POLITICS
Omagh was expected, and should have been anticipated
BRUCE ANDERSON
Trifling woes find easy eloquence; great grief is beyond language. We should sympa- thise with the politicians who have to find words to express what no words can express. Mr Blair did as well as possible when he said that if this had happened to his children, he would have been driven mad by grief. But it did not, so instead he should be driven to be tough-minded. It is crucial that on both sides of the Irish bor- der, the forces of law and order do not con- tent themselves with mourning the slain; they must turn tragedy into opportunity. That would also be the best tribute to the dead and maimed of Omagh.
But there has already been a loss of momentum. In his initial statements, the Irish Premier, Bertie Ahern, sounded tough, and hinted at internment without trial. There is a streak of authoritarianism not far below the surface of Irish public life, and at least until the late Sixties, Dublin governments were much readier than Lon- don was to resort to extrajudicial methods of combating terrorism. But Mr Ahern's menacing tones found no echo in White- hall. More worrying still, there is no sign of any contingency planning. Even if not the full horror of it, something like Omagh should have been expected, and anticipat- ed. Plans for joint action should have been prepared; given Dublin's apparent political will, they could have been implemented. By now, all the leaders and most of the activists from the ultra-Provo splinter groups should have been in custody.
As Dublin is always ready to admit when contemplating the possible dangers to its own citizens, normal liberal-democratic legal processes cannot defeat a terrorist campaign in Ireland. The inner purpose of the Ulster peace process was to split the IRA, bringing a majority of its members, however reluctantly, into mainstream poli- tics. At the same time, Dublin and the Northern nationalists would be persuaded to acknowledge the legitimacy of British rule in Ulster (that should not have been necessary, but it was). Once all this hap- pened, it would be much easier to recruit nationalist Ireland to an anti-terrorist coali- tion. Omagh could have been a recruiting sergeant, but the chance has been lost, while some of the terrorists who were responsible have now declared a ceasefire.
This should not be taken seriously. The Provos themselves used to be skilful at shedding a few crocodile, tears when one of their atrocities miscarried and killed the wrong sort of victims. Their sanguinary legatees are merely employing a similar tac- tic. It should not have deterred the authori- ties from moving against them, and the fail- ure to do so will add to the casualty lists.
There are some worrying signs that, on Ulster, the Blair government is beginning to fall below the level of events, and may be suffering from Province fatigue. Mo Mowlam's engagement with Ulster has always been much more superficial than her public image would suggest. That used not to be true of Mr Blair, and he is enti- tled to a lot of credit for the Good Friday Agreement. But if there is one adage which summarises Tony Blair's approach to poli- tics, it is, 'Never reinforce failure, only suc- cess.' His inability to reach a settlement over the Drumcree parade may have dis- couraged him. If so, that is irresponsible. The affairs of Ulster require, not the spin of a soundbite, but implacable persever- ance. Without that, Omagh will be just another of those terrible events after which everyone insisted that a new spirit had been born out of suffering and that nothing would ever be the same again — but it always was.
Omagh is still news; Kenya and Tanzania seem to have passed into history. Mr Blair and Dr Mowlam may have their faults, but in comparison with the Clinton administra- tion they seem like Churchill and Clemen- ceau. It may be that Washington is even now planning a revenge on its foes that will resonate down the generations; it may also be that any thought of revenge is reserved for Kenneth Starr. To date, America's prin- cipal response to a murderous assault on its diplomats has been a withdrawal of person- nel from embassies which are deemed to be vulnerable. What sort of signal does that send to a potential adversary — or to a potential ally in need of reassurance? It would hardly be surprising if any rational observer in the Middle East were now to assess American willpower rather as Mr Soros does the Russian rouble.
Three times this century the British and the Americans have formed an alliance to win a war: the first, the second and the Cold. But only one victory was properly exploited. After 1945, the ruling statesmen did overcome others' reluctance, and insist on learning the lessons of the Twenties and Thirties. They knew that peace depended on collective security. These days, we only have rulers, not statesmen, and the concept of collective security has been entirely for- gotten. George Bush talked about a New World Order, but it was never more than talk, which makes it the most dishonest soundbite of them all.
Most of the Middle East, all the oil-rich states in the Caspian basin, the whole of the rest of the former Soviet Union — vital regions of the world are menaced by chron- ic instability, while terror-genic regimes defy the one superpower which could pro- vide leadership and the reimposition of order. The West ought to be encouraging Russia to reburden itself with quasi-imperi- al responsibilities in Central Asia, and aid- ing it to do so. But most Western aid has merely assisted the Russian gangster capi- talists to plunder the public purse, while discrediting free-market economics in the eyes of an increasing number of their fellow citizens. In the longer term, a weak Russia is an historic impossibility, but the West's failure to think through a comprehensive solution to Russia's problems is likely to ensure that the recreation of Russian strength will take hostile forms. So the probability is that within a very few years, we will be so nostalgic about the lost cer- tainties of the recent past that we will look back on the Cold War rather as Gibbon did on the Empire under Augustus.
I am writing this above a Provencal val- ley, surrounded by the delights of French civilisation and drawing on almost 2,500 years of Western civilisation. Everything is in harmony, as it might appear to be in most of the West. But just beyond the West's complacent valley, the world has never seemed darker or more dangerous.
Previous page
