These terroristic plots take TIME to be set up.
In my opinion, they were coordinated to sow trouble during our assault on Iraq/Iran, however, whether by design or by chance, Bush's slow-go, by-the-book process to enlist the world first before crushing Iraq and/or Iran and North Korea has caused the terrorists to guess incorrectly.
So their attacks are going on PRIOR to the U.S. taking any action in the Middle East, putting the political sentiment for Islam in Europe at risk of jeopardy.
In other words, these attacks are making Islam LESS popular in the world's other power players.
But consider how much sympathy they would have gained if the attacks had come DURING an American attack on Iraq. The French (for one) would be screaming that the attacks in Bali and Washington, D.C. were "justified" responses to such an attack.
But the invasion hasn't happened yet, and therefore the French can't "justify" the terroristic attacks.
Timing matters, and right now the terrorists are suffering for being on the wrong side of that timing.