Five days after a series of bombs exploded on Madrid’s commuter trains killing over 200 people Spanish investigators and Western intelligence agencies are said to be almost certain that Islamic terrorists were to blame for the attacks—and not the Basque separatist group ETA, as the Spanish premier and his interior minister had initially declared. If the attack was indeed the work of al-Qaida or one of its many affiliates, it was singularly successful in achieving its presumed political objectives. Until the morning of March 11 the Popular Party (PP) government of the outgoing prime minister José Maria Aznar looked poised...