Editorial Farewell party

There was a time, before President Clinton, when the St. Patrick’s Day festivities at the White House were merely that — a heady dose of shillelaghs and shenanigans. But the president’s deep engagement in the Northern Ireland problem has meant that what happens there on March 17 has acquired a serious political dimension.

This year, in the wake of the suspension of the North’s power-sharing government, the pilgrimage of Irish and British politicians to the White House takes on a particular significance. A bold political experiment with which Clinton has been closely associated for six years has suffered what is perhaps its most serious setback. Presidents do not like to be linked to failures, especially in the realm of foreign policy. It diminishes the prestige of the office and it looks bad. And to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, only superficial people think appearances are not important. He might have added: especially in politics.

So it is no surprise that President Clinton has once more turned his attention to the latest debacle, dispatching an adviser to prepare the ground for another attempt at getting all sides to meet the responsibilities they accepted, on behalf of the Irish people, when they signed up to the Good Friday agreement and saw it ratified by the vast majority. On St Patrick’s Day, he will speak on the issue to try to encourage those who are still refusing to allow the vision of peace, justice and equality contained in the agreement to come to fruition.

It would have been better had he been able to use the occasion as a sort of valedictory celebrating the achievement of that vision. After all, it is the last St. Patrick’s Day that he will be able to do so as president. That alone should focus the minds of the North’s politicians who will be listening to his words. They might ask themselves, when, if ever again, will they be able to resort to the influence and high office of the U.S. president to help them sort out their sectarian squabbles?

No doubt whoever succeeds Clinton will now take account of the Northern Ireland issue, to a greater or lesser extent. But it is safe to predict that his successor will not bring to the problem the high level of attention and grasp of detail that Clinton has displayed from the start and that so impressed those who were close to the peace process.

It will be a shame if the opportunity is wasted. It may well be. The noises coming out of the North are far from hopeful. The constituencies of the two main protagonists in the dispute over weapons decommissioning, the Ulster Unionist Party and Sinn Fein, are still contracting and hardening. It looks like they will not be budged, presidential prestige or no presidential prestige.

So, it appears all too likely that the Clinton administration will pass into history, leaving in its wake the dreary steeples of the North, its people still divided and at odds with one another. Yet this should not, in the end, diminish Clinton’s role and his achievement. By the very fact he put the North on the U.S. agenda and kept it there, he made a real difference. He helped strengthen the foundation for the whole peace process. For that he will always deserve the thanks of the Irish people.