality \u2014 it is a political choice that aids the enemy.<\/em><\/p>\n

Spain’s refusal was no isolated incident. It was the logical climax of a long ideological trajectory that has turned the S\u00e1nchez government into one of the most hostile to the US and Israel in Europe.<\/em><\/p>\n

Madrid’s Growing Hostility Toward Israel<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Under S\u00e1nchez, Spain has repeatedly\u00a0accused<\/a>\u00a0Israel of “disproportionate” and even “genocidal” responses to Hamas while staying noticeably silent on Iran’s central role in arming and directing this terrorist group. Spain has also championed diplomatic initiatives to isolate Israel internationally, tolerated and sometimes echoed BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) rhetoric, and blurred the line between policy criticism and outright hostility toward the Jewish state. Israeli officials have repeatedly warned that Madrid’s language now mirrors narratives promoted not by democratic partners, but by regimes that openly call for Israel’s elimination.<\/em><\/p>\n

The hostility reached a new low in September 2025, when S\u00e1nchez announced a total arms\u00a0embargo<\/a>\u00a0on Israel \u2014 banning all exports and imports of defense equipment and dual-use technology \u2014 and prohibited ships or aircraft carrying fuel or military material bound for Israel from using Spanish ports or airspace. In the same speech, he openly lamented Spain’s military limitations: “Spain, as you know, does not have\u00a0nuclear bombs<\/a>… We alone cannot stop the Israeli offensive.” Critics rightly interpreted the remark as a chilling admission that if Spain did have nuclear bombs, it would have used them against Israel. That a European head of government uttered such a threat against the Middle East’s only democracy speaks volumes about the moral rot at the heart of S\u00e1nchez’s government.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Coalition That Keeps S\u00e1nchez in Power<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

S\u00e1nchez’s posture is hardly accidental. It flows directly from the fragile coalition that props up his Socialist Party government. To remain in office, he\u00a0depends<\/a>\u00a0on the even further-left Podemos, a party born of radical activism whose founders have long been entangled in troubling financial networks\u00a0linked<\/a>\u00a0to regimes hostile to the West \u2014 in particular Venezuela under Hugo Ch\u00e1vez and Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Venezuela Connection: CEPS, Millions from Ch\u00e1vez and the Bolivarian Project in Europe<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The epicenter of the links between Podemos and Venezuela is the Centro de Estudios Pol\u00edticos y Sociales (CEPS), the foundation where key\u00a0Podemos founders<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 Pablo Iglesias (responsible for strategic analysis), Juan Carlos Monedero, \u00cd\u00f1igo Errej\u00f3n and others \u2014worked for years. CEPS openly advised leftist Latin American governments, including Ch\u00e1vez’s Venezuela.<\/em><\/p>\n

According to official records from Spain’s Ministry of Culture (Registro de Fundaciones<\/a>), CEPS received at least 3.7 million euros from the Venezuelan\u00a0government<\/a>\u00a0between 2002 and 2012 \u2014 often representing over 80% of its annual income in certain years. Investigative reports and leaked documents (including one signed by Venezuelan Finance Minister Rafael Isea in 2008) push the total to 7.16 million euros between 2003 and 2011, earmarked for “advisory services,” policy analysis, and \u2014 crucially \u2014 the promotion of the Bolivarian movement in Spain and Europe.<\/em><\/p>\n

A former high-ranking\u00a0Venezuelan official<\/a>\u00a0cooperating with America’s DEA has confirmed that Caracas and Tehran coordinated efforts to fund emerging radical-left forces in Europe, with Podemos as a prime target. The goal: weaken Western alliances from within by nurturing anti-American, anti-Israeli voices.<\/em><\/p>\n

Direct payments to individuals have also been alleged. UDEF investigations pointed to\u00a0$272,325<\/a>\u00a0allegedly paid to Pablo Iglesias in 2014 via an offshore account in the Grenadines linked to the Venezuelan regime (though these claims led to a 2025 Supreme Court ruling against OkDiario for defamation, the underlying financial patterns via CEPS remain\u00a0undisputed<\/a>). Other founders like Carolina Bescansa, Jorge Lago and Ariel Jerez reportedly\u00a0received<\/a>\u00a0$142,000 through subcontracts tied to Venezuela’s state-owned oil and gas company.<\/em><\/p>\n

CEPS quietly ceased operations in 2016 amid mounting scrutiny. Podemos has consistently denied any\u00a0illicit funding<\/a>, instead framing the payments as legitimate consulting fees for academic and advisory work. Yet the scale, the timing (peaking just before Podemos’ 2014 launch) and the beneficiaries raise unavoidable questions: was this mere intellectual exchange, or seed money for a political project designed to echo Venezuela’s “anti-imperialist” rhetoric in the heart of the European Union?<\/em><\/p>\n

The Venezuelan link is not isolated \u2014 it intersects directly with the Iranian network, forming a Caracas-Tehran axis that funneled resources to the same ecosystem.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Deep Iranian Penetration: HispanTV, Millions in Cash, and a Propaganda Machine<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Iranian connection is structural and documented by multiple police investigations. The central vector was\u00a0HispanTV<\/a>, the Spanish-language propaganda channel created and fully funded by the Iranian regime to spread its narrative across Spain and Latin America. The Iranian businessman in charge of its Spanish operations, Mahmoud Alizadeh\u00a0Azimi<\/a>, also controlled the production company 360 Global Media (later renamed Ziba Talents).<\/em><\/p>\n

According to reports, between 2012 and 2015 alone, approximately\u00a09.3 million<\/a>\u00a0euros were injected from Iran into 360 Global Media through 16 shell companies suspected of money laundering. The funds arrived via 67 suspicious transfers, mostly routed through opaque jurisdictions to bypass sanctions. Police sources estimated that 25% of these Iranian funds \u2014 2.4 million euros, or between 600,000 and 700,000 euros per year \u2014 was diverted to the “audiovisual communication network” of Podemos: direct payments to\u00a0Pablo Iglesias<\/a>, his closest collaborators, and the production companies they controlled.<\/em><\/p>\n

Iglesias himself hosted and directed the flagship program\u00a0Fort Apache<\/a>\u00a0on HispanTV. Official police figures: 93,000 euros paid to him personally between 2013 and 2015 through 23 separate transfers from the Iranian-linked company. Even more damning: in February 2025, new judicial documents revealed that Iglesias continued to invoice the same Iranian producer in 2016\u201412,600 euros in six payments between February and July\u2014after he had already become a deputy in the\u00a0Spanish Congress<\/a>. The mechanism was as simple as it was effective: inflated invoices for “production services” that allowed Tehran to channel money discreetly to its European political allies.<\/em><\/p>\n

Podemos has always denied any wrongdoing, calling the revelations “politically motivated smears” by the right. Yet no court has ever cleared the party of these massive financial flows. The pattern remains: millions of euros from the Iranian regime \u2014 and parallel flows from Venezuela \u2014 landed precisely in the pockets and production companies of the men who founded Podemos and who later became the kingmakers of the S\u00e1nchez government.<\/em><\/p>\n

From Ideology to Foreign Policy<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

By the time S\u00e1nchez formed Spain’s governing coalition, anti-American and anti-Israeli positions had moved from the fringes to the heart of government policy. Spain now\u00a0frames<\/a>\u00a0its stance as “principled multilateralism” while displaying selective outrage: furious condemnation of Israel’s self-defense, striking leniency toward the Iranian regime, and silence on Venezuela’s dictatorship. The refusal to let American forces use Spanish bases during the current Iran operation is therefore not a sudden surprise \u2014 it was the predictable outcome of years of ideological and financial capture.<\/em><\/p>\n

When Anti-Zionism Becomes Something Else<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In parts of Europe’s radical left, Israel is no longer merely criticized; it is portrayed as a uniquely illegitimate, colonial, genocidal entity. Within this worldview, Tehran’s explicit calls for Israel’s destruction were downplayed as mere rhetoric. S\u00e1nchez’s nuclear weapons remark perfectly illustrates how anti-Zionism can slide into something far darker: the open fantasy of possessing weapons of mass destruction to coerce the Jewish state. When the prime minister of a NATO member state publicly\u00a0regrets<\/a>\u00a0not having\u00a0nuclear weapons<\/a>\u00a0to “stop Israel,” the mask slips. What remains is not diplomacy, but a dangerous alignment with the eliminationist camp.<\/em><\/p>\n

A Strategic Question for the Western Alliance<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

None of this proves direct corruption inside S\u00e1nchez’s inner circle, but the convergence of ideological sympathy along with documented millions of euros from Tehran and Caracas flowing into his coalition partners’ networks, and concrete policy decisions that undermine the West is impossible to ignore. A European government that blocks a vital operation against Iran while maintaining alliances with movements historically tied to Iranian and Venezuelan influence networks has placed itself outside the democratic consensus.<\/em><\/p>\n

For the US, this is unacceptable. For Israel, it is alarming. For Europe, it raises a question that is actually existential: how deeply have the ideological and financial tentacles of Tehran and Caracas penetrated the continent’s political class?<\/em><\/p>\n

Spain’s decision is more than a diplomatic spat. It reveals how far the shadow of the ayatollahs \u2014 and their Bolivarian allies \u2014 now stretches into the heart of the Western alliance.<\/em><\/p>\n

When a NATO member obstructs action against a regime sworn to the destruction of America and Israel, the question is no longer whether influence exists. The question is how far it reaches \u2014 and how much damage it has already done and is planning to do.<\/em><\/p>\n

Finally, frightened by the prospect of the measures promised by Trump, particularly regarding the threat of tariffs, the S\u00e1nchez government has temporarily abandoned ideology in favor of a provisional form of rationality: Spanish airspace \u2014 however late and, to borrow Trump’s\u00a0remarks<\/a>, “after we’ve already won” \u2014 is once again\u00a0open<\/a>\u00a0to US forces.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0egretnewseditor@gmail.com<\/span>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Spain, as you know, does not have nuclear bombs… We alone cannot stop the Israeli offensive.” Critics rightly interpreted the remark as a chilling admission that if Spain did have nuclear bombs, it would have used them against Israel. That a European head of government uttered such a threat against the Middle East’s only democracy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47471,"featured_media":24628,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[198,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-slider","category-top-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47471"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24627"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24629,"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24627\/revisions\/24629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}