King reaffirms U.S. peace efforts

By Stephen McKinley

In a wide-ranging speech last week, Rep. Peter King, the Long Island Republican, outlined the state of the Northern Irish peace process and stressed the need for a united front between Democrats and Republicans.

Speaking at Rosie O’Grady’s bar in Midtown Manhattan to an audience of Irish American Building Society members, King suggested that Irish America had never been as united on the issue of peace in Northerh Ireland as it is now, and that the commitment made by the new Bush administration to Northern Ireland was evidence that no future president could easily brush it aside aside.

This, King said, was the result of Republicans holding "hearing after hearing" into controversial Northern Irish events over the last 20 to 30 years, but he also paid tribute to the unprecedented commitment to the North shown by President Clinton, including his three presidential visits within five years. "This is the one issue in Washington over which there has never been any acrimony," King said.

However, the congressman warned that he believed the British government had slowed implementation of the Good Friday agreement and that there is a need to maintain pressure, even with a decisive British general election looming. "We need to speak with one voice," King said.

He outlined some of the dangers facing the process in the next few months, in particular from anti-agreement forces such as the Democratic Unionist Party. King also pointed to what he saw as a lack of a long-term plan by Northern Irish First Minister David Trimble, whom he said operated on a short-term basis, without seeing the bigger picture.

"Trimble has never conditioned his people for the changes ahead," he said. "He has also allowed Ian Paisley to frame much of the debate within Unionism."

King admitted that his own position in the process may be a sideline one — his backing of Sen. John McCain against now President George W. Bush during the Republican presidential primary probably did not endear him to the new administration, but his tone was entirely conciliatory.

"I think Bush is doing a good job," King said, pointing to the president’s speech on March 16 at the White House, but added that Republicans and Democrats should stand together.

"His words go a long way to locking him into this process, and it sends a message to Unionists that U.S. involvement is, if anything, even stronger than before," King said. "But he has yet to be tested.

Afterward, King said that he hoped that in the months and years ahead, contact between Irish America and Northern Ireland would extend beyond nationalist and Catholic politicians, to include unionists and loyalists, "with whom we have a lot of contact already."