Dealing with terrorists in Ireland and the Middle East

Joyce Malcolm says years of appeasing the IRA by British and Irish officials led directly to the defeat of the moderate parties in last month's elections.

Game's over, and the Irish people have lost. For the past decade the British and Irish governments have been playing "let's pretend" in Northern Ireland. While neither government would ever admit to doing deals with terrorists, they pretended that the Irish Republican Army - folks known for blowing up fish-and-chip shops and shooting opponents in the knees - were not at the bargaining table or eligible to be included in a future government, and could even be coaxed to go straight, to lay down their guns and achieve their aims peacefully. That approach might be excused as pragmatism or wishful thinking and did lead to an IRA cease-fire of sorts. But then there was the little matter of Sinn Fein, the IRA's political shills, the folks who did sit at the negotiating table and were to play a leading role in future Northern Ireland ministries. Although most Sinn Fein leaders were, and still are, leaders of the IRA, everyone was supposed to pretend Sinn Fein were an ordinary political party, prepared to rely on the ballot, not the bullet or the threat of the bullet. What's the harm in a little pretence for the greater good? And concessions might work wonders.

Malcolm points out that the IRA was never forced to disarm, while the Protestants were forced to make more and more concessions.

In the process the two governments ignored Catholic moderates and dealt only with Sinn Fein, the guys who knew the guys with the guns. Since 2002 when the Ulster Unionists pulled out of the government, shutting it down the fourth time, there have been numerous attempts to re-start power-sharing, always on the same basis - deals with Sinn Fein, appeasement of the IRA. Signs of IRA criminal activities - gun smuggling, bomb-training for narco-terrorists in Columbia, stealing documents from Special Branch, spying inside Stormont, money-laundering on a grand scale - were treated not as evidence of its refusal to change its ways but as regrettable embarrassments.

Sounds a little like Clinton's policy with regard to the Palestinians, no? Under Clinton, Arafat was received at the White House 24 times--more than any other world leader. (As Malcolm points out, Clinton also received Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams at the White House. In contrast, Bush asked the McCartney sisters to the White House.)

Clinton also pressed Israel to make concessions without insisting that the Palestinians comply with the terms of the Oslo accords.

Part of the problem stemmed from Clinton's desire to be seen as the president who brought peace to the Middle East. In his desire for that distinction--not to mention his bid for a Nobel Peace Prize--he adopted a get along to go along philosophy. Far easier to bully the Israelis, who rely upon American support, to make concessions than to force the Palestinians to behave. Of course, the strategy backfired and the Israelis, unwilling to commit mass suicide, elected hardliner Ariel Sharon over the malleable Ehud Barak.

Bush, on the other hand, recognized that you can't appease terrorists. He refused to deal with Arafat, and he's been firm in his dealings with Arafat's successor.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart, Bertie Ahearn, could learn a lesson here in their dealings with Sinn Fein. I'll let Malcolm have the last word:

It's time to call a thug a thug, round up the criminals who have been terrorizing both communities, and insist if Sinn Fein wants to play a role in government it must play a straight political game and disband its private army.