It won�t.
Memories are short. The mass murder of thousands of people of all nationalities in New York happened long before the liberation of Iraq.
This happened because the world had not taken the threat from Al Qaeda seriously enough,
Years before September 11th Al Qaeda had been murdering innocent civilians around the world � mainly in poor developing countries that don�t have the security and intelligence back up that we do.
Two things distinguish Al Qaeda from the terrorists we have known before.
Firstly, the complete absence of negotiable demands. Secondly, their determination to kill quite indiscriminately as many people as possible.
If two of the Madrid trains had been running on time their bombs would have exploded in the railway terminal, bringing down the whole structure, killing many more.
If the terrorists could use chemical, biological or nuclear weapons they would.
There is no appeasing such people.
Of course we must �drain the swamp� of support that such groups need to survive. That means a peace settlement between Israel and Palestine and more democracy and economic reform in the Islamic world.
But it also means the relentless pursuit of those responsible for such the outrages and those who might be planning others.
I have no doubt that serious attacks in this country have so far been prevented by a combination of good security, intelligence work and public vigilance.
But the terrorist only needs to get lucky once. We need to be lucky all the time.
People moan that the extra security is impinging on their civil liberties. But what would they say after an event like Madrid? What about the liberty of those who died in Madrid and their families � the liberty of life?
