Terrorism Revisited

One of the desired effects of the Madrid bombing seems to have been to splinter the Western alliance. The allies must see through the trap, acknowledge mistakes, produce a stricter definition of the threat of terrorism and create a new strategy for fighting its sources. The aftermath of the Madrid attacks showed that the US and its European allies are deeply divided over the role of Iraq in the war on Islamic terrorism. European mass opinion –unlike America’s– sees the two as completely separate problems and America’s actions as counterproductive to the war on terror. To keep differences over Iraq from ungluing the Western coalition, it is important to restate the definition of causes and nature of terrorism and to agree on basic principles. The outlines of continued cooperation are clear: the US and Europe share the sense that Islamist terrorism represents a potentially catastrophic threat, they cooperate closely on stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction and they are willing to go to great lengths –including the use of military force– to prevent future attacks