February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
But what might have been a time for chest thumping on the part of Irish political leaders has taken on an air of distinct uncertainty.
Relations between the Dublin government and some of its closest friends and neighbors are not as rosy as they might be.
When it comes to the affairs of the broader world, Ireland doesn’t slip under the radar in the way it so often did when it was just an easy going island on the edge of Europe.
The republic is expected to step up to the plate in all manner of ways these days, be they political, economic and even military.
Stepping up pleases some, displeases others. And sometimes everybody seems to have it in for you.
History may well decide that the first six months of 2004 was one such time for a polity that is today attempting to find a balance between the sometimes competing gravitational pulls of Europe and the United States.
Right now that little trick is looking like the kids’ game called “the splits.”
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern recently acknowledged, in an Irish Times interview, that other EU states now saw Ireland as among the “less enthusiastic members” of the union.
This against the backdrop of a year, 2003, in which Dublin’s relationship with Washington became strained to the point that not even a supplicant bowl of shamrock could mask over.
Ahern, in the interview, agreed with the view that there was a perception in EU capitals that the Irish government was no longer at the center of the great European project, but rather closer to the fringe of it.
Ahern’s comments, the Times opined, “acknowledge a growing perception among EU partners that Ireland’s initial rejection of the Nice Treaty, its ministers’ occasional extolling of US economic values over those of Europe, the Government’s alliance with the UK against the abolition of the national veto in relation to any issues concerning tax, and a number of other incidents indicate a move from the enthusiastic core to the skeptical edge of the European integration project.”
The Irish, decidedly pro-Europe in the days when Brussels behaved like a bottomless automated teller machine, would now appear to be Euroskeptics at a moment when the EU is dramatically enlarging, and Dublin is expected to be more of a contributor to the union’s central funds.
Throw in the exposure of the presidency and the next six months looks like being an interesting time indeed.
In the middle of the presidency, Ahern will be expected in Washington for the annual gab over the shamrock. Keen observers will be on alert to see how the meeting between the taoiseach and President Bush compares to last year’s.
That White House encounter came on the eve of the invasion of Iraq and during it a clear divergence of view emerged between Ahern and Bush on the issue of how to go about bringing Saddam Hussein to heel.
Ahern hoisted the flag on behalf of Ireland’s longstanding preference for multilateral action under a United Nations mandate.
Bush had moved well beyond that position and was only hours away from launching an invasion that would not include the vast majority of U.N. members.
This divergence of view was manageable, however. It had been evident for years and was soon swallowed up in the overwhelming news of the war itself.
Also a surmountable fence was the announcement, at the beginning of July, of the suspension of U.S. military aid to Ireland.
Again, however, the divergence coincided with the visit of a top Irish government figure.
The suspension – more symbolic than substantial because Ireland was never a significant recipient of U.S. military aid anyway – was as a result of Irish backing of the new Netherlands-based International Criminal Court.
The U.S. refused to sign the treaty on the grounds that the court might be used by some countries to bring bogus war crimes charges against U.S. soldiers.
Some countries signed bilateral exemption agreements with the U.S. that would have precluded charges against U.S. military personnel. Ireland did not sign such a document.
A few days after Ireland was listed among the 35 countries dropped from Washington’s military aid list, foreign minister Brian Cowen arrived in Washington for a meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney.
Cowen pledged Irish support for Washington’s efforts to rid Iraq of all remnants of Saddam Hussein’s regime but stopped short of signaling possible Irish troop deployment in Iraq, even under a United Nations flag.
Therein lay the seed for what transpired early last month When Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, signed a memo listing the countries eligible to apply for contract work in Iraq, payable with $18.6 million in U.S. taxpayer money.
The memo, according to Michael Eliot of Time magazine, fleshed out who was eligible to rebuild Iraq’s infrastructure and rebuild its army. Wrote Eliot: “Only firms from supportive nations can bid, which rules out those from antiwar countries like Russia, Germany, France and Canada.”
And Ireland too, because Dublin was not seen as being supportive enough by the Pentagon, this despite Dublin’s earlier voiced support for the forced ouster of Saddam.
Countries that were seen as being sufficiently supportive included Tonga, Rwanda and Mongolia.
Funny, but “IF” can’t quite recall squadrons of Tongan tanks racing across the Iraqi desert last spring, or thousands of U.S. troops stopping off in Rwanda en route to the war zone, as they did in Shannon.
And as for Mongolia, homeland of the legendary warlord Genghis McCann?
If the new jazzed-up Ireland might seem stretched this way and that over its more demanding foreign policy commitments, the prospect of six months of exposure atop the EU pyramid will make for occurrences worth close study.
And as for the U.S.? Well, it depends on whether you’re talking to the left hand or right hand.
The military aid suspension list of July was put out by the State Department and included countries that last month’s Pentagon list saw as being supportive enough to participate in the reconstruction of Iraq.
Colombia and Lithuania, for example, show up both lists, a conjunction that would appear to be more than a little contradictory in foreign policy terms.
Ireland, by contrast is on the outs with both State and Defense so at least there is some consistency here.
This year’s shamrock summit could be an edgy one indeed.