Daily Inspiration Quote by Jose Maria Aznar

“Legal under a series of U.N. resolutions” is the kind of phrase that does two jobs at once: it launders a coming act of force through the language of procedure, and it shifts the moral burden onto the target. Aznar isn’t arguing whether war is wise; he’s arguing that the paperwork already exists. That’s the rhetorical trick. By invoking “a series” rather than naming and parsing the actual resolutions, he presents legality as cumulative and self-evident, like a stack of receipts no one needs to read. The audience is invited to treat international law as an authorization machine, not a deliberative framework.

The second sentence tightens the vise. “Flagrant violation” is prosecutorial diction: not merely noncompliance but shameless, obvious contempt. It frames Iraq as a repeat offender who has forfeited the presumption of good faith, making enforcement feel less like a choice than an obligation. The subtext is aimed at doubters inside Europe as much as at Baghdad: if you oppose intervention, you’re not being cautious; you’re being lax about the rules you claim to defend.

Context matters. Aznar was one of the key European partners in the U.S.-led push toward the 2003 Iraq invasion, staking Spain’s credibility on alignment with Washington and London despite significant domestic opposition. This language is built to neutralize that opposition by relocating the argument to the U.N. itself. It’s a bid to turn a controversial war into the mere execution of an overdue sentence, with “disarming” offered as the clean, technocratic euphemism for what armed intervention would actually entail.