IRISH STANDDOWN
by John O'Sullivan
New York Post
May 22, 2005

May 22, 2005 -- SOME years after the 1974 collapse of the Sunning dale Agreement — Northern Ireland's first experiment in cross- community, unionist-nationalist power-sharing — Willie Whitelaw, the Tory minister who had negotiated the deal, was reminiscing about it with T.E. Utley, the conservative author of "Lessons of Ulster," still one of the most perceptive books on the "troubles."

Utley pointed out that this first power-sharing arrangement would probably have survived if it had not been accompanied by an All-Ireland Council that alienated almost all unionists. That had not only inspired a working-class Prod rebellion that killed Sunningdale but had also destroyed the career of the moderate Unionist leader, Brian Faulkner, who had tried to sell the entire package. Why had the British government put such pressure on Faulkner that he committed political suicide?

"Very true," sighed Whitelaw. "Very true. But wasn't Brian a bloody fool to give in to our pressure!"

Well, up to a point, Lord Whitelaw. In the course of driving Faulkner to destroy his political career, however, the London government also postponed any political settlement of the Northern Irish crisis for more than 20 years. Not until the late 1990s was sufficient trust re-established to launch the Good Friday Agreement and another set of power-sharing arrangements.

You might suppose that, after the experience of Sunningdale, the British government would have learned not to push moderate unionist leaders further than their community would permit. But the recent British elections saw the defeat of Faulkner's successor as leader of the "official" Unionist party (the UUP), Nobel Prize-winner David Trimble, and the re-drawing of Ulster politics along the following lines:

* On the unionist-Protestant side, Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party won nine of the 18 Ulster seats and replaced the UUP as the representative of its community in the British House of Commons (as it had previously done in the Northern Ireland Assembly.) Trimble's UUP won only one seat.

* On the Catholic-nationalist side, Sinn Fein, the "political wing of the Irish Republican Army," continued its advance and is now the largest party with five seats to the moderate nationalist SDLP's three.

In other words, six years after the Good Friday Agreement, the two extremes in both communities now dominate Northern Ireland.

NOR is this an accident. It is the inevitable result of two policies pursued simultaneously by the British and Irish governments ever since the IRA notified London that it was prepared to wind down its terrorist campaign.

The first policy was and is appeasement of Sinn Fein-IRA. London and Dublin allowed Sinn Fein to participate fully in government even though the IRA repeatedly failed to disarm and abandon terrorism.

Indeed, both governments turned a blind eye to murders and beatings carried out by the IRA (and by Protestant para-militaries) in "their own" communities. In effect this appeasement told Catholic nationalist voters that it was perfectly respectable to vote for terrorists and murderers. Some voters believed that the "Provos" would even be able to find out how they had voted. Hence they gave a massive majority and a 72 percent share of the vote to Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams less than two months after IRA thugs brutally murdered an innocent bystander in a pub over an imagined slight. The SDLP went from electoral equality with Sinn Fein to a 7 percent deficit.

The second policy was that of shattering the Unionist "monolith" in order to get two unionist parties — one a hardline set of intransigents, the other a moderate unionist party that could be persuaded to cooperate with nationalist parties in a power-sharing executive and assembly. That began back in the 1970s with London's wooing of Brian Faulkner. And for a time it succeeded — since the 1970s there has been both a DUP and a UUP to split the once-united unionist vote.

As any analyst could see, however, these two policies were in conflict. If Sinn Fein-IRA would not completely and finally disarm — as it would not — then that slippery refusal would inevitably drive the great majority of the Protestant community to support the party that refused to cooperate with terrorists — namely, the DUP.

London and Dublin were both repeatedly warned of this. Whenever there was a choice, however, they invariably sacrificed every other consideration to the appeasement of Sinn Fein-IRA.

The inevitable result was the victory of the Rev. Ian Paisley's DUP in the election. It now dominates Protestant-unionist politics. The likelihood is that over the next few years it will gradually absorb all the most able young politicians still in the official unionists — and recreate the Unionist "monolith" that began to be broken up in the early 1970s.

WHAT does this mean for the future of the power- sharing agreement? Will Paisley, as the leader of the largest party, be prepared to participate in a power-sharing executive with Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein?

American observers tend to see Paisley in overly simple terms as a fundamentalist bigot. To be sure, he will never win any prizes for religious ecumenism. But as I remember from my days as a young reporter for Dublin's state broadcasting corporation, RTE, he is a sharper and more flexible politician than Washington may realize — and quick on his feet.

I recall one occasion when a colleague of mine "doorstepped" him after a speech with a question that began as follows: "Dr Paisley, just now you made a very provocative speech. You said etc. etc., etc. . . . " "I said nothing of the sort, youg man," bellowed Paisley into the microphone. "Let me smell your breath."

In recent years Paisley — for all his reputation as an extremist — has actually maintained a highly defensible democratic position. He has argued that terrorists should not be treated as born-again democrats until they give up their weapons once and for all. Hence he refused cooperation with Sinn Fein as long as they maintained a private army and an armory. Most unionists rallied to him when London and Dublin repeatedly let down Trimble by not insisting on a full and final IRA disarmament.

LONDON and Dublin now face a conundrum. They cannot continue to appease the IRA and yet find pliable unionists to go along with the politics of power-sharing. They must choose between one or the other.

So far they have always chosen to appease the IRA. After 9/11, however, terrorism is distinctly unfashionable, especially in Washington, and even in Boston. Turning an official blind eye to murder is getting harder.

Nor will Paisley be susceptible to the mixture of flattery and pressure that led both Faulkner and Trimble into suicidal compromises. Not only does he have their examples before his eyes, but he also narrowly escaped a similar fate in the 1970s: An interview conducted by the late (and brilliant) Liam Hourican of RTE tempted him into the indiscretion of saying that he could imagine himself leading the Protesants into a united Ireland. Within hours Faulkner was touring Belfast's hardline Prod areas denouncing Paisley and getting cheered for it.

The Big Fella will never make that mistake again.

John O'Sullivan, former adviser to Lady Thatcher and former editorial page editor of The Post, is editor-at-large of the National Review and a member of Benador Associates.

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