Iraq, the war on terror, and Europe...

 Just as President Bush claims 9/11 "changed everything" in U.S. politics, so, too may the Madrid attacks mark a turning point in Europe's relationship to President Bush's war on terror. The continent's geographical proximity to the Arab world and its large — and mostly impoverished and marginalized — Arab immigrant populations make it especially vulnerable to terror attacks. Now that al-Qaeda and its supporters are directly attacking Europe's cities rather than simply using them as staging areas, European leaders are looking to ramp up their own efforts to fight terror. But as the Spanish election result shows, this may put them more sharply at odds with the Bush administration. That's because there's a widely held belief among the Europeans that while police and intelligence cooperation across the Atlantic (and across the Mediterranean, with Arab security services) has been highly effective in eliminating al-Qaeda cells, the U.S. invasion of Iraq has been not only ineffective, but actually counterproductive in the fight against terrorism. European Commission chief Romano Prodi argues that the use of military force as a prime weapon in the fight against terrorism is not working: "Terrorism is now more powerful than ever before," he says. And most European leaders believe the al-Qaeda phenomenon will not be defeated until the anti-U.S. grievances in the Arab world on which it feeds have been addressed.

 European Union security officials meet in Madrid on Friday to hammer out a strategy — a meeting in which the U.S. won't be participating. That's natural, of course, in that the U.S. is not part of the European Union. But it may also signal an intention by the Europeans to forge a more effective strategy for countering the al-Qaeda movement, and challenging the U.S. to rethink its own approach.