Keyzer Soze - Regarding motivation I think it is of paramount importance that we don't lazily superimpose our politics on the situation (not that I'm pointing any fingers or anything). While Iraq may well have angered some in the Islamic world, my guess is that it would have been seen as just another link in the chain of inevitable and expected Islamic oppression as opposed to an absolute abomination under international law.
Even then I don't think the analysis of Islamic oppression would figure much in their world view apart from as a buttress for the fundamental pillars of their beliefs. They probably haven't even been inspired by extremely complex ideas, just a jihadi sense of purpose to purify their own personal Islam and Islam in general.
The concept of al-qaeda may have come into play at some stage as they sought to glorify themselves by subscribing to the warrior beliefs of extremist heroes, but there was no central command issuing a specific order to a highly trained and disciplined cell. At most these men would have respected the organisation, it's powerful collection of ideas and specifically it's pan-Islamic pride exhorting for a millenarian belief that the next caliphate is just around the corner.
They may well have jumped at a chance to work with one of the 'big boys', possibly the Syrian who masterminded the Madrid bombings and who is supposed to be in England, or maybe one of them met someone in Pakistan.
I doubt that they were motivated by politics, history or even innate hatred alone. Their reasons were probably multi-causual and may have been governed by pride and peer pressure above all else.
I think the dangers that face British society after the bombings lie in familiar lines of inquiry that may become dangerous red herrings. This has already happened once as over the last five years we have feared Islamophobia so much that we (and I mean the whole of society) have failed to recognise the power of extremist religion, something that has been an alien presence to the majority of mainland Britain for many centuries. Instead we have looked to foreign dissidents as the foment of Islamic extremisim while safe in the conceit that we were looking for an external threat, a coherent organisation that to some degree respected international boundaries.
We now have to stop looking at reasons of economic deprivation, racial and religious oppression or political outrage. We have to be totally honest and discard our previous agendas on this matter and accept that the terrorists had fallen under the spell of a group of ideas that represent a paradigm shift in how the world can be viewed. Once we get to this first base we might be able to move on and stop swinging clumsily at problems that deep down we know have lost credibility with a group of four relatively ordinary young Asian muslims from Leeds.
