Terrorist attack in Riyadh a bitter reminder for U.S.

Here's the message terrorists delivered Monday when they attacked three housing compounds in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh, claiming 25 victims, including eight Americans: Regime changes in countries such as Iraq that the United States and Britain believe are threats to world safety is not a deterrence to global terrorism.
Indeed, it now appears that Al-Qaida may have been behind the bombings, which raises the specter of President Bush jumping the gun when he commented last week that the international terrorist organization is a shell of its old self. Al-Qaida, led by Osama bin Laden, who continues to elude capture, has taken responsibility for the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on America that resulted in more than 3,000 deaths. Al-Qaida operatives were also behind the bombing of the USS Cole and the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Wanted: Dead or alive
After 9/11, Bush declared bin Laden this country's Enemy No. 1 and put out a "Wanted: Dead or Alive" warrant for him. The United States led a coalition of several nations in an invasion of Afghanistan that toppled the Taliban regime that had given bin Laden and Al-Qaida safe haven.
The terrorist organization had training camps in Afghanistan and bin Laden had set up his headquarters in the mountain region. He escaped during the attack and is now reportedly hiding out in border provinces in neighboring Pakistan.
Bush issued a worldwide warning that any nation harboring Al-Qaida cells or supporting global terrorism would be viewed as an enemy and, therefore, could become a target of America's military might. He identified 60 countries in which Al-Qaida cells exist.
In making the case for the war against Iraq, Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair contended that military strongman Saddam Hussein and his government had links to bin Laden and that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that could be sent to terrorist organizations for use against the U.S. Bush and Blair also contended that Saddam was developing nuclear weapons.
We aren't willing to go as far as U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, D-Florida, who said after Monday night's terrorist bombing in Saudi Arabia that the war on Iraq caused the Bush administration to take its eye off the ball -- the war on global terrorism -- which then gave bin Laden and his followers the opportunity to regroup and plan the suicide bombings.
On the other hand, it is true that when the U.S., Britain and other countries were involved in an all-out search for terrorist leaders and cells, there was a lull in global terror activity.
What's next?
Now, there are credible reports that the suicide bombings in the three compounds in Riyadh that housed expatriates, including Americans and Britons, are only the beginning. In addition to the 25 killed, about 200 people were injured. Saudi Arabia is being criticized in some quarters for not taking earlier warnings it received more seriously, but seeing as how the U.S. and Britain put the war on global terrorism on hold while it sought to oust Saddam and his Baath Party from power, such criticism is not warranted.
Americans cannot expect other countries, especially those that have long been the sites of bloody terrorist attacks, to view Al-Qaida and bin Laden with the same sense of urgency as the United States. Therefore, if the Bush administration wants friendly nations of the world, especially those in the Middle East, to join in the fight against global terrorism, it must first persuade them that the U.S. foreign policy is not imperialistic and that the war in Iraq was not the opening salvo against any and all dictatorial regimes around the world.