It is a testament to the commitment and wits of counter-terrorism investigators that the long lines at airports yesterday consisted merely of inconvenienced travelers relieved of their water bottles and not anguished relatives waiting for news of passengers who might have been aboard a downed jetliner. It would be a mistake, however, to consider yesterday’s arrests in Britain a victory in the fullest sense. Which is not to disparage the policing by British and American authorities or undervalue the improvements in intelligence gathering and sharing since September 11, 2001, that made yesterday’s arrests possible. But true victory will be the freedom from the threat of Islamist terrorism entirely.

The fact remains that upwards of 50 enemy operatives were able to operate on Western soil for an indeterminate amount of time and come possibly within days of committing a massive attack. While their apprehension speaks to the skill of rank-and-file policemen and their supervisors, some aspects of the response to news of the plot are troubling. Although the British evince an understanding of the threat of terrorism that is far greater than that of most of their European brethren, one of the greatest oddities yesterday was the sense that they are fighting a terror whose name they dare not speak.

The London suspects are not just alleged terrorists. They are alleged Islamofascist terrorists who cleave to a particularly nihilistic brand of pseudo-religious philosophy. Yet one would hardly guess that to hear British authorities or reporters discussing the arrests. As Powerline noted yesterday, the deputy commissioner of Britain’s Metropolitan Police, Paul Stephenson, referred obliquely to communications between police and “community leaders” in respect of the arrests yesterday, failing to mention that the community in question is Britain’s large and increasingly radicalized population of unassimilated Muslim immigrants.

Likewise in British press reports. As of 4:30 p.m. yesterday, the main article about the plot on the Web site of the British state broadcasting arm, the BBC, avoided any mention of the religious aspect of the plot, referring to the suspects only as “British-born” and noting that “some have links to Pakistan.” Such niceties extended even to some of the right-of-center papers, which resorted to the “community leaders” formula to hint at the nature of the plotters. Britain’s Home Secretary, John Reid, went so far as to say, “This is not a case of one civilization against another or one religion against another.”

Contrast that with the response of American officials. Security Chertoff was first to suggest that the plan’s complexity “is, in some respects, suggestive of an al Qaeda plot,” thus voicing a suspicion that radical Islamists might be responsible. Attorney General Gonzales placed the plot against the backdrop of the fact that there is “a vicious and determined enemy that is intent on harming American lives.” President Bush used the first sentence of his statement to call the latest development “a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation.”

This is no mere question of semantics. Neither is calling the enemy by name a ploy to stir up hatred against the millions of peaceful Muslims who bear good will toward the West. Calling the enemy by name is critical, however, to understanding the enemy and how to fight it. Naming the enemy would show that the London plot just unmasked is not isolated from the July 7 bombings on the London Tube last year, or the earlier bombings in Madrid or the Bali bombing or September 11. Nor is it distinct from the war in Iraq or the war in which Israel is being shelled by Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Understanding that fact will be critical to winning. Appreciating the nihilistic philosophy that unites and motivates the enemy combatants, whether bombers on a commuter train or terrorist militiamen in southern Lebanon, is a key part of the war. Most relevant for many who have opposed Mr. Bush’s conduct of the war, identifying the enemy will lead to the conclusion that there can be no negotiating with these opponents in the way that it might have been possible, no matter how ill advised, to negotiate with the nationalistic terrorists of an earlier day like the Irish Republican Army with which the British have had so much experience.

Recognizing the enemy of today allows one to see that fighting Islamist insurgents in Iraq is not a “distraction” from the war on terror, and that Palestinian Arab terrorists are not “freedom fighters” whose war is confined only to a patch of land. Yesterday’s arrests in England mark victory in an important battle, but neither the exposure of this plot nor law enforcement’s ever improving ability to thwart others of its kind mark a permanent victory. Such a victory will be possible only once we can all bring ourselves to speak the name of the enemy we face.