COMMENTARY: The protesters would have Ireland stand alone in splendid, useless and damaging isolation, argues Willie O'Dea
While the UK and US forces try to surmount the obstacles on the road to Baghdad, Opposition parties here make considerably less progress surmounting the logical obstacle to a coherent policy on the use of Shannon Airport.
The obstacle being the fact that France and Germany, the two countries who have most vehemently opposed this war, have no difficulty in providing air space and refuelling facilities. They attempt to explain it away by saying that France and Germany are members of NATO whereas Ireland is not. This is flabby and banal. How can France and Germany logically reconcile their opposition to this war and yet aid it?
The blindingly obvious answer is that they do not view it as providing aid to the war effort. I agree with their interpretation and so do those Arab states, who are not members of NATO, and still provide these facilities. The vital central question is whether the withdrawal of these facilities will achieve anything in practical terms. Would it stop the war, would it save one life? The answer is obvious: No. It is an empty, futile, aimless and valueless gesture - a textbook example of derelict idealism.
Yet, it is insisted that we have some sort of moral obligation to withdraw them. It is as if France and Germany have already done their bit by threatening to oppose or veto a US/UK Security Council resolution. We, not having that opportunity, are expected to punish ourselves to establish our credibility.
We should play Russian roulette with our national interests to prove ourselves, despite the fact that it would achieve nothing. Must we indulge ourselves in self-flagellation to establish our ethical credentials? Since 1955 the truth of two premises has never been questioned: Firstly, Ireland is militarily neutral and, secondly, use of our airspace does not compromise our military neutrality.
The precedents in this country are quite clear. The US were allowed to use Shannon during the Vietnam War and it would be impossible to describe that action as humanitarian no matter how far one tries to stretch the English language.
Soviet planes on the way to Cuba in the 1962 Missile Crisis were allowed to land and refuel at Shannon.
What has changed? A more radical doctrine, particularly associated with Michael D. Higgins, has emerged. He seems to think that in foreign policy we should act with total disregard for our own self-interest and keep our eyes fixed unwaveringly on the greater good of mankind.
According to this doctrine foreign policy falls into two categories: a foreign policy based on state's own self-interest or foreign policy based on ethics, what he is pleased to call normative foreign policy.
This is a facile distinction.
The truth however is that no country has ever pursued a foreign policy with total disregard for its own self-interest.
In fact, national self-interest has always been the main determinant of foreign policy.
After a lifetime of diplomacy one of its greatest exponents, Lord Palmerstown, came to the conclusion, "in diplomacy there are no permanent friends or enemies-only permanent interests". This is the antithesis of Michael's D's philosophy and maybe too cynical an approach, but it is much nearer the reality of today's geopolitical world.
If we turn our back on our friends and allies and take the lonely and hitherto road towards a Nirvana where no state's foreign affairs are conducted other than in accordance with the dictates of morality: will we find that it is a mirage when we get there?
We will find ourselves alone in paradise - in splendid, useless and damaging isolation. Some Nirvana.
Willie O'Dea is Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and a Fianna Fáil TD for Limerick East