On Friday I briefed the Taoiseach about my recent visit to Northern Ireland, during which I met all the main parties there. I have spoken also about the current crisis to the ambassadors of Britain and the United States.
I have put it to all three that an intensive talks process should be launched before President Clinton arrives, to resolve the five issues that could unravel the Good Friday agreement.
These five issues are:
1. Decommissioning, and the fulfilment of commitments thereto in the Belfast Agreement.
2. Demilitarisation, and the fulfilment of commitments thereto given by Prime Minister Blair last May.
3. Depenalisation, or, in other words, the position of paramilitaries "on the run", who have escaped, or have not yet been charged but whose alleged offences were committed before the Belfast Agreement.
4. Securing all-party political support for the new police service, based on full implementation of Patten, which will be demonstrably capable of meeting the security threats that now exist. The political support should be of a kind that will secure an end to punishment beatings and private policing of all kinds.
5. The withdrawal of the Ulster Unionist ban on Sinn Fein Ministers participating in the North /South Ministerial Body.
There is an enormous risk that the opportunity created by President Clinton's third visit to Ireland will be squandered.
Some people may even be blase about the visit, thinking wrongly that the President is only on a sentimental journey. No president in office wastes time on such things. President Clinton will be here to do business, if he is allowed to.
Others may make the opposite mistake, pretending to invest President Clinton with superhuman powers of persuasion, assuming he will get other people to "see sense", while they themselves hold comfortably to their own positions.
David Trimble may have been making that sort of mistake when he is reported as saying "the question of decommissioning depends on Bill Clinton", and "I am appealing to Bill Clinton to use his influence to persuade the IRA to fulfil the commitments they made in May."
President Clinton will not even meet the IRA during his short visit, so how realistic is it to expect him, without prior work by others, to arrive here and "persuade" the IRA to start decommissioning?
He will, of course, meet Sinn Fein. But, as George Mitchell once put it, "Sinn Fein has consistently denied any relationship with the IRA" while adding, "That denial is believed by few in Ireland." Sinn Fein committed itself to decommissioning in the Belfast Agreement, but unless they deliver the IRA that commitment is useless.
If President Clinton's visit is to yield results, the political parties associated with paramilitaries (Sinn Fein, the PUP and the UDP) must first get unambiguous plenipotentiary powers from the paramilitaries to negotiate on arms with the President or with whoever else they may meet in the meantime.
It would be ludicrous to expect President Clinton to sit around in Belfast, while Sinn Fein, PUP and UDP politicians each go back and forth to their respective "armies", with proposals and counter-proposals. Nor, for that matter, will he have time to sit around while British ministers constantly refer back to their security or legal people to discuss particular demilitarisation or depenalisation options.
It is important to remember that President Clinton will have comparatively few free hours in Ireland. Most of his time will be taken up by public events.
The only way his visit can be made to work is if there is intensive preparation for it by the parties. A President's visit can complete and validate the results of a process begun by others. It cannot solve profound problems in the few hours he is in Ireland.
The President's visit in December 1995 was vital in overcoming the British Washington Three precondition. This had sought, in advance of the talks involving Sinn Fein, "the actual decommissioning of some arms as a tangible confidence-building measure". But John Major and I had been working, for months previous to the President's visit, on a formula for a twin-track process. The idea of the twin-track was to get around Washington Three by agreeing that the decommissioning issue would be dealt with in parallel with political talks. This is the twin-track approach that led to the Good Friday agreement.
John Major and I had discussed twin-track at summits in June and September 1995. A lot of preparatory work had been done, texts had been exchanged, and there had been a few rows. But the ground had been cleared in preparation for President Clinton's visit.
So, the evening before his arrival, I was able to persuade John Major by telephone to agree to an emergency summit in Downing Street to make the final deal to launch the twin-track process.
The bargain was struck within just a few hours of President Clinton's plane landing in London. His imminent arrival had given us the necessary focus, urgency and deadline. But without the preparation, nothing would have happened.
It would be a tragedy if, now at a time of genuine political crisis in Northern Ireland, President Clinton were to arrive here again, but this time without similarly intensive preparatory work being done.
That is why I call on the First Minister, the Deputy First Minister, the Taoiseach and the British Prime Minister to convene an allparty talks process separate from the routine work of the Good Friday institutions, to deal with the five issues I have listed.
John Bruton is leader of Fine Gael