Adrian Hamilton: We are playing into the terrorists' hands

If opposition politicians hesitate to take on the Government on the issue of terror, they shouldn't. There is a fundamental division of view on how we cope with bomb threats at home, just as there is on extremism abroad. This is a debate that should be thrashed out in public.

At the moment all the clamour is on the side of building up the threat as a great war, which we must win if we are to preserve our democratic ideals and our way of life. And you can readily see why it is in everyone's interests to promote the plot as being huge in ambition and global in reach. For the Government it justifies the Prime Minister's rhetoric of a worldwide battle of values. For the police, it swamps all the criticism and doubts raised by the Stockwell and Forest Gate incidents. For MI5, it proves their value after the failures of 7/7.

For the Pakistani authorities, to claim to have arrested the ringleader shows just how important and helpful their contribution is after all the criticism of their country as a source of so much extremism. For al-Qa'ida, or whichever groups are or are not involved, all this high rhetoric adds to their sense of importance as a dark and menacing force able to reach across the world.

Just because it is in everyone's interest to dramatise the plot, and the success in uncovering it, doesn't mean that the threat wasn't - and isn't - real and horrendous. But then again, nor does it mean that it is.

The trouble with all this hyperbole is that it plays directly into the hands of the terrorist. If the act of blowing oneself up on a plane over the Atlantic means anything, it is to draw attention to a cause and to the person doing it. Giving credence to that act by building it up as part of a worldwide struggle between good and evil only increases the satisfaction. The best response to terrorism is a stolid, underplayed determination not to be moved - one you would have thought fits the British character.

There is nothing new in this, nor is there in the sense that this is an international rather than purely domestic threat. The Catholic "plots" of the 16th and 17th centuries, the anarchist threats of the 19th century and the communist movements of the 20th century all fit the same global stereotype.

It may be that the present extremist attacks are different in kind because of modern communications - the internet and mobile telephone - and the possible weapons they might bring to bear.

But, in a way, that presents a more manageable problem for modern technology than unstable individuals experimenting on their own or in small groups with chemicals in the bath. With modern technology the intelligence services can and do track, eavesdrop and break into mobile and e-mail communications with considerable effectiveness. It is an area where the resources and sophistication of the state can meet on equal if not better terms with the extremists.

Nor is it proven that terror networks do all integrate into a global conspiracy headed by al-Qa'ida or whatever, despite the amount of briefing going on now to interconnect the alleged plotters in this case into just such a worldwide network. Precisely because it is possible to intercept international communications, many of the best-informed experts doubt the real controlling power of al-Qa'ida. It has money and weapons training, but is vulnerable to any half-competent intelligence service able to follow anybody who contacts it - let alone flies to Pakistan to meet it.

The threat posed by Islamic extremist groups is not at bottom so very different from that posed by the IRA, or the Fenians before them, or for that matter the Jewish terrorists in British-run Palestine before and after the Second World War. It is that you have within your societies individuals and groups willing to risk and sacrifice their own lives in order to make a dramatic splash. To manage this threat - as was done with the IRA - you have to separate extremism from mainstream opinion, which means not only addressing the underlying problems of unemployment in particular sectors and poor education but also listening to grievances.

There are plenty of reasons within Britain why Muslim youth should feel alienated. But it also defies common sense to suggest that the plight of the worldwide Muslim community and the sight of Western arms and British support being used to invade and assault them does not have the effect of giving cause to disenchantment.

With terrorism you don't "win" a war. In that sense the terrorists are already winning it: they have produced massive dislocation in Britain and attracted huge publicity for themselves. Winning the war at bottom means preventing terror. And on that score almost everything we are doing seems likely to produce the opposite.

a.hamilton@independent.co.uk