Then there is the traditional leadership with deep immigrant roots. They are estranged from the mainstream, have little access to media or government and do not have the linguistic ability to express and defend themselves. They are usually defined by the media, which often looks at them with a jaundiced eye. Some of these traditional leaders are politically liberal and forward looking, but unfortunately many of them are culturally isolationist and theologically conservative and politically Islamized. They live in denial. They do not recognize the threat of extremism and isolationism within the community. Their consciousness is entirely shaped by the geopolitics of Islam and the West. They are keeping the community theologically narrow and segregated from the mainstream. They are themselves marginal in their ability to influence things in Britain and keep their followers on the margins too.

In the absence of enlightened leadership, social alienation combined with anger at British and American foreign policies makes the community's youth more and more amenable to the radical discourse coming from anti-Western imams and primes them for exploitation by al-Qaeda.

So far the British government has done little to address the problems of its Muslims or to find balance in its foreign policy. The Anglo-American war on terror has failed to diminish anti-American and anti-Western sentiment. On the contrary, misguided policies in Iraq and Lebanon have mainly angered and radicalized Muslims all over the world. Every time Blair says "aye aye" to Bush, some Muslim youth say "aye aye" to Bin Laden.

The British response is premised on a consistent denial that British foreign policy has any role whatsoever in radicalizing Muslims. No concerted effort has been made to address segregation, to empower the Muslim youth and to entice them out of their isolated universes.

Number 10 (the prime minister's office) has tried to co-opt Muslim leadership by giving inordinate access to the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB). The leadership of MCB has created an umbrella organization that can legitimately claim to represent British Muslims. However, their political liberalism is subverted by their theological conservatism; as a result, they are acutely alert to British policy errors but blind to the community's failure to reform and keep abreast with modernity and with British mainstream society.

Ultimately MCB is failing because it cannot deliver. The British government wants support from Muslims for its foreign policy - MCB cannot deliver that. Muslims want significant changes in British foreign policy - MCB can talk to policymakers, but cannot influence or reshape it. It is a bridge that, at this moment, leads nowhere on either end.

Law enforcement methods alone can preempt terrorism but not address its root causes. They have to be accompanied by a systematic overhaul of domestic and foreign policy. America's problem with Muslims worldwide is only its foreign policy. Britain's problem, however, with its Muslim population is twofold - its domestic and foreign policy need urgent revision.

British Muslim leadership, too, must pull its head out of the sand and directly address its own singular obsession with foreign policy. Surely they do not wish to sacrifice the future of British Muslims for causes overseas.

Muqtedar Khan is assistant professor at the University of Delaware. He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a fellow of the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center at Georgetown University. His website is www.ijtihad.org.