northern ireland: treating terrorists as statesmen

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Northern Ireland: Treating Terrorists as StatesmenAuthor(s): Jonathan StevensonSource: Foreign Policy, No. 105 (Winter, 1996-1997), pp. 125-140Published by: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLCStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1148978 .

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Northern Ireland:

Treating Terrorists

as Statesmen by Jonathan Stevenson

n the post-Cold War era, low-intensity conflicts involving movements that commit acts of brutal terror constitute a significant portion of the world's strife. Apparently aware of this problem, the Clinton administration has shown an unprecedented willingness to treat the leaders of these

terrorist movements as virtual statesmen in the hope of converting them into nonviolent politicians. Washington helped to steer Nelson Mandela and Yasir Arafat into peaceful civil government in South Africa and the Middle East. And despite some large bumps in the road (particularly in the Middle East), both regions have enjoyed greater political stability in large part because Washington has lent political credibility to former terrorists.

Perhaps inspired by these earlier successes, beginning in January 1994, President Bill Clinton effectively opened diplomatic relations with Gerry Adams, the president of Northern Ireland's Sinn Fein, which is the political arm of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). During its 25-year guerrilla conflict, popularly known as "the troubles," the IRA has killed nearly 1,800 people-a third of them in- nocent civilians-in the name of Irish nationalism. The IRA, and

JONATHAN STEVENSON, a lawyer and journalist, has lived in Belfast since 1993 and has written several articles on politics in Northern Ireland for the New Republic and the Wall Street Journal. His book on Northern Irish terrorists, We Wrecked the Place, was published in 1996 by The Free Press.

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most of Northern Ireland's Catholic minority, share the conviction that the province should become part of the Republic of Ireland. The 60 per cent of Northern Ireland's population that is Protestant, however, has resisted the IRA in defense of unionism-the determination that the province should remain part of the United Kingdom. In its efforts to maintain the union, the Protestant majority is supported legally by British troops and illegally by Protestant terrorist organizations-the so-called loyalist paramilitaries. For two years, the Clin- ton administration accorded Adams the status of a legitimate foreign leader. That status helped to produce an IRA ceasefire on August 31, 1994, which was followed by a loyalist ceasefire on October 13 of that year.

After 17 months of peace, the IRA announced the end of its ceasefire on February 9, 1996. Hours later, the IRA detonated a 1,500- pound fertilizer bomb at the Canary Wharf business complex in east London, killing two storekeepers, injuring more than 100 civilians, and damaging property valued at $140 million.

The Clinton administration's recent initiative in Northern Ire- land, then, has thus far failed to measure up to its efforts in South Africa and the Middle East. There are palpable reasons for this. These reasons do not, however, lead to the conclusion that Clinton's decision to engage Adams was either wrong or futile.

THE COURTSHIP OF GERRY ADAMS

With urging from the Irish lobby in the United States and in- fluential Irish-American politicians, Clinton first granted Adams a visa in January 1994, seven months before the IRA

declared its ceasefire. Previous U.S. administrations had denied the Sinn Fein president admission to the United States because of his con- nection to the IRA.

Adams has been president of Sinn Fein since 1983. Unlike the IRA, Sinn Fein is not proscribed under the laws of the United King- dom. It is, therefore, a viable political party. Indeed, since it began standing for elections in Northern Ireland in 1981, it has drawn, on average, about 10 per cent of the vote. It is generally accepted, however, that there is no rigid executive or administrative separation between Sinn Fein and the IRA. Both Adams and Sinn Fein's vice president, Martin McGuinness, were ranking members of the IRA in the

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ILLUSTRATION BY JOSEPH AZAR

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1970s. Both men were also members of the seven-man IRA Army Council while at the same time serving as officers of Sinn Fein. The IRA and Sinn Fein both openly advocate Irish republicanism, which sanctions any means necessary to unify Ireland into a single independent state-including the use of terror.

Thus, when Clinton permitted Adams to raise funds in the United States following the 1994 IRA ceasefire and then invited him to the White House for a St. Patrick's Day celebration, there was an uproar of protest from several quarters. The British government took particular exception to Adams's elevated status. As St. Patrick's Day approached, British prime minister John Major did not return Clin- ton's telephone calls for two weeks. When Major finally did call back, he implored Washington not to interfere, implying that Clinton was derogating the long-standing "special relationship" between Britain and the United States. With great media fanfare, Adams showed up at the White House for the St. Patrick's Day luncheon. Leading Ul- ster unionist politicians declined their invitations.

The Clinton administration learned from its apparent gaffe. Af- ter St. Patrick's Day 1995, White House involvement in the Irish problem became functionally neutral. High-level U.S. officials invited and received the province's mainstream unionist politicians as well as Adams.

Despite high hopes and strong support from Washington, the peace process stalled.The British government considered it unacceptable to goad unionists into all-party negotiations unless the iRA (and the loyalist terrorists) agreed to a degree of disarmament in advance. The IRA, through Adams, refused. Adams further warned that, absent political progress, the "hard men" of the IRA could well be moved to violence. This tenuous stalemate persisted on the eve of Clinton's heralded No- vember 30, 1995, state visit to Northern Ireland.

At the last minute, Dublin-which is accorded a consultative role in the governance of Northern Ireland under the Anglo-Irish Agree- ment of 1985-and London agreed to establish an independent disarmament commission chaired by former U.S. senator George Mitchell. The appointment of the commission did not resolve the weapons problem, but it did strike a salutary note. Clinton's visit went forward as planned, and, for 24 hours, he charmed the Northern Irish, and they charmed him.

Although unionists remained wary of American interference, the

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British government revised its opinion of Washington's involvement: Clinton's support for Adams's experiment with nonviolent politics had usefully coopted the Irish republican. Because Adams considered this "international dimension" indispensable to fortifying the nationalists' minority position in Northern Ireland, and because the price of U.S. backing was continued iRA forbearance, the British government reasoned that Adams would discourage the IRA's return to violence. U.S. involvement, therefore, served the short-term purposes of both the British and the unionists.

Addressing longer-term problems, the Mitchell commission, in a report released on January 24, 1996, presented a means of getting around the disarmament logjam. Under the proposed "twin-track" approach, the arms issue would be decoupled from a political settlement, and the two would proceed on parallel tracks rather than in series. Both sides received the report enthusiastically, but each in- terpreted it differently. The British accepted the twin-track recom- mendation but also required that elections be held in Northern Ire- land to confirm the strength of the political parties' respective mandates. Nationalists viewed elections as a new prerequisite to all- party negotiations, and therefore inconsistent with the recommen- dation. But the elections requirement appeared to be nonnegotiable. To some republicans, the affirmation of the nationalists' minority status was intolerable. Less than three weeks after the Mitchell report was promulgated, the iRA bombed Canary Wharf.

Adams was clearly disheartened by the attack and probably did not initiate or even sanction it. But British acquiescence to the American role rested on the conventional wisdom that Adams exer- cised plenary control over the entire republican movement-the iRA as well as Sinn Fein. Canary Wharf abruptly destroyed this shibbo- leth. Adams refused to condemn the iRA or to acknowledge publicly any split in the republican movement. The White House promptly withdrew Adams's fundraising privileges and his cabinet-level access. Treating a terrorist as a statesman had ostensibly failed.

TERRORISM AND PRAGMATISM

Terrorism can generally be defined as the use of violence, with-

out overt state support or sanction, to force a target (directly or indirectly) to comply with a political objective. The Pales-

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tine Liberation Organization (PLO), the African National Congress (ANC), and the IRA all have practiced terrorism so defined. Because the PLO and the ANC have been transformed into legitimate civil in- stitutions through political grooming, it has become an accepted tenet of diplomatic pragmatism that terrorists should be courted, though cautiously, when the alternative would be to face further violence. This is a realistic viewpoint. That said, some terrorist groups must be approached with greater skepticism than others. There are salient and important differences between Irish republicanism, on the one hand, and the antiapartheid and Palestinian liberation movements, on the other.

The PLO fought on behalf of a population that had been ousted from its homeland, and the organization plainly enjoyed the support of the majority of that population. The ANC also represented an over- whelming popular majority. Even so, Palestinians in the occupied territories and South African blacks were denied the right to vote in national elections. And until the recent political breakthroughs, neither the PLO nor the ANC was permitted to put candidates up for election. In contrast, Catholics were neither forced to leave Northern Ireland when the island was partitioned in 1921 nor have they ever been denied the vote. The northern Catholics do not constitute a provincial majority. Moreover, most of them do not support the republican armed struggle. The majority of Catholics back John Hume's Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), which comprises nonviolent, "constitutional" nationalists and not republicans. The SDLP is only the second-most-popular party in Northern Ireland, yet it consis- tently receives more than twice as many votes as Sinn Fein. Sinn Fein candidates have been allowed to stand for election since 1974, constitutional nationalists since 1921.

These distinctions suggest that terrorists can fall into two general categories. First, there are terrorists who have the support of a majority of the group whom they purport to represent. It is their method, and not their mandate, that is in question. Both the ANC and the PLO fall into this category. So, for example, do the rebels of East Timor. Second, there are terrorists who do not even have the backing of the majority of the people for whom they claim to act. Their mandate is as dubious as their method. The IRA falls into this category, as do Spain's Basque separatists.

"Category-two" terrorists are fundamentally undemocratic; "cat-

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egory-one" terrorists only circumstantially so. It is, prima facie, more acceptable and less risky for Washington to cater to category-one terrorists than to category-two terrorists.

There are, however, valid political reasons for negotiating with both categories of terrorist. Obviously, in courting Adams the president was trying to win a few points with Irish America. Just as obviously, though, he was attempting to reestablish the White House as an organ of statesmanship. The latter constitutes a prime diplomatic objective in itself. In addition, insofar as courting terrorists promotes local peace, such an initiative confers potentially substantial bene- fits. Among these are regional political stability and improved bilat- eral relations between Washington and the terrorist group's host government. Moreover, in light of the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings, Washington's attempt to arbitrate terrorist grievances serves a broad U.S. interest in discouraging terrorism as a means of settling political disputes.

Any hard-and-fast rule proscribing dialogue with the perpetrators of political violence would be not merely inadvisable but foolhardy. When presidents consider establishing a relationship with terrorists, they should consider two important issues: how much they should expect and require from terrorists and the risks to U.S. interests. The paramount rule of thumb is that they should expect far less from category-two terrorists than from category-one terrorists.

Courting Terrorists: What To Expect

Nobody in the White House should ever have believed that Adams had the capacity to deliver peace as had Mandela and Arafat. Unlike the Palestinian and South African leaders, Adams lacks the political mandate to achieve without violence his organization's objective-namely, a united Ireland. As a category-two terrorist group, the iRA depends heavily on the threat of violence to reach its goal. The ceasefire was not a statement of principle renouncing violence. Instead, it was a tactical maneuver to determine whether nonviolent politics might hold more reward than the preceding 25 years of low-intensity terrorism, which yielded no territorial or constitutional dividends to the republican movement. The ceasefire could have been sold to the IRA rank and file only on a trial basis. Thus, the IRA refused to give up any weapons prior to a

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political settlement and, ipso facto, never relinquished the threat of violence.

Most British commentators proclaimed the Canary Wharf bombing to be an act of political nihilism. While accurate, the label is un- enlightening. At their core, terrorists are in the business of disrupt- ing normal political discourse. For terrorist organizations with negligible popular mandates, like the IRA, nihilism as such is the pre- sumptive course of action. As a rule, such a terrorist group can be expected to hold to a tactic of forbearance only if that group's political opposition makes concessions that depart dramatically from the status quo.

In the IRA's case, the only satisfactory concession would have been an agreement by the British government to compromise on its long- standing position that the Northern Irish majority must consent to any constitutional changes. The British-Irish blueprint for a political settlement, published in February 1995, already diluted the effect of the consent requirement by proposing joint cross-border administrative bodies. The unionists' reaction to this "framework document," however, was vitriolic. Consent has been required by every relevant Anglo-Irish treaty and act of Parliament since the partition of the island in 1921 and has been accepted by vast electoral majorities in both Northern Ireland and the Republic. The British government appeared to impose Northern Irish elections to mollify the unionists, dashing republican hopes that Whitehall itself might prod unionists closer to Irish unity.

Though disappointing, the Canary Wharf bombing should not have been considered a surprise. And Canary Wharf's message is clear: When a category-two terrorist organization cannot get its way by means other than violence, it should be expected to resume bloodshed.

Courting Terrorists: What To Require

Washington undertook the courtship of Adams on the basis of two factors. First, he had hinted that he would try to bring about an iRA ceasefire. Second, he explicitly valued and sought Clinton's good offices in producing a political settlement of the Northern Irish problem. Indeed, the United States should always require that both factors be present-a clear indication that the terrorist group intends to end violence and that it wants American help in doing

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so-before agreeing to furnish any diplomatic assistance to a terrorist organization.

Were Washington to offer its help without a substantial assurance of nonviolence from the terrorists, it would run an unacceptable risk of appearing both meddlesome and unprincipled to the terrorists' host government-in the IRA's case, Britain-should no ceasefire ever materialize.

Gratuitous overtures to terrorist groups will seldom yield positive results. Such groups do not value acceptance into the political mainstream as an end in itself; otherwise, they would not be terrorist groups. Nor are they generally susceptible to any modification of their political agenda by way of external suasion; if they were, they would be legitimate opposition parties. And terrorists need to feel as if they command the initiative. On balance, the United States faces a for- midable risk of appearing foolish as a result of initiating relations with a hardened terrorist group.

In the short term, Washington's courtship of Adams paid off. It helped to produce a 17-month ceasefire and probably saved many lives. Most importantly, the White House's involvement helped to create a different political climate in Northern Ireland. The people of the province were flattered by Clinton's "mission of peace" in No- vember and embarrassed by the Canary Wharf bombing barely two months later. Gritty determination to forge peace has firmly replaced the grim resignation with which the Northern Irish endured 25 years of guerrilla conflict. As a consequence, political leaders have been able to resuscitate a peace process that in years past surely would have collapsed.

In the bargain, this newfound Northern Irish resolve appears to have reduced the IRA's appetite for carnage. The sporadic, error-laden character of the IRA's post-Canary Wharf, mainland bombing campaign suggests something short of unanimous support for the IRA's military resurgence inside the republican movement. Loyalist terrorist groups' unexpected restraint in maintaining their ceasefire has de- prived the iRA of a convenient pretext for resuming terrorism in Northern Ireland itself. The very elections that Sinn Fein had ob- jected to before Canary Wharf were ultimately held with its participation. These incomplete and tentative results are nonetheless positive, and they provide some evidence that Washington's courtship has made Sinn Fein reluctant to revert to its traditional role as a mere

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beard for the iRA. It is, of course, distasteful and counterintuitive for a government

to extend an enabling hand to a criminal organization simply because it is no longer shooting people. But the fact remains that a government with the requisite influence should generally want to keep in- nocent people safe. And the terrorists did not get something for noth- ing; there was a quid pro quo. Washington was able to work toward a more permanent peace without appearing to dance to terrorist gun- fire as long as a truce remained in place and U.S. involvement remained firmly contingent on the IRA's continued forbearance from violence.

Whatever his original motivations, Clinton helped to bring peace in Northern Ireland

perceptibly closer without burning old and

treasured bridges with London.

The iRA was in technical breach of its ceasefire on several occa- sions and in one incident killed a postal worker. But it makes little sense to require a terrorist group to comply perfectly with a ceasefire. Command and control is notoriously attenuated and fractious in guerrilla organizations like the iRA. Aberrational violations should have been expected, duly condemned, and finally ignored. Speaking for the IRA during the ceasefire, Sinn Fein claimed that any acts of overt political terrorism were unsanctioned. While it would have been naive to take Sinn Fein at its word, these technical violations were isolated instances. Canary Wharf, by contrast, followed an official announcement ending the iRA ceasefire, which, from Wash- ington's point of view, rendered all subsequent IRA attacks inexcus- able and presumptively sanctioned.

There were other, dicier problems. Even after the ceasefires, the IRA and the loyalist paramilitaries served as self-appointed commu- nity police. Using baseball bats or iron bars, they beat and sometimes maimed petty criminals whom they judged to be "antisocial." The IRA also executed several suspected drug dealers. Most of these at-

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tacks were sanctioned by the terrorist organizations whose members committed them. On the other hand, their rough justice was not true political terrorism, as it was directed against members of the groups' own communities for reasons unrelated to the groups' official political objectives. Accordingly, it would have been inappropriate for Washington to respond by abandoning the peace process.

At the same time, it was intolerably awkward for the U.S. government to turn a blind eye to vigilante murder. Washington's first resort was-and generally should be-condemnatory rhetoric. To an extent, it worked. The drug-related executions stopped just before the Mitchell report was released in late January 1996. Beatings persisted, however. In retrospect, the United States could have done more to prevent these violent acts. Direct pressure on the republican leader- ship-for example, suspending Sinn Fein's permission to raise funds in the United States-would have been a suitable and, most likely, effective response.

As it happened, Canary Wharf rendered the issue moot. In the Middle East conflagration last September, Arafat could plead Israeli confrontation as an extenuating circumstance of the Palestinian police force's aggression. Adams had no credible excuse for Canary Wharf. Thus, the question Clinton faced was how to react once the putative quid pro quo had unequivocally ceased to exist. As a matter of both equity and political prudence, Clinton would have been jus- tified in cutting off all communication with Adams and disassociat- ing himself from Northern Ireland. Not doing so was the more hope- ful, more pragmatic, and more statesmanlike course of action.

Resorting to the complete diplomatic isolation of a recidivist terrorist organization would be equivalent to throwing the baby-in this case, an unprecedented resolve for peace-out with the bath water. Yet some meaningful punishment is required to signal to terrorists that retrogression will be costly. Thus, it was appropriate for Wash- ington to deprive Sinn Fein of the most substantive and conspicuous trappings of acceptance-Adams's U.S. fundraising privileges (on his coattails, Sinn Fein netted more than $1 million in 1995), executive audiences, and St. Patrick's Day lunches-without severing low-level lines of diplomatic communication.

To the dismay of most unionists and some British ministers, this meant allowing Adams to keep his visa and, indeed, his hypocrisy. In the wake of such a treacherous, small-minded deed as the Canary

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Wharf bombing, it was hard to swallow Adams's sonorous inculpa- tions of the British government and his tortured refusals to condemn the perpetrators. It is important, however, to bear in mind Adams's own political exigencies. He appeared to have lost control of his most dangerous constituents and needed the rhetorical leeway to placate them. To his credit, Clinton recognized this reality. By suppressing an understandable urge to desert Adams, the president helped to preserve Adams's political value to the peace process.

Washington, by continuing to embrace Sinn Fein, is trying to coax the IRA gradually away from violence. This effort requires rais- ing the cost of each successive transgression. If the price to Sinn Fein of regaining its bona fides is merely a return to the status quo, then the only dynamic established is a potentially endless seesawing between near-war and fragile peace. This serves no useful purpose.

Post-Canary Wharf, Sinn Fein had to tender additional assur- ances. Accordingly, Dublin, London, and Washington closed ranks. They agreed that, regardless of Sinn Fein's vaunted democratic mandate, to be admitted to multiparty talks, it must not only secure a new IRA ceasefire but also commit itself to exclusively peaceful means- something it had refused to do before Canary Wharf. In the abstract, excluding Sinn Fein seemed undemocratic. But under the circum- stances, allowing the IRA's alter ego to retain its place at the negotiating table after the bombing would have effectively accorded the IRA impunity for its violent relapse. In any case, it is not Washington's immediate concern-or indeed its diplomatic prerogative-to ensure pristine democracy in Northern Ireland. Rather, the U.S. mission is to use its good offices to save the peace process.

DIPLOMATIC IMPERATIVES

ashington plainly would be out of line in importuning Lon- don to enter into negotiations with Sinn Fein in the ab- sence of an IRA ceasefire (though it could suggest that

course as a means of producing a ceasefire). This guideline applies to any situation in which a government mediates between terrorists and a host country.

What can Washington properly ask of an unwilling sovereign host of terrorists in order to try to resolve an underlying political dispute? This quandary might be called the "kibitzing problem." Respect for a

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recognized sovereign nation's right of noninterference imposes important constraints on American involvement with terrorist representatives. Washington may, of course, consider that a terrorist insurgency's political claims have some merit on historical grounds. This situation is arguably the case with the IRA's complaints, and Washington was overtly sympathetic to both the PLO's and the ANC's grievances, even if it condemned their methods. The kibitzing problem embodies the knotty conflict between the right of noninterference and the right of self-determination, both of which are enshrined in the United Nations Charter.

Even when it is swayed by ideological sympathies, Washington must condemn terrorist tactics and seek an end to violence by en- couraging orderly negotiations. While a president need not consider himself diplomatically forbidden from supporting an insurgency's cause, international law unequivocally forbids him from helping that insurgency wage violence unless, at the very least, the host regime is demonstrably undemocratic. Using such a criterion, Washington's ultimate support for the ANC was an easy proposition, and its ultimate support for the PLO was at least defensible. But even attenuated support for the IRA is a much harder sell. The unionist government in Northern Ireland systematically marginalized Catholic nationalists from 1921 to 1972, but Westminster's direct rule of the province since then has been painstakingly democratic. Sinn Fein routinely justifies the IRA's armed campaign as an assertion of the Irish people's right of self-determination. Such a claim is repudiated, however, by the party's paltry 10 per cent mandate in Northern Ireland and its mi- croscopic 2 per cent mandate in the Irish Republic.

Diplomatic assistance to any political movement demanding self- determination should be circumspect, and to a category-two terrorist group all the more so. There is a persuasive argument that, in all but the most egregious cases, the wholesale success of self-determination movements would harm the institution of democracy more than help it. The ANC in South Africa and the PLO in the occupied territories have been exceptions to this rule. The IRA in Northern Ireland, as evidenced by Sinn Fein's insignificant mandate, is not an exception thus far.

Generally, then, it should be considered diplomatically permissi- ble for Washington to urge another nation to allow terrorist representatives political participation in accordance with the strength of

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their electoral mandate. Thus, the Clinton administration was diplomatically correct when it promoted Sinn Fein's inclusion in all-party talks before Canary Wharf and in the provincial elections thereafter. But because Sinn Fein's mandate is so small, it would have been im- proper for Washington even to suggest that London negotiate on the principle of Northern Irish majority consent to Irish unification.

A U.S. president courting a putatively reformed terrorist should never allow a concerted violent backslide to go unpunished.

In determining whether to offer its services as a diplomatic bro- ker to a terrorist group, Washington has to calculate how much political will can be mustered to resolve the conflict. Yitzhak Rabin and E W. de Klerk were each willing to change the status quo, and Man- dela and Arafat were prepared to meet them halfway. In Northern Ireland, the situation is less negotiable. Ulster unionists will move only incrementally from the status quo, the British government by and large must respect their wishes, and Adams will not concede the inviolability of the principle of Northern Irish consent. Yet the political stakes in Northern Ireland frankly have never been as high as they were in South Africa or the Middle East. Adams is an inher- ently less stable political protg6e than Mandela or Arafat, peace in Northern Ireland is substantively less important to the United States than is peace in the Middle East, and justice for Northern Irish Catholics is politically less momentous than was justice for South African blacks. These realities made Washington's involvement in the Middle East and South Africa more supportable, and they made the risk of failure in Northern Ireland less consequential.

To forestall unfortunate public friction, before starting any diplomatic dalliance with a terrorist organization, the White House would do well to discreetly consult and sound out the sovereign host. Such early contact with a sovereign host should be clandestine, otherwise the terrorist representatives might shy away from an American initiative for fear of collusion by the two governments.

Finally, Washington should be continuously sensitive to a host

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government's attitude toward American involvement. In a crisis, the U.S. government must heighten that sensitivity. After Canary Wharf, Washington and London orchestrated their steps with far greater del- icacy, each determining that Adams needed open diplomatic chan- nels in order for the peace process to survive. Thus, whereas the 1995 issuance of Adams's U.S. visa created a great deal of friction, the issuance of his 1996 visa produced relatively little, even though it came at an even more trying time for the British government.

THE NEED FOR TACTICAL DIPLOMACY

At the end of the day, the U.S. government controlled its im- pulses toward Northern Ireland admirably well. After the St. Patrick's Day fracas in 1995, Washington stayed judiciously

within appropriate diplomatic boundaries. After Canary Wharf, nobody would have blamed President Clinton for scooping up his ball and going home. Instead, he stayed the course with nonpartisan fore- sight. Whatever his original motivations, he helped to bring peace in Northern Ireland perceptibly closer without burning old and treasured bridges with London. His example, as elaborated here, should serve future policymakers well.

Realistically, the U.S. government cannot expect terrorists to be choirboys and must exercise a degree of tolerance for the organizations' defiant rhetoric and often fascist behavior. By the same token, Washington should require a show of good faith before agreeing to deal with terrorists. As a condition of continued help, the United States should insist on an eventual ceasefire and subsequently require substantial (though not perfect) compliance. U.S. diplomatic involvement with a terrorist group almost by definition will provoke that group's sovereign host. For this reason, Washington should pay close and ongoing attention to the host country's reaction to its con- duct, and in times of crisis the United States should consult the host directly.

For true category-two terrorist groups, like the IRA, any ceasefire is merely tactical. Accordingly, any American diplomatic approach to such a group should be merely tactical as well. It should be made and sustained strictly with an eye toward weaning the terrorists per- manently away from violence by resolving their grievances in a man- ner that is also satisfactory to their opponents. Further, a U.S. pres-

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ident courting a putatively reformed terrorist should never allow a concerted violent backslide to go unpunished. Otherwise, the terrorist group will only be emboldened by Washington's leniency.

Washington's role in achieving the substantive goal of compromise must be carefully circumscribed. Washington should consider itself duty bound to refrain from advocating on a terrorist group's behalf any political solution that would be unattainable by that group's political representatives under their electoral mandate. The U.S. government should follow this guideline in order to ensure that its involvement respects the host government's right of noninterference as well as any right of self-determination asserted by the terrorist group.

Courting terrorists warily falls well within the United Nations Charter, the confines of international law, and accepted diplomatic protocol. Beyond these considerations, the option offers the U.S. government a principled, if risky, device for forging peace and security in a world in which terrorists are likely to play an increasingly promi- nent role.

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northern ireland: treating terrorists as statesmen

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