PA DOWNING STREET: The Istanbul blasts gave Bush and Blair a big audience. They called for a worldwide war on terror
A Day Of Terror Tests The Alliance
	Thursday, Nov. 20: With George W. Bush visiting London, bombs hit two British targets in Istanbul. Protesters fill Trafalgar square, and Britons worry that being America's best friend makes them al-Qaeda's favorite new target
	By J.F.O. MCALLISTER

Posted Sunday, November 23, 2003; 15.23GMT
At 9:30 GMT on Thursday morning, two notes were delivered to the intimate, cream-paneled room at 10 Downing Street where the British Cabinet has met since 1856: one note for the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw; another for Prime Minister Tony Blair, informing them that bombs in Istanbul had struck the British consulate and the local office of the London-based bank HSBC. A roll call of consular employees had turned up four missing and likely dead, including the consul general, Roger Short. An hour later, when George W. Bush arrived for talks with Blair, he pulled the Prime Minister close for a second before posing for the cameras, offering condolences for the devastation.

The whole point of terror is politics; demoralize your foes, embolden your allies, use the media to magnify the punch of mass murder. The terrorists had got in the first salvo in what turned out to be a day of global argument about what kind of world we are going to have. Their timing showed al-Qaeda's usual grim savvy: convulsing Turkey, a Muslim country the jihadists loathe because it's moderate, belongs to NATO and wants to join the E.U.; hitting British targets in a big way for the first time, at the high point of Bush's state visit — which was already fraught because so many Brits (56%, according to a new TIME/CNN poll) don't support him or his policies.

"Hesitation, uncertainty, confusion and, if possible, fear — that's the terrorists' goal," says a French terrorism investigator. Partly, for a few hours at least, they succeeded. The Istanbul stock market plunged and was closed. American and British authorities told their citizens to stay away. In Turkey, and in the archipelago of moderate Arab opinion which Washington wants to grow into a democratic Middle East, one more brick had been taken out of the foundation of confidence upon which open and prosperous societies must be built. Al-Qaeda was proclaiming a deeply unsettling message: We are not licked, not even close.

At a press conference a few hours later, Bush and Blair delivered their rebuttal. It was a stern vision of global struggle every bit as sweeping, in its way, as al-Qaeda's. "This terrorism is the 21st century threat," said Blair. "It is a war that strikes at the heart of all that we hold dear, and there is only one response that is possible or rational: to meet their will to inflict terror with a greater will to defeat it; to confront their philosophy of hate with our own of tolerance and freedom ... to stand side by side with the United States and our other allies, to rid our world of this evil once and for all." He pivoted smoothly, too smoothly for some, from Istanbul to Baghdad: "What this latest terrorist outrage shows us is that this is a war; its main battleground is Iraq." Bush, speaking with confidence, economy and force, emphasized an Iraq connection too. "Our mission in Iraq is noble and it is necessary. No act of thugs or killers will change our resolve or alter their fate. A free Iraq will be free of them. We will finish the job we have begun."

1 | 2 | Next

	Premium Content Time's Up: [May 26, 2003] Saudi royals realize they can no longer bury their heads in the sand 'Anytime, Anywhere' [May 18, 2003 ] Suicide bombings kill the idea the West is winning the war on terror Why al-Qaeda Struck in Saudi Arabia [May. 13, 2003] The U.S. victory in Iraq may have prompted a strategic shift for Bin Laden's network Living With Fear [Dec. 16, 2002] Terror is the new reality. Here's what the allies will do to prevent even more devastating strikes Search all issues of TIME Magazine