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"I grant what we did was contrary to all our actions and to everything we stood for. But it admirably served its purpose - affording Fianna Fail immediate access to Leinster House and subsequently to the levers of power."
This was Eamon de Valera at his most pragmatic in 1927. He swallowed hard, formally swore allegiance to the British Crown and took his seats in the Irish Parliament. Fianna Fail went on to take state power. De Valera was Taoiseach and President for the best part of four decades.
The great Irish republican leader's actions should be carefully studied by Gerry Adams. De Valera's sticking point was the oath. Adams' sticking point is decommissioning. Without decommissioning, Sinn Fein leaders shouldn't become Ministers. It would undermine the Belfast Agreement. The Agreement is a complex and interlocking compromise. But it is working on most fronts.
David Trimble and Seamus Mallon are very near to agreeing on how power-sharing will work. So much for the begrudgers who say that Unionists don't want Catholics in power. Trimble and Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern have agreed the scope and scale of new north-south bodies. So much for the cynics who say that Unionists want to keep the Republic at arms' length.
Everyone has moved far and fast to keep their side of the Belfast bargain but when it comes to decommissioning, the exceptions are Sinn Fein/IRA and its counterparts in the loyalist terror gangs.
But there is a small crack in the edifice. If the maverick LVF publicly destroys its weapons - and they could still do so in spite of recent setbacks - this will leave their fellow terrorists without excuses. This crack could allow a flood.
So why don't the bigger terrorist bodies bite the bullet and start to decommission?
The most pathetic excuse is that there is no historical precedent. With that logic, we would still be stuck in some prehistoric swamp. Man would never have evolved from bacteria. We certainly would not have the Belfast Agreement. In any case, Sinn Fein ignore the fact that there is no precedent in Irish history for power-sharing between unionists, nationalists and republicans. But that is what the Agreement advocates.
Sinn Fein want state power. But it can only happen if the guns are silenced.
Some say that there's no problem as the guns and violence are not being used. Tell that to the 1000 people who have suffered "punishment" beatings and shootings since 1994. Or the hundreds expelled by paramilitary thugs.
But even if the weapons weren't used, there remain deeper democratic reasons for decommissioning. A party with a private army undermines democracy. And the threat of violence poisons politics.
There can be no new beginning until this is ended, once and for all. Democrats, especially Unionists, will have little or no confidence in the Agreement and trust in Sinn
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