The Dead Cat Bounce

In Spain there is currently a genuine saturation of commentary about the confrontation between Pedro Sánchez and Donald Trump regarding Iran, NATO, and the use of the bases at Rota and Morón. Columns, talk shows, and analyses have multiplied since yesterday, trying to explain the diplomatic, economic, or military consequences of the clash. It is understandable: rarely has a President of the United States spoken about Spain with such a level of harshness. However, what we may be witnessing is not so much a diplomatic strategy as the characteristic gesture of a government that is beginning to run out of air.

In financial markets there is a well-known expression: dead cat bounce. Even a dead cat will bounce if it falls from a sufficient height. The rebound is real, but it does not mean the cat is alive. It simply means the fall has been long. Politics offers similar phenomena. When a government enters a phase of accelerated erosion, it sometimes tries to generate a sudden movement capable of altering the political climate. An unexpected gesture, an external confrontation, a conflict that momentarily reorganizes the internal debate.

A Recurring Temptation

History offers familiar examples. In 1982, Argentina’s military junta decided to launch a reckless war against Britain. A regime that was facing massive protests managed to fill public squares across the country for a few days. The effect did not last long and ultimately accelerated its collapse. But the rebound existed. The question is whether something similar is happening now in Spain. To understand the scope of the problem, it is useful to observe the map in concentric circles.

The first circle encompasses Europe. For decades Spain was one of the main beneficiaries of its economic and political architecture. Infrastructure, financial convergence, institutional modernization: a large part of Spain’s recent progress is linked to the European project. Yet the Spanish government seems to have discovered a recurring temptation: to distance itself from the European consensus whenever international debate offers an opportunity for domestic political returns. That distancing can hardly become a sustainable strategy for a country deeply dependent on European stability.

The second circle is that of the strategic neighborhood: the western Mediterranean, North Africa, and the eastern European front. Here too Spanish foreign policy does not convey much clarity. The relationship with King Mohammed VI has left a persistent sense of strategic asymmetry. At the same time, the war triggered by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has forced Europe to redefine its security architecture. In that context, rhetorical ambiguities begin to carry a higher cost than they did in times of stability.

Delicate Moments with the United States

But it is in the third circle where the most troubling element appears. That circle encompasses the American sphere, where Spain maintains deep historical, cultural, and economic ties. For decades that space was one of Spain’s principal platforms of international influence. Yet the current landscape is very different. The relationship with the United States is going through one of its most delicate moments in decades, and Spanish political discourse is beginning to find more echo among the remnants of the old Bolivarian axis than among its natural Atlantic partners.

The convergence of narratives between TeleSUR and TVE can, at times, be surprising. The bias reaches such a point that we have heard a Spanish journalist attribute the attack on Iran to “missiles we have not seen.” Iran is usually analyzed in Europe almost exclusively through the lens of its nuclear program or the evolution of its ballistic technology. But that approach is incomplete. The true reach of the Iranian regime does not lie solely in the missiles it can launch from its territory. It also lies in what it can activate far beyond it.

For decades, Tehran has developed international networks of influence, intelligence, and clandestine operations. In Latin America that presence left two tragic reminders: the bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires and the attack on the AMIA Jewish community center two years later. Those attacks demonstrated something that is often forgotten in Europe: the destructive capacity of the Iranian regime does not depend only on its conventional military capabilities, but also on its network of sleeper cells.

Sometimes an External Storm Is Enough

Those cells exist. They have acted. And they are still there. In several parts of the continent structures linked to that network have been documented. The ones we know about are those that have already acted. The truly disturbing ones are those that remain dormant. That is why it is politically perplexing that, in the midst of an international escalation involving that regime, the Spanish government finds it more comfortable to confront Washington than Tehran.

If one observes the three circles together—Europe, the strategic neighborhood, and the Atlantic world—a troubling pattern appears. In each of them Spanish foreign policy seems to move away from its natural allies and draw, at least rhetorically, closer to actors whose strategic agenda has little to do with Spanish interests. Isolating a country deeply integrated into the political and economic networks of the West is not easy. But it is not impossible either. Sometimes it is enough to provoke an external storm in order to conceal an internal fall. The problem with dead cat bounces is that they produce a momentary illusion of movement. But gravity continues to act. And sooner or later the cat ends up lying motionless on the ground.