Voters in the U.S. are about to discover whether the threat of terrorism that has dominated the presidential election campaign is a real and present danger or a smokescreen to conceal the appalling consequences of the war in Iraq. Alternatively, depending on your point of view, they are about to discover whether the much vaunted "homeland security" measures of the present administration have been a resounding success or a complete failure.
In other words, if al Qaida or its surrogates have the capacity to mount a serious attack on the U.S. mainland they will do so in the next seven days. The Madrid bombing demonstrated brutally the effect that could be achieved just before an election. Irrespective of which side wins in such circumstances, the terrorists are able to claim their attack as the decisive event. Whoever comes to power has to live with the suspicion that it was the terrorists who put him there.
With the presidential election so close, an attack in the final week would undoubtedly swing it one way or the other. Which way is more difficult to say. Probably it would favour Bush, on the basis of his strong "war on terror" platform. But if the initial impression is one of security failure it would, as in Spain, work against the incumbent. The terrorists themselves would claim victory either way. To bring down Bush would be a major scalp but to keep him in office would ensure the continuance (and, perhaps the extension) of the global policies that provided them with such fertile ground.
In the second of my articles in the aftermath of the Madrid bombing I noted a communication that was sent to the London-based Arabic newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi by the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigade. "We are very keen that Bush does not lose the upcoming elections" the statement was quoted as saying, because Bush's "idiocy and religious fanaticism" would "wake up" the Islamic world.
Let us hope that the threat implied by those words does not materialise. The ensuing argument - as to whether homeland security should receive the credit or whether the threat of terrorism had been over-hyped - is one that Americans can probably accept as the price for a peaceful election day.
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