Tony Blair's 'naivete' risked Northern Ireland peace deal

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

George Bush's administration, alongside the Irish government, viewed Tony Blair as guilty of "complete naivete" in considering handing over the policing of Northern Ireland's Catholic streets to Sinn Féin rather than the police.

White House staff and Irish officials were exasperated that Blair and his Downing Street chief-of-staff, Jonathan Powell, were prepared to allow Sinn Féin to run community restorative justice programmes and effectively establish a parallel justice system, according to a new book on Bush and the Irish peace process.

Blair and Powell's willingness to hand over policing powers almost scuppered the historic deal at St Andrews in 2006 that led to the establishment of the current power-sharing government, senior White House staff told the author.

The cornerstone of that deal was that Sinn Féin had to sign up to fully support the police and judicial system in Northern Ireland before Democratic Unionists would join it in government.

The Bush administration regarded the Blair government's attitude to ongoing IRA crimes and violence as "absolutely insane", historian Mary-Alice Clancy's book claims.

One senior, unnamed member of the Bush administration describes the alternative justice system originally proposed by Sinn Féin in the run up to St Andrews as "autonomous thugocracies" and a "scandal".

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/aug/10/tony-blair-northern-ireland-policing

[DavidDvorkin]

1. This is very curious

Blair has many faults, but I never thought naivete was one of them. And on the other hand, I never thought that a deep understanding of long-running foreign feuds was a hallmark of the Bush gang.

[gratuitous]

6. Yeah, and the Bush administration accusing someone else of being naive?

This has some serious problems with the smell test.

[EXneoCON]

2. The Guardian...

always the friend of the Republican Irishman...:sarcasm:

[ceile]

3. +1

[karynnj]

4. The significant peace deal was signed when Clinton was President

with Mitchell. I don't remember even hearing much about a 2006 deal.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. The 1998 agreement was with the Ulster Unionist Party; when they made it, the DUP became the largest

unionist party, and they didn't join in the agreement until the 2006 deal. Since they had become the largest political party in Northern Ireland, no deal had real force, in terms of running Northern Ireland (as opposed to a cease fire) until then; the crucial part was getting the DUP and Sinn Fein to agree on how to run the police. And from the sound of this, Blair's ideas would never have been agreed by the DUP.

[karynnj]

8. Thanks - I was hoping someone would explain

[harmonicon]

7. am I the only one that sees the painful irony in this story?

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION was against an alternative/parallel just system?! What the fuck did that do several times? What the fuck is gitmo? Jesus Christ... those fuckers had and have no shame whatsoever.