N. Ireland agreement signals a will to avoid collapse

After teetering on the verge of collapse for the past month, the Northern Ireland peace process has pulled back from failure with a fresh IRA agreement on destruction of its arsenal.

The development demonstrates that while suspicions among Protestant leaders remain high, a will to avoid a return to violence is stronger still. Significantly.

Irish Protestant leaders Tuesday issued a quid pro quo for going along with the IRA agreement announced Monday: Let disarmament actually begin, and we'll endorse the plan.

Yet while some leaders rushed to characterize Monday's announcement as the breakthrough needed to save the process from the brink, more cautious observers say proof of IRA goodwill is necessary.

"I don't think we're at a breakthrough yet, but we're awfully close," says John Hulsman, senior research fellow for European Issues at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.

"The proof has got to be in the pudding," Hulsman says.

Neither the Irish Republican Army nor the international commission addressing the central problem of disarmament in the conflict released details of how the IRA disarmament would proceed or - most importantly - when it might begin. But optimism on the part of the commission chairman, Canadian Gen. John de Chastelain, that the agreement constitutes a solid step forward, spread quickly both to British leaders and some segments of the public.

As Chastelain has won a reputation for neutrality in the conflict, his response to the agreement holds considerable weight - at at least among leaders. Just how far the agreement will go to assuage deepening Protestant fears about the direction the peace process has taken remains to be seen.

The agreement comes as negotiators labor under hair-trigger conditions. Midnight Saturday is the deadline for either replacing or reinstating Northern Ireland Unionist leader David Trimble as head of the Belfast government. Failure to resolve the leadership void would force the British government to either suspend the province's institutions or call for new elections.

Mr. Trimble resigned July 1 over lack of progress towards disarmament. Trimble on Tuesday called the IRA agreement a "significant step" but the IRA agreement "falls short of what we need," he said.

Trimble left the door open to agreement if, as the IRA claims, the plan puts their weapons "beyond use."

But Trimble faces mounting opposition to the peace process from his Protestant and pro-union (with Britain) public.

Polls show a slight majority of Protestants now reject the process as one that has given all away while winning little from the pro-Independence IRA.

Deepening pessimism among the Protestant public is fueling some views that the IRA move may just be a ruse to blame Protestants for any crisis that results from a failure to avoid a Saturday collapse in the process.

Yet while some observers find that argument too negative, they understand how it can gain force in a conflict so old and rife with suspicion.

"No I don't think this is a ruse," says Heritage's Hulsman, "but I think the IRA opens the door to that suspicion by not moving ahead at a time when they have gained so much politically from this process."