#haass

If Ms Villiers’ statement represents the final British word, then it is really a veto on Dr Haass’s work. He might as well return now to East 68th Street and resume his job as president of the Council on Foreign Relations for the logic of the NI Secretary’s declaration is that the British regard themselves still at “war” with the IRA and do not wish to see the past properly dealt with. Her statement is the antithesis of what the peace process means. Here is the reasoning for that claim. The IRA fought its “war” against the British mostly by killing or trying to kill soldiers and policemen and by planting bombs to cause commercial damage while the British fought the IRA mostly by trying to put its leaders and activists behind bars. As a result of the peace process the IRA has stopped killing and bombing so its “war” is over; but the British still want to put IRA members in jail. Ergo, the British are still fighting the “war”, or reserve the right to do so, and as long as this is so who could blame IRA leaders and activists for not wanting to come forward to tell the truth about the past and their part in it? As for British security force responsibility for the three decades and more of violence the record of unlawful killings, collusion, torture of detainees, intimidation of defense lawyers and repeated failure to properly investigate killings carried out by its forces speaks for itself. As Amnesty International put it: “Repeated failures by the UK government to hold security forces to account…..contributed to an environment of impunity and undermined the rule of law.” In other words the British helped to fuel the violence. If the British government insists that any mechanism for dealing with the past must involve pursuing and jailing alleged paramilitary wrongdoers from the Troubles period while its own misdeeds escape scrutiny then Northern Ireland will never be able to put its past behind it and Dr Haass’s mission will fail.

The ‘fresh start’ agreement is such a total defeat for Sinn Fein that it is positively bizarre. Even as a unionist, I find it unnerving.

"But I didn't ask for flags to be flying where I live" - most people

It was not so much about a lone Tunisian fruit seller whose suicide launched a regional revolt or about social media as an organizational tool for revolution. The honest answer is that historical change occurs when sparks come into contact with kindling. World War I would have erupted absent the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand, and the Vietnam War would no doubt have started absent an incident in the Gulf of Tonkin. Any spark will do when there is enough dry wood. After decades of misrule, the Middle East was ripe for change. The more relevant question is less "Why did it happen?" than "So what?" What difference will all these departures make? Looking back, 2011 was a year of great transition — but not of transformation.