That the crisis precipitated by the events of September 11th has led to the creation of a global alliance in support of American moves against bin Laden's protectors in Afghanistan is not, of course, surprising. And the form that the US reaction has hitherto taken has been equally predictable.
However, what has been striking thus far has been the extent to which US actions have been contained and limited by concern to avoid a generalised conflict with Islam, and by the need to create and then retain global coalition support. Thus far, while there has been a notable lack of enthusiasm among Islamic countries for US actions, and a general Islamic unwillingness to facilitate the US bombing raids, only Iraq has denounced US action unequivocally.
Nevertheless, it is clear that the US has experienced more problems with this strategy than it had, perhaps, initially hoped. And it is also clear that any attempt to widen the conflict to countries other than Afghanistan would be likely to meet considerable resistance which would not be confined to Islamic countries.
The difficulties the US has had to face, and the evident unwillingness of many countries to support a widening of the conflict, must inevitably increase tensions between hawks and doves within the US administration. And the impact of the anthrax threat, whatever its origins, upon an already fraught American public opinion must add to the pressures on an administration to adopt more aggressive measures that could test the loyalty of US allies. Thus we are far from being "out of the wood" in relation to the issue of US over-reaction, and America's allies are clearly nervous Much may depend upon early success for the strategy currently being followed: seeking to bring down the Taliban regime and replace it with a UN-sponsored government. But even if this strategy works, and even if Bin Laden were to be arrested, that would not be the end of this affair. The US aim is to eliminate terrorism globally - which is an unrealistically ambitious target.
Apart from anything else, such a process would involve drawing a very difficult distinction between what is described as "international terrorism", and independence movements and rebellions against authoritarian regimes.
For, it is a truism to say that one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. At this very moment we can see how this issue is convulsing Israel and Palestine. For their part the Israelis clearly have difficulty in understanding why it is all right for the Americans to bomb Afghanistan while they are being pressed by that same United States, among many others, to desist from raids on Palestinian territory.
Equally, the Palestinians fail to understand why Israelis make a distinction between the assassination of individual Palestinians by Israeli army bombings and helicopter raids and the killing of a member of the elected Israeli government which has authorised these assassinations.
Given the persistent controversy here about some actions of the volunteers during our own War of Independence, we should readily understand the confusion in many people's minds about the rights and wrongs of actions of this kind.
What has been particularly striking about the past few weeks has been the way in which, faced with the need to build a coalition against international terrorism and to avoid a confrontation with Islam, the United States has moved to seek a settlement of some international problems which in the past it has either neglected, or to which it may even have contributed.
Thus, even the risk of being accused of allowing their diplomatic actions to be influenced by the actions of the terrorists has not deterred the US from radically shifting its approach to the Israel/Palestine issue. For the first time it has put real pressure on Israel to settle this dispute, and has come out explicitly in favour of a Palestinian state - to the open fury of the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon.
Momentarily at least, this appeared to be working. But, as we have so often seen in relation to Northern Ireland, movement towards peace is all too vulnerable to the actions of extremists. Any tentative moves towards a settlement have been stopped in their tracks by the PFLP assassination of Israel's Minister for Tourism.
We have also seen how the pressure of events - or should we call it realpolitik? - have led the US to reverse its policy towards Pakistan, and to show a new interest in resolving the Pakistan/India dispute over Kashmir.
And in this new situation US relations with Russia and China have also been hugely improved. Russia has seen a way of getting off the hook of international disapproval of aspects of its military actions in Chechnya, and China is happy to co-operate against what it has seen as an Islamic threat in south-western parts of its territory.
Nearer to home, the EU faces the need to improve its capacity for co-operative action against international terrorism - including provisions for extradition among member-states. This could pose problems for us, not because of old hang-ups about extradition of IRA suspects, but because of genuine problems posed by our unique situation as a Common Law country with a written Constitution.
Under the Common Law system, which we share with Britain, detention for more than a few days is excluded unless a suspect is charged with an offence. And in Ireland this procedure is protected by our Constitution. By contrast, in the rest of Europe Civil Law procedures permit the detention of suspects for even as longs as several years once they have been brought before an examining magistrate.
Britain might be able to modify its procedure in the face of a major threat from international terrorism. But could we do so? Perhaps only by reinstating the state of emergency.
Although there will be widespread reluctance to abandon, or even weaken, the protection the law provides against arbitrary arrest or detention, in the present world situation, with threats from highjacked aircraft and from biological warfare, many countries are now reviewing the measures available to them to counter such actions.
In the past, when the normal judicial processes have been set aside to deal with external or internal threats, such measures have been subject to criticism not alone by those affected but also by people genuinely concerned about human rights. In more recent times human rights issues have loomed even larger here, so any move that could be seen as impinging on these rights would be controversial.
But circumstances could arise in which we and other democratic countries might have to think again about some of these issues rather than find ourselves defenceless against, for example, people known to be engaging in biological warfare but against whom insufficient evidence existed to convict them in court. For, the primary duty of a government is to defend its people's lives
gfitzgerald@irish-times.ie