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7. The Lessons of Third-Party Intervention? : The Curious Case of the United States in Northern Ireland
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173 7 The Les sons of Third-Party Inter ven tion? The Cu ri ous Case of the United States in North ern Ire land Mary-Alice C. Clancy Since the sign ing of the Bel fast, or Good Fri day, Agree- ment in 1998, a ver i ta ble cot tage in dus try has emerged seek ing to ex port North ern Ireland’s “les sons.” One of the most fre quently cited les sons is the role of “inter na tion al iza tion”1 in con flict res o lu tion and the im por tance of align ing inter na tional in flu ence.2 The lesson’s im port, how ever, is open to dis pute. On the one hand, the inter na tional di men sion is li able to be dis torted by those seek ing to se cure their own leg acy in North ern Ire land.3 On the other hand, some have sought to down play its im por tance, ar guing that Brit ish, Irish, and American officials’ dis putes are care fully choreo graphed ruses.4 This the sis, how ever, is under mined by a lack of pri mary ev i dence, and those au thors who have en gaged in field re search on this ques tion draw op po site con clu sions.5 Fo cus ing on the United States, this chap ter aims to pro vide a nu anced as sess ment of the inter na tion al iza tion of North ern Ireland’s peace and po lit i cal pro cesses.6 It be gins with a brief re as sess ment of the Clin ton administration’s role in North ern Ire land, ar guing that its ten dency to side with Dub lin when dis putes arose between the Irish and United King dom (UK) govern ments de creased the neg a tive con se quences as so ciated with the Irish Re pub li can Army’s (IRA)’s con tin ued fail ure to dis arm. This par tially ex pe dited the en er va tion of North ern Ireland’s po lit i cal cen ter ground by al low ing the po lit i cal ex tremes of un ion ism and na tion al ism—the 174 Mary-Alice C. Clancy Dem o cratic Un ion ist Party (DUP) and Sinn Féin, re spec tively—to cap i tal ize on their “eth nic trib une” ap peals.7 Ex am in ing the Bush administration’s role, this chap ter dem on strates that al though US pres sure was vital in se cur ing the IRA’s first act of de com mis sion ing, the emer gence of a pat tern sim i lar to that which emerged in the Clin ton ad min is tra tion par tially ex plains the tri umph of Sinn Féin and the DUP in the 2003 North ern Ire land As sem bly elec tions. The ar ri val of Mitch ell Reiss as US spe cial envoy al tered this pat tern be cause his de ci sion to bar Sinn Féin of fi cials from the White House dur ing 2005–6 and re strict the party’s abil ity to fund-raise in the United States in centi vized the re pub li can movement’s de ci sion to de com mis sion in 2005 and to endorse po lic ing in 2007, thus pav ing the way for the power-sharing deal in May 2007. While a cur sory read ing might sug gest that UK of fi cials wel comed Reiss’s ac tions, a closer ex am ina tion re veals that they did not sup port Reiss’s wield ing of the “stick.” De spite the im por tance of Brit ain to the US-led “War on Ter ror,” re la tions between US and UK of fi cials vis-à-vis North ern Ire land were “nasty.”8 Reiss ad mit ted that Brit ish of fi cials “weren’t re luc tant to share their anger” with him.9 The chap ter then argues that the var i ous cri ses in the Bel fast Agreement’s im ple men ta tion stemmed from a cred ible com mit ment prob lem en gen dered by the in ap...