Prior to the strikes, the conservatives had been enjoying a slim but healthy lead in the polls, but the blasts changed everything. In the first place, the conservatives were hurt by accusations that they had misled the public as to who was behind the strikes in an attempt to minimize any voter backlash against the government.

More importantly, though, the Spanish voters were quick to perceive a connection between the Iraq war and the terror strikes in Madrid. More than 90 per cent of the population opposed the invasion of Iraq and popular sentiment in Spain suggests that the voters felt that they were paying for its government's support of an unjust war. The election result was a direct repudiation of Aznar's support for the Iraq war.

US President Bush famously told the world that we were either with him or with the terrorists. The Spanish have demonstrated clearly that it is possible to be neither. Millions of Spaniards marched last week in united opposition to terrorism. They are not with the terrorists. But as they showed on Sunday, they are not with Bush and his ally Aznar either. The Spanish voters have demonstrated that to be against terrorism does not mean that you need to support the Iraq war or Bush's foreign policy.

What we are witnessing is the forging of a new consensus both on the question of Iraq and on the wider war against terror in countries that supported the Iraq war. The invasion and occupation of Iraq by the US-led alliance was wrong and unjustified. Not only was it immoral, it also had the effect of making the world a radically more dangerous place than before. This consensus has now taken hold in Spain. The US and the UK may be next -- who knows?

The lesson from Spain is that the people will no longer be bullied into a false choice between al-Qaeda terror on one hand and US-led neo-liberal imperialism on the other. There is another path -- and Spain has shown us what it is.