Five bucks says @barackobama butts into the Gibraltar dispute.

And not on England’s side.

Spanish foreign minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo will use a trip to Buenos Aires next month to raise the possibility of forging a joint diplomatic offensive with the South American country over the disputed territories, sources told Spain’s El Pais newspaper.

Spain’s foreign ministry was also discussing whether to take its complaints over Gibraltar to the United Nations, the newspaper reported on Sunday.

The sources did not specify whether Spain would ask the UN to back a request for Britain to give up sovereignty or just adhere to certain agreements.

Not that it matters, since – thanks to the last general planetary war – the organization that Spain and Argentina both want to appeal to happens to give a veto on anything meaningful to… the United Kingdom.  Guess that means that the Franco and Argentine military regimes should have done a better job in choosing sides in World War II, huh?

Moe Lane

PS: Neither the Falkland Islands nor Gibraltar want to change their status, by the way.  I mention this because I suspect that the current administration needs as many things spelled out for it as can be conveniently arranged.

PPS: There’s a reason why I am unconvinced that Barack Obama would be sensible on Gibraltar; he wasn’t particularly so on the Falklands.