When the diplomatic historians come to pass judgment on Ireland's latest term on the UN Security Council, now close to halfway stage, and particularly its month in the council presidency, they will have the advantage of knowing what happened subsequently in the wider world, and particularly in the Afghan war.
Nobody knows for sure how the situation in Afghanistan and, indeed, the entire Central Asian region will develop. Ireland and the other 14 council members accepted the US right to self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter, thereby giving implicit, if conditional, approval to the bombing campaign.
At the time of writing, prospects for the success of the war are in the balance. History is written by the winners and if the objectives of beating back terror and creating a stable, non-threatening Afghanistan are achieved, then Ireland will be seen to have taken the correct and proper stance on the council. If it all goes horribly wrong and we end up with another Vietnam, then historians will say Ireland and the council should have urged greater caution and a judicial, rather than military, approach on the US.
The council presidency rotates monthly in alphabetical order and, even before the events of September 11th, Afghanistan was a significant item on the draft agenda for the Irish month. But after the World Trade Centre, the war on terror dominated everything, although Ireland strove to ensure that African issues, in particular, did not go by the board.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs,Brian Cowen, and the Irish Ambassador to the UN, Richard Ryan, were in contact with senior US and UN officials practically from the moment the airstrikes started on October 7th. The US was fortunate to have such a friendly country in the presidency.
Government sources say the early contacts Cowen and Ryan made with the US helped to ensure that the role and authority of the UN and the council remained central. At Ireland's initiative, the council met the day after the strikes began. The US and British briefed members on their actions, thereby acknowledging the importance of the council.
Government sources said: "We have been making a deliberate and conscious effort to keep Afghanistan at the forefront of the council's attention." The war and its implications have been discussed weekly, usually with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his special representative for Afghanistan, Ambassador Lakhdar Brahimi, in attendance.
The political arrangements in a post-Taliban Afghanistan and the plight of Afghan civilians as a harsh winter looms have been the main subjects of discussion.
"It was absolutely an Irish initiative to have meetings every week on Afghanistan. It was Brian Cowen's idea: he wanted the focus on Afghanistan," Government sources said. But the Government has resisted calls back home to demand a suspension of the military campaign to facilitate the supply of foodstuffs to the Afghan people.
Although not formally part of the agenda, the Middle East inevitably surfaced at the council. At both political and administrative level, there is considerable Irish goodwill towards the Palestinians, qualified by a reluctance to support any proposal that might be vetoed by the US.
But in a press statement last Thursday, Mr Ryan, speaking in his capacity as council president, said the council supported the "immediate withdrawal of all Israeli forces" from Palestinian-ruled areas occupied since the assassination of the Israeli minister, Rehavam Ze'evi, on October 17th.
Government sources said it was "a very significant achievement" for the Irish presidency to secure a unanimous statement on this sensitive issue and that Ambassador Ryan had been in constant contact with his US counterpart, Mr John Negroponte, for several days beforehand.
African issues were meant to be the highlight of the Irish presidency. As the month comes to an end, it can be said that attention was given to countries which spend little time in the spotlight of world public opinion. Africa is said to be a very high priority with the Minister. He has taken a particular interest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has suffered a catastrophic civil war in which some 2.5 million people died.
Other states in the region have sent troops to fight in the DRC and there has been widespread looting of the country's natural resources. Ireland has worked closely with the UN secretary-general to advance the Congolese peace process and the withdrawal of foreign forces.
Ireland was also heavily involved in ensuring council support for the peace process in Burundi ahead of the installation of a joint Hutu-Tutsi government there on November 1st.
On October 19th, Ireland chaired a meeting of the council on Somalia to examine the possibility of UN engagement with that war-torn country. Based on past experience, member-states are wary of renewed involvement in Somalia and Irish diplomats are pleased to have put it back on the UN agenda.
On a critical note, an independent, Irish-based foreign-policy consultant, Gerard McHugh, said Ireland did well to ensure the smooth functioning of the council during a difficult month but that "without an explicit and detailed agenda of what Ireland would like to achieve, it is difficult to gauge progress".
He added: "I do not believe that there is this leadership approach at the ministerial level, and consequently, as Ireland is now almost half way through the term, the contribution to date has been unspectacular."
However, Department officials continue to speak very highly of the Minister and his grasp of a variety of complex issues. Northern Ireland and EU affairs take away from the time he could be devoting to the UN, but Mr Cowen is expected to conclude the presidency by chairing a council meeting at UN headquarters in New York on Wednesday, which will focus on UN involvement in East Timor after independence.
Deaglβn de BrΘad·n is Foreign Affairs Correspondent of The Irish Times