IN THE WAKE of the World Trade Center attacks, which took the lives of 2,948 people, the London Observer suggested that the bombings in London last week, which killed at least 50 and left some 700 injured, seemed almost a relief: "It could have been, and was always thought likely to be, significantly worse," the paper noted.

That's little condolence to the families of the people who died – horribly, tragically, and (in the awful hallmark of most terrorist attacks) randomly. As the New York Times put it, people who overslept and missed the bus lived; people who caught the train on time died. There's no way to minimize the damage to London, the UK, and the civilized world that this sort of attack leaves behind.

But the Observer had an important message: This isn't, and won't be, the end. Only a fool would try to believe that the attacks on Western cities are over. It will almost certainly happen again, and it will probably happen here.

This international insecurity, this feeling that any one of us could be killed any time we climb on a bus, train, or plane, is the price that we pay for the invasion of Iraq.

At this point it's not entirely clear who set the bombs, and British leaders are loudly denouncing any suggestion that there's a connection between Iraq and the bombings. But as Gary Younge points out in the Guardian of London, that's "the deepest denial."

Prime Minister Tony Blair, Younge wrote in a poignant essay July 11, "is not responsible for the more than 50 dead and 700 injured on Thursday. In all likelihood, 'jihadists' are. But he is partly responsible for the 100,000 people who have been killed in Iraq. And even at this early stage there is a far clearer logic linking these two events than there ever was tying Saddam Hussein to either 9/11 or weapons of mass destruction."

Younge continues: "What [Prime Minister Tony Blair] would not acknowledge is that his alliance with President George Bush has been sowing the seeds and fertilising the soil in the gulf, for yet more to grow. The invasion and occupation of Iraq – illegal, immoral, and inept – provided the Arab world with one more legitimate grievance. Bush laid down the gauntlet: You're either with us or with the terrorists. A small minority of young Muslims looked at the values displayed in Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo Bay and Camp Bread Basket – and made their choice."

Immediately after the London bombing, the US Department of Homeland Security increased the alert level on trains and buses to "orange" – whatever that means. The TV news showed pictures of BART police officers patrolling the subway with dogs (who presumably were trained to sniff out explosives). Passengers were warned (again, as always) to report anyone or anything suspicious (as if the well-trained terrorists were going to do anything obvious enough to attract suspicion).

None of that will make any of us any safer.

There's only one way to decrease the danger, and that's to acknowledge that the invasion of Iraq was a terrible mistake and announce a timetable for withdrawing all coalition troops. Until that happens, the carnage – in Iraq, in Europe, and quite possibly in the United States – will only continue.