Irish links with US shaped policy on atrocities

ANALYSIS:CONSISTENCY SHINES out as a prominent standard in assessing how Ireland's foreign policy responded to the 9/11 atrocities, among apologists and critics alike. But each of them invoked different interests and values in assessing the events, illustrating very well how divisive they were in Ireland as elsewhere. This was a highly contested argument between different visions of Ireland's international position and affiliations.

Government ministers invoked a 50-year long and consistent precedent for allowing United States military aircraft have continuing access to Shannon airport during the consequent wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, alongside continuing reference to Ireland’s consistently friendly attitude towards the US based on demographic, economic and political ties.

Critics said this was inconsistent with military and political neutrality, with just war theory and with international law as expressed through the United Nations. They invoked alternative models of Irish sovereignty, global citizenship or European solidarity against what they saw as the effective complicity of Government policy with these two Anglo-American-led wars that flowed from 9/11.

Ireland was in the foreground of world diplomacy in the days following the attacks because we were on a two-year term as an elected member of the UN Security Council. In October 2001, just weeks later, Ireland was president of the council. This state played a prominent role in ensuring compliance with UN Security Council resolution 1368, passed immediately after the attacks during the first surge of international solidarity. It called on all states to “redouble their efforts to prevent and suppress terrorist acts” and to “work together urgently” on bringing their perpetrators to justice.

Similarly, resolution 1373, passed soon after, requiring all UN members to implement comprehensive anti-terrorist legislation, was overseen by Ireland. But support for the US was not uncritical, since Ireland’s representatives insisted on maintaining the council’s role on human rights and in many other respects and issues over those two years, although without formal success in this instance.

The Government’s case that Ireland has a particularly close relationship with the US culturally, economically and politically, which must be reflected in its policymaking, was borne out by estimates that a quarter of those who died in the World Trade Center had an Irish background and as did one-third of the 243 firefighters killed then.

The extensive US multinational investment in Ireland was another regular theme, as was the central US role in the Northern Ireland peace process along with the UK. Then minister for foreign affairs Brian Cowen put it like this: “Ireland is not a member of a military alliance, but Ireland is not neutral in the struggle against international terrorism.” He was not willing to take what the US would regard as a hostile act by denying it use of Shannon.

President George Bush thanked Ireland at the 2002 St Patrick’s Day White House ceremony.

Both the UK and the US had to discover how consistent it was to oppose Islamic terrorism so categorically yet support talks with those responsible for it in Northern Ireland. It took years to reach similar conclusions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and this has yet to happen in Israel/Palestine, while the recent Arab Spring events transformed the picture elsewhere in the Middle East.

This Government line was maintained in the build-up to the Iraq war in 2003 and followed through in its subsequent phases. Irish foreign policy expressed a political preference for another Security Council resolution to authorise a war against Iraq in 2002-2003, but did not express a view on its legality, which it said was internationally disputed.

That line was held to despite opinion polls showing large Irish voter majorities against the war – 68 per cent without a UN endorsement, and 59 per cent against Ireland supporting one with it according to the October 2002 Irish Times/MRBI poll – and even against the US use of Shannon. Only 22 per cent supported military intervention. By February 15th, 2003, 68 per cent remained opposed, according to the same poll.

The estimated 100,000 protesters in Dublin against the war that day were on one of the biggest political demonstrations held in the country. It was echoed by demonstrations in other European capitals, but not in any united EU approach to the conflict.

This determination in the face of large-scale popular opposition and at the risk of serious inconsistency over neutrality and minimalist commitment to the UN's legal role was a real test of government resolve. It seemed to pay off when public opinion shifted substantially as The Irish Times/MRBI found 51 per cent of voters in favour of allowing the US to use Shannon on May 17th, compared to 21 per cent earlier in the year. Fifty two per cent said they did not regard this as a breach of neutrality, while 58 per cent said they would be willing to participate in a future EU common defence if case-by-case opt-outs were allowed.

This outcome confirmed the decisive shift towards the Anglo-American world that was also a feature of other aspects of Irish politics and culture during the later Celtic Tiger years.

Paul Gillespie, a former foreign policy editor at

The Irish Times

, lectures in politics in UCD