Leader
Bombs with lessons for us all
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, foreign intel-ligence services were complaining about the UK. We had allowed our capital city to become a haven for resistance fighters and/or terrorists. The French were particularly incensed, tracing the origin of the bombings of the Paris Metro to cells operating, with apparent impunity, from London.

The New Statesman revealed in December 2002 that, even a year after the attack on the World Trade Center in New York, Britain was still seen as excessively tolerant. In a cover piece entitled "Londonistan", we quoted European and American officials as suggesting that the UK had come to a non-aggression pact with Islamist oppositionists dating back to the mujahedin rebellion against the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan - we let them act with impunity as long as they did not launch any attacks on our soil.

As we ponder the horror of the events of 7 July, the callousness and the arbitrariness of the violence visited on our vibrant and cosmopolitan capital city, it is worth reminding ourselves of the inconsistencies of our policies, not least policies to protect the security of our citizens. This is not a time for point-scoring - the roots of many of the problems reach back years. This is a time for pulling together, as Tony Blair and Ken Livingstone in their different ways have declared. But it is also a time to air some hard and unpalatable truths. This week (page 10), the writer Ziauddin Sardar warns his fellow Muslims that they can no longer hide behind hollow declarations that the suicide bombers, and those who masterminded and supported them, are deviants within Islam. Incitement to jihad, to exact revenge for injustices, real or perceived, in the Middle East, must no longer be tolerated within the Muslim community or outside it as part of freedom of speech. At the same time, far
 greater efforts should be made towards cohesion. We cannot wish away problems of alienation and anger. We now know that we cannot pass by on the other side.

Hard truths apply to all. Inevitably, that brings us back to Iraq. The spin of the past few days - that the invasion of Iraq had no galvanising effect on Islamist radicals - is as fatuous as were the promises before the war of a mission to "democratise" countries at the barrel of a gun. The consistent opposition of the New Statesman to the war was, and is, based not on anti-Americanism but on a thorough understanding of international security. By far the most convincing argument against the war (and there were so many) was that it would make the world far less safe. Almost everything that has happened in the past three years has vindicated this view.

Here are just a few reasons: the deceptions and hubris that surrounded the warnings of weapons of mass destruction made it all the more difficult for the public to believe ministers and security chiefs when they warned that a terrorist attack on British soil was inevitable; the lack of international support for the invasion made it all the more difficult for democratic countries to unite behind a common approach that included counter-terrorism; the asymmetric nature of the original warfare, plus the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay and the assault on Fallujah last November, at a cost of more than 700 lives, reinforced the resolve of those who sought a perverted form of retaliation.

Most important of all, a link between terrorism and a failing state that did not exist before the war now does exist in abundance. Our deliberate encouragement of Islamists in Afghanistan helped foster much of the terrorism of recent years. Iraq has provided it with a new lease of life spanning, who knows, perhaps a couple of decades. That the consequence was unintended does not make it any less forgivable.

These policy calamities were predicted not just by many on the left. British ambassadors, parliamentary committees, intelligence officials and police chiefs expressed their fears and frustrations at the simplicity of the Bush-Blair world-view, sometimes publicly, usually discreetly. They should have been more candid. So should members of cabinet and parliament. So, also, should a media that has replaced bellicosity in the run-up to war with a reluctance to engage in debate since the London bombings.

The Prime Minister has responded to the atrocities with admirable calm and sure-footedness. That is not an optional extra. That is a prerequisite for leadership for which the nation should be grateful. But there is another important manifestation of leadership as well - to think strategically, to pursue policies that are predicated on more than a hunch that "good will prevail". Out of this horror we cannot find solace in certainty, either for our future security or an analysis of the past. We can learn lessons, however, both from an excess of complacency at home and an excess of zeal abroad. No politician can guarantee our safety in any of the world's great cities at a time when anyone can download bomb-making instructions from the internet. No politician can remove an individual's sense of grievance, however warped. No state can prevent wanton acts of murder, terrorist or otherwise.

The events of 7 July have led to further calls for "clampdowns". The ease with which the four bombers planned and executed their attacks reinforces the need for better intelligence. If specific new laws are required, they should be scrutinised speedily and dispassionately, and not be dismissed out of hand. The immediate focus is naturally on security at home. In the longer term, we must reassess our actions abroad. What we can demand of our politicians is greater wisdom and foresight in these troubled months ahead than they have displayed internationally to date.

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