Aznar was one of the ardent supporters of "regime change" in Iraq together with President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The Spanish Prime Minister, disgraced by telling palpable lies to his people that the Basque separatists (ETA) were responsible for the Madrid attack, was himself victim to "regime change" by his own people. The "regime change" in Spain brought painfully the truth to the conservative Spanish Prime Minister that what goes around comes around.

Spanish press pilloried Aznar for trying to pressure the media into blaming Basque separatists for the Madrid train bombings. Catalonian mainstream paper El Periodico wrote that Aznar called editors to implicate the Basque separatists even when clues had emerged suggesting Arabs' involvement. Journalists at the state-run news agency have demanded the resignation of their news director for swallowing the government line that the Basque separatists were behind the attacks.

The association of foreign journalists also issued a strong protest that Aznar government had deliberately misled them into thinking the bombings had been by the Basque separatists. At the instance of Spain even the UN Security Council has been embarrassed after a resolution on the day of the blasts blaming the Basque separatists.

Democratic governments are elected by people. People are the supreme authority because sovereignty rests with them. Thomas Jefferson, one of the fathers of the Declaration of American Independence wrote in that remarkable document that : " Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed". Two phrases of the statement merit close attention, namely, "just powers" and "consent of the governed". "Just powers" means that powers must not be abused or misused in the name of people and "consent of the governed" means that what actions governments take must have the support or mandate of the people.

It may be recalled that one year ago prior to launching war on Iraq, millions of people clustered in 600 towns and cities across the world waving placards "Not in my name" giving a simple direct message to the President of the US, the British, Spanish and Australian Prime Ministers their disapproval of war in Iraq. The cities that drew the largest crowds were in Britain, Spain and Italy and to some lesser extent in Australia that supported President Bush to attack Iraq.

Around the globe people felt that despite their loud protests, many watched their troops went to war and painfully they were aware that their elected leaders ignored their views and decided to go to war in the name of " freedom". But the British, Spanish and Australian Prime Ministers have themselves violated one of the democratic principles that they were not mandated to go to war by majority of their own people.

Where are the dangerous banned weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, many people question ? The US Investigation Group's leader Dr. David Kay, after nine months of intensive and extensive search in Iraq, found none and said " We were all wrong". Many people knew instinctively that the causes of war were totally wrong and felt betrayed by their elected leaders. They seem to have lost all trust and credibility in their elected leaders. The leaders believed that politics was the art of usurping democratic ideals ignoring the views of majority of their electorate.

The question is: did the leaders believe what they were publicly saying for justification of war? Former US Treasury Secretary told that President Bush was determined to wage war against Iraq from the day one of his Presidency, nine months before the dastardly September 11 attacks. Did Tony Blair believe that within 45 minutes, deadly ballistic missiles with weapons of mass destruction could be launched from Iraq? Did Aznar believe that Iraq was a threat to Spanish security? The answers seem to be in the negative.

Then why did they do it? The probable answer lies in what Arthur Harry Ponsonby, the first Baron of Ponsonby of Shulbreds (1871-1946), (his father was the private Secretary to Queen Victoria), wrote in 1928 these memorable words: " Authorities do, and indeed must, resort to this practice in order, first, to justify themselves by depicting the enemy as an undiluted criminal and second, to inflame popular passion to secure recruits. They cannot afford to tell the truth."

Was not democracy and freedom the leaders were fighting for? Was it not what they wanted in Iraq? Iraq now is in a total mess. After one year Iraqis are fearful of suicide bombings and extreme lawlessness in the country. The landscape of Baghdad has dramatically changed because all important buildings are shielded by high rise concrete walls.. One Iraqi teacher told in BBC World TV on 20th March that Iraqis felt uncomfortable with the US-led occupation and said "something hurts us inside" from the situation that her country had gone through. US soldiers die almost every day and let us not forget that war killed thousands of Iraqi civilians including women and children. The warring nations euphemistically call it "collateral damage" of bombings.

All sensible persons condemn and abhor global terrorism and killing of innocent people. It is an irony that 90 per cent of Spanish people opposed Iraq war but many of the same very people were killed in Madrid train by terrorist attacks, just because their leader did not listen to them and as a result they became victims.

Jonathon Freedland of the Guardian argued that it was wrong to confuse the war on Iraq with Al-Qaeda. It was possible to oppose both war on Iraq and terrorism. Terrorism is connected with Al-Qaeda network and Iraq had no connection with this entity because Iraq under Saddam Hussein was secular. Iraq has lost now its secular character under the interim Iraqi Transitional Constitution (approved by the US) that makes it clear that Iraq will be an Islamic State. With Shi'ite ascendancy , Iraq may even follow the model of Iranian regime and if majority rule is acknowledged, the US cannot do anything about it.

Free and fearless speech is the hallmark of democracy. In Iraq under the US-led Coalition authority, some Iraqi media has been subject to censorship and even closure because they were critical of the occupation. The Qatar-based Al-Jazeera TV is no more located in Iraq. The US-led Coalition Provisional Authority wants to hear from media in Iraq that they are making good "progress" in Iraq.

On 20th March, one year since the start of the US-led invasion of Iraq, thousands of anti-war protesters took to streets in cities across the globe. It occurred in New Zealand, Australia, Britain, Spain, Italy, Thailand, South Korea, Japan and in the US among others. (except New Zealand, all these countries have sent troops to Iraq). In the US, there were protests in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco to make clear the strength of anti-war feeling in the country.

Although President Bush on the eve of anniversary said that " the war on terrorism is an inescapable war of our generation", antagonism towards the Bush administration's foreign policy has reportedly hardened in a number of European and Muslim countries.

A poll, conducted by the Washington-based Pew Research Centre, before the last week's bombings in Madrid, has found public opinion overseas (in 44 countries) swinging sharply in favour of charting a course independent of Washington.

The leaders who led war find themselves cornered by their allies. The "Coalition of the Willing" seems to lose its solidarity. The most deadly blow of solidarity came from the socialist Spanish Prime Minister-designate Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero who opposed the war. He vowed to pull the 1300-strong Spanish troops from Iraq by July 1st unless the UN supervised the occupation. It had an instant domino effect on other US allies..

Honduras decided to follow Spain's lead and withdraw its soldiers in June. Poland's President Kwasniewski, a close ally of President Bush of "New Europe" ( the term used by Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary for the former Communist Eastern European countries while "Old Europe", meaning France and Germany) told the media on 18th March that he felt "uncomfortable due to the fact that they were misled with the misinformation on weapons of mass destruction". It is reported that South Korea, another strong ally of the US, rejected US's request to move their troops to Kirkuk. Obviously Washington was feeling hot by the challenge of its allies.

The US Presidential election will take place in November of this year. Democratic contender John Kerry has become a formidable challenge to President Bush. At this early stage, they are reportedly running neck-to-neck in the poll. Kerry has challenged President Bush's foreign policy and criticised him for alienating America's close allies in Europe. Recently in a security and foreign policy speech in Washington Kerry said : " Every day they (US troops) face danger and death from suicide bombers, roadside bombers, and now, ironically, from the very Iraqi police they are training… What we have seen is a steady loss of lives and mounting cost in dollars with no end in sight".

Australia's general election is likely to be held by the end of this year. Prime Minister John Howard (64) is being challenged by a young and dynamic leader Mark Latham (42) of the Labour Party. Howard's comfortable zone with the electorate has been gradually disappearing since Latham's election as the leader of the opposition three months ago.

Tony Blair has been increasingly facing credibility problem with large number of Britons. He thought the Hutton enquiry would put the issue of Iraq war behind but it did not. Another inquiry is being held on the failure of intelligence agencies on faulty information prior to Iraq war. Iraq war has become Tony Blair's "Achilles Heel". It is reported that he is seriously considering general election at the end of this year, 20 months ahead than the deadline for the poll to shore up Blair's beleaguered political position.

It is not unlikely that the "regime change" might catch up with these leaders for having misled their electorate on the misinformation of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Abraham Lincoln once said : " You can't fool all the people all the time." Many people have realised that their leaders have misled them and did not tell the whole truth to them. For these reasons they might behave as Spaniards did in ousting the Aznar conservative government.

Barrister Harun ur Rashid is a former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva.