The Northern Ireland peace process is in a bad way. From the outset, the Good Friday agreement has been holed below water over arms decommissioning by terrorists, particularly the IRA. For that the British and Irish governments are to blame. They made promises that they cannot deliver. They gave the unionists an undertaking that decommissioning would take place. But the IRA deny any timetable was set, and stick to the line that they will decommission only when all the guns are out of Northern Ireland. By that they mean when British troops finally leave. In other words, their threat of violence will only end when Northern Ireland ceases to be part of the UK.
That is not what the unionists were led to believe would happen. There are two irreconcilables at play. So far, the Good Friday agreement has managed to stumble along because London and Dublin continued to hold out the possibility that decommissioning would start at some point in the near future. But they are in no position to force the IRA to act. All they can do is mouth encouragement. Until now, the official Unionist party stayed in the game, partly because the agreement gave it the chance to get back into the business of running Northern Ireland, albeit in partnership with nationalists and republicans, and partly because there was no other game in town. Sadly, as in a chess match, it has reached stalemate. The existence of a deception, admittedly well-intentioned, at the heart of the Good Friday agreement is now too visible to be ignored. The point has been reached where either the Unionists or the IRA have to make a serious concession — the former to say that they will live without decommissioning, or the latter to start handing in weapons; but neither is prepared, let alone able to do so.
The IRA’s decision to withdraw its offer to put its weapons beyond use muddies the water, although it will not do long-term damage — because it will hardly be its last word on the matter. Its explanation — anger at unionists for rejecting its arms scheme and demanding instead a decommissioning timetable, and at the UK for its muddled 24-hour suspension of Northern Ireland’s power-sharing institutions — does not hold water. The IRA’s tactic is to shunt the Blair government, step by step, toward accepting Irish reunification, so that it, in turn, pressurizes the unionists, again a step at a time, toward the same goal. It is not going to stop the process now. It plays a very shrewd game: one step back, two steps forward, constantly setting the agenda. The withdrawal of the arms proposal was designed to panic London into another concession. It will work. The Blair government has effectively decided that it will do anything to end IRA terrorism. Not all at once, of course; that would be too obvious a surrender.
In a short period of time, the IRA will say that it has changed its mind and will do something to show good intent on weapons control. There will be nothing concrete, of course; no timetable for decommissioning. But it and its supporters will demand real concessions in return. And London and Dublin will be keen to represent this as a step forward. The danger is that there is a line beyond which it is impossible to push the unionists. If that line has been reached, it would be a good idea to stop pushing.
