Save the last dance for me

The word of the day in Northern Ireland today is "choreographed." The New York Times was in on the act:

In a fast-moving series of choreographed events, the Northern Ireland peace process took a potentially big step forward today, with the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair setting a new date for elections in Ulster, and the Irish Republican Army agreeing to get rid of more of its weapons.

Leaving aside the technical matter of how Tony Blair could be planning elections in Cavan, Monaghan, and Donegal (3 of Ulster's 9 counties), the sentence does capture the essential elements of what was meant to emerge from the last few days of negotiations between the Unionists and Sinn Fein: Sinn Fein says that the IRA is on fully on-board with the peace process, the IRA dumps some new weapons under international supervision as a specific gesture of support, and then David Trimble looks up from his plate of fish and chips (official symbol of his Unionist party) to agree that he can participate in new elections for local Assembly.

There were a bunch of little details to sort out, but left mostly undiscussed was the big matter of why exactly Trimble would sign on to an approach that likely meant electoral oblivion for him -- it seemed clear that a significant part of his electoral base would defect and coalesce into a new anti-Agreement bloc, possibly led by Bob Jones University product, Ian Paisley. For this strain of Unionism, any "deal" with the IRA was simply off-limits regardless of how it would be presented by Trimble. And this is no secret to Trimble himself, since his party is already effectively split over precisely this issue.

So what was his game? A belief that he could keep his dissidents onside with a Blair-esque display of determination? A Gladstonian pursuit of an inevitable split for the greater good of pacifying Ireland? Or just a cunning game of brinkmanship in which the choreography might suddenly have everyone on different pages? The last possibility looks increasingly relevant. After a nice two-step between Gerry Adams and IRA, Trimble has this afternoon suddenly pulled the plug on his part of the process. As the RTE story puts it:

[Trimble] said it was not clear that the IRA had carried out a transparent and significant act of decommissioning. He said he was putting today's sequence of planned announcements on hold and that the Ulster Unionists would hold a special meeting.

There is a basic problem with Trimble's position that already infuriates nationalists and will doubtless continue to do so: one basic pillar of the peace agreement was to have an independent international commission oversee the putting of arms beyond use. If it's good enough for its head, Canadian General John de Chastelain, it's supposed to be good enough for everyone else.

Trimble could still be engaged in a flanking movement within his own party, in which he tries to smoke out a few of the diehards who are essentially against the entire agreement, versus a group who could be won over with another round of concessions from the IRA. But the latter will be a tall order, especially now that Trimble will be perceived as having reneged on the previous understanding. We hope they break the news to Tony Blair gently.