People are now accustomed to hearing dire warnings from Martin McGuinness, Sinn Fein’s chief negotiator at the all-party talks. This week he was in New York and Washington predicting the imminent demise of the Good Friday peace agreement unless the British government implements it forthwith. However, familiarity should not be allowed to breed contempt, no matter how often we have heard the tale told.
There is a very good reason why McGuinness is Sinn Fein’s chief negotiator and it does not necessarily have to do with his negotiating skills, though indeed they may be of a very high order. He is there because of his links to the IRA. All sides know that when you negotiate with McGuinness, you’re talking to someone with influence with the IRA leadership. That is why when he expresses alarm, as he did this week, then it is time to be alarmed.
In 1995, he announced the peace process was over five months before the IRA ended its first cease-fire. Now he is saying that the Good Friday agreement is in need of "major surgery" if it is to be saved. He said that in New York on Monday and doubtless repeated the warning when he met with officials of the National Security Council as scheduled on Tuesday in Washington.
"There is no bluffing," he said as he came out forcefully against "parking" the Good Friday Agreement over the summer. If the government does not implement the agreement, and has no plan "b", "we’re all in big trouble," he added.
Last time, "big trouble" meant the IRA going back to war. This time, it is hard to see how the IRA as presently constituted could do so again. It is likely that McGuinness’s dire predictions have more to do with the consequences for the republican movement if the Good Friday agreement is allowed to wither on the vine. Probably, there would be a split, with disgruntled IRA members joining those who have already abandoned the leadership’s course because they judged that it is incapable of delivering even a watered-down compromise of republican goals.
McGuinness blamed the decommissioning demand for the current mess. He said there was a "serious, sensible way" of disarming. It is time for him to spell it out. Or else the Good Friday agreement will become another headstone in the graveyard of failed Northern Ireland initiatives instead of the milestone the people yearned for.