IF THE terrorists who bombed the trains in Madrid last week intended to split the already-fragile US-led coalition in Iraq, they could hardly have been more effective. Spaniards, apparently
judging they were being penalised for a war they never supported to begin with, threw out the conservative government in the Sunday elections and brought to power a government committed to
withdrawing Spanish troops from Iraq.
It seems evident that more attacks are likely to follow
on European soil. For now, the most likely candidates are other countries which have supported the US in Iraq. Top of this list,
of course, is Britain, whose government has already warned that sooner or later, an attack on the scale of the Madrid bombing is more or less inevitable in the United Kingdom.
The official line in most Western capitals is that Islamic terrorism targets all Western countries. Unofficially, though, many are of the view that it is aimed primarily at the US and its allies. To the extent that events bear out this conviction, the US may find itself gradually separated from its allies and isolated in its struggles.
A major incident in a "neutral" country would, of course, alter this calculus. Until then, many European countries are trying to find a way to combat terrorism which does not entail backing
US policy in the Middle East. Either way, the US administration
is facing a difficult time, as the diplomatic cost of its recent
unilateralism comes home to haunt it.
Almost as serious as the loss of some 200 lives in the train attack is the political influence on the elections which took place three days afterwards. This must be seen as a twisted victory for Islamic terrorism which has succeeded in using violence to change policy and the course of events in a major European country.
Jamaica cannot remain aloof to these events. Although there are, in our view, good reasons to oppose certain clauses in the proposed anti-terrorism legislation, we cannot afford to become complacent in playing our part in the war on terrorism. Nor should we allow any increase in anti-American sentiment by much of the population to blind us to the realities involved and our own vulnerabilities.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
