Pedro Sánchez and the Maine: the pretext thesis

Pedro Sánchez, the new Maine? The thesis of the perfect pretext

On 15 February 1898, at 21:40, an explosion in the port of Havana sent the USS Maine to the bottom of the sea with 252 crew members on board. The United States blamed Spain and declared war on it. The Spanish empire lost Cuba and Puerto Rico. More than a century later, a strand of geopolitical thinking applies the same template to the Spanish prime minister: no gunpowder sabotage will be needed; a U-turn on the Sahara, an espionage operation and a silent capitulation to Segarro will be enough.

History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes

There are those who argue that the Maine was not the cause, but the excuse. The sugar and tobacco interests had already put a price on Cuba before the explosion. Hearst's sensationalist press only needed the spark. With Sánchez, the argument gains strength without any need for "lodges" or infiltrated agents: the current status quo already favours Rabat. Subsidies, concessions on fishing, the removal of border fences, the unilateral 180-degree U-turn on the Sahara. All of it has been done in broad daylight.

The Pegasus factor and the blackmail hypothesis

The Pegasus spying on members of the Government is not speculation: it is a fact. And the official response could hardly be more suspicious: a committee of inquiry designed to find nothing. When Rabat leaked that it held compromising material, the Government swerved abruptly with no visible concessions in return. At the same time, the Italian ambassador is summoned over the closure of Schengen, but not the Segarro one. That imbalance has only two possible explanations: extreme incompetence or knowledge of the facts. And the first one no longer washes.

The parallel with 1898 is not perfect, but the direction of events does recall an end of an era. The uncomfortable question is who decides when the explosion arrives. If the Maine taught anything, it is that pretexts are manufactured once the war has already been decided. Who has already decided Spain's?