The Deal

As an Northern Irishman myself I have always felt entitled to indulge in what I would describe as "forthright" comment on the behaviour of my lying, cruel, cowardly, secretive, self-pitying, ungrateful, whining, greedy, backward, whey-faced, morally bereft fellow-countrymen, but today, the day after the I.R.A.'s announcement that it has given up murdering people in cold blood, I can only wish them well.

I wonder what has led this bunch of roguish, rosy-cheeked, twinkly-eyed assassins to arrive at their momentous decision? I can't see that there's been any real progress in terms of Ulster politics, although as it's a place where "progress" translates as "not going backwards as fast as usual", I might be failing to pick up on some of the subtleties of the situation.

Many times over the last couple of years I've tried to work out Tony Blair's rationale for supporting Bush in Vietraq; Bush's agenda was crystal-clear - after the September 11th attacks Someone Had To Be Seen To Pay, and although nobody believed Saddam was involved he was unpopular, virtually unarmed and not quite white. I don't go for the Iraqi Oil conspiracy theory - it ascribes to the U.S. administration far more guile than I believe them capable of.

But what was in it for Blair? The decision to take the country to war made him deeply unpopular at home and in the rest of Europe. Surely he must have made A Deal?

So that's it, I reckon. "George, old chum, we'll back you up in Iraq if you stop funding the I.R.A. and if they step out of line you have to let us fuck 'em up. We might even have to give Dublin a bit of a seeing-to. A sort of slight carpet bombing kind of thingy. How's that sound? All right with you, that's great. And can you make sure they know we've made this deal? That'd be lovely. Thanks, mate."

Could be completely wrong, of course. Anyway, apparently the lads are going to "de-commission" their weapons (whatever that means) although apparently they won't allow the process to be filmed or photographed because that would be "humilating", and of course it would be.

Their spokesman declined to comment on whether it would be more or less humiliating than having to hire someone to wipe your arse for you because your hands have been blown off by an I.R.A. bomb.