Northern Irish peace not an example after all

Columnist Gary McKeone explores what peace in Northern Ireland has really accomplished after ten years. "What the Good Friday Agreement has certainly achieved is the near-annihilation of what used to be called constitutional political parties. The [Social Democratic and Labour Party], SDLP, and Ulster Unionists are in the wilderness because violence has been seen to pay. ... [In a BBC documentary] Seamus Mallon of the SDLP quotes [a] 'Undercover Diplomat' as saying of Mallon's party that 'the problem with you guys is that you don't have guns'. ... We should bear this in mind when the deals are done, as they inevitably will be done, with terrorist organisations across the globe. Terror works. Nothing like it to focus the mind. Shoot them coming out of churches; bomb them in restaurants; play trick or treat with a machine-gun in a pub. Stick at it long enough and the next thing you know, you're taking a brief from a civil servant and climbing into a chauffeur-driven car."

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