Wikileaks: Spanish Prime Minister Reveals the Secret of his Success in Meeting with Biden

A newly released Wikileaked diplomatic cable from April 2009 details a meeting between Vice President Joe Biden and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Zapatero at a Progressive Governance Leaders Summit in Chile.  Discussion of the Obama administration's "new approach to foreign policy" appears to have dominated the meeting.  Biden stated that for eight years the doctrine of "my way or the high way" had been ascendant in American foreign policy, but that the Obama administration would seek collaboration and consensus.

For his part, Zapatero expressed high expectations in working with the Obama administration but admitted that "managing the managing the relationship between the United States and Spain under the Bush administration was easy for him."  The cable states: "Whatever position the Bush Administration took, [Zapatero] would take the opposite and see his domestic poll numbers increase. Sarcastically, Zapatero said "for that I will always be grateful to the Bush Administration."

Zapatero, a member of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, was elected Prime Minister in 2004 and then re-elected in 2008.  During the Bush administration, he was an outspoken critic of US foreign policy and the war in Iraq.

See a cache copy of the cable at Cable Search.