Mark Steyn says that our supposed betters in Europe have it backwards:

In 2002 and 2003, I took a couple of two-legged, mini fact-finding trips - first to western Europe, then on to the Middle East. And both times I was struck by the way the Muslims of Araby were far less inflamed than those in the alienated immigrant ghettoes around Paris and Amsterdam. Life in the West, exposure to the self-loathing platitudes of Anglican clerics, these are the sort of things that seem to inflame Muslims. Many of the wackiest Islamists from Richard Reid to Zacarias Moussaoui to Metin Kaplan are products of the enervated Europe symbolised by the Rev Mark Beach...

...[The Islamists'] most effective guerrillas aren't in the Hindu Kush, where it is the work of moments to drop a daisycutter on the mighty Pashtun warrior. They're travelling light on the bridle-paths of Europe - the small cells that operate in the nooks and crannies of a free society, while politicians cling to the beaten tracks - old ideas, multicultural pieties and a general hope that things will turn out for the best.

With all due respect...
Well, duh!
And how is this dramatic realization supposed to illustrate invading Iraq was key to fighting terrorism. (Yes Saddam was a horrid critter needed killing etc. etc). The real danger to the West is enabled in the West! (Hamburg, Amsterdam, Florida...).

The primary role of the old Fertile Crescent in the terrorist problem is the provision of occassional failed states and anarchic areas, with breathing room for charismatic terrorist leaders (e.g. Afghanistan, the Northwest territories of Pakistan, the northern No-Fly Zone of Iraq, eighties Lebanon). Evil dictatorships were not these sorts of places - there only being room for one giant ego in town. There were, of course, many reasons to topple Saddam (human rights; the environment; maybe even oil); but only with the sort of resources to prevent Iraq's collapse. While Iraq is regenerating, and while there is still a risk of implosion, by providing a void the war only increased the long-term threat of terrorism.

And another note; history shows that many citizens of conquered nations inevitably end up in living in their conquerer (and usually improving the food). Unless this process is handled wisely, the problems Steyn writes of in Europe will come to directly haunt the U.S.