April 10 marks the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, which apparently heralded in the Northern Ireland peace process, the cornerstone of which was to be a fully functioning, power-sharing, devolved Assembly.
So try explaining to the legions of foreign dignitaries, political commentators and media corps who will descend on Northern Ireland why after a quarter of a century the linchpin of the peace process has come unstuck?
Put bluntly, the odds of the DUP agreeing to elect an Assembly Speaker and take its ministerial posts in the power-sharing Executive are about as good as me being elected Prime Minister of North Korea! The DUP is determined not to dance to the Biden boogie.
What Unionism needs to remember is that Biden is no Bill Clinton, the Democratic Party’s then US President at the signing of the Agreement in 1998 who did play a key role in getting the deal across the line politically.
Okay, there can be much ‘who-ha’ about any Presidential visit to Ireland, north and south, irrespective of party tag, but ‘Sleepy Joe’ needs this visit to be a PR coup taken in the light of his disastrous foreign policy.
With Presidential elections due next year in the United States, Biden does not want his Presidency to be known for his Vietnam-style abandoning of the Afghan nation, leaving them to the mercy (or lack of it!) of fanatical Taliban terrorism.
Folk of my vintage can remember the horrific scenes of the American helicopters fleeing from Saigon as the communist Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army poured into South Vietnam in the 1970s.
Last year, we again witnessed similar scenes as the Americans were forced into an humiliating abandonment of Afghanistan, prompting many to ask - what did all those service personnel die or were wounded for?
Given that humiliating climbdown by one of the globe’s superpowers, Biden badly needs a foreign policy boost he can crow about if he is to prevent the rival American Republican Party from reclaiming the White House in 2024.
Unionism should not forget that Biden is one of the most pro-nationalist Presidents since John F Kennedy in the 1960s to occupy the Oval Office in Washington. Biden will spin his visit to Northern Ireland as if he is the great 2023 political saviour of the Irish peace process, but he will portray it as a victory for nationalism, republicanism, and ultimately the supposed route to Irish Unity.
Any speeches or interviews he will give in Northern Ireland will not be for the benefit of Unionist voters and their concerns about the Windsor Framework; they will be aimed primarily at the Irish American lobby in the United States to ensure a second successive term for a Democratic Party candidate in the White House.
The icing on the cake, so far as Northern Ireland is concerned, is that Biden will try to deflect attention away from the Afghanistan disaster by bringing millions of dollars in US investment.
Biden will hope this will act as a double-edged sword - convince the Northern Ireland business community that the Windsor Framework has tremendous economic potential for Northern Ireland, and at the same time, convince American voters Biden should be given a second term as President in spite of his General Santa Anna Mexican-style retreat from Afghanistan.
Santa Anna was the Mexican military dictator who, after his crushing of the Alamo in Texas in 1836 decided to grab all of Texas and was roundly defeated at the Battle of San Jacinto, forcing him into a humiliating retreat back to Mexico.
While the Irish American lobby has a lot of political clout in the United States, so too, do the National Rifle Association and the US veterans lobbies. Biden will not want his nickname of ‘Sleepy Joe’ to be replaced with ‘Santa Anna’ Biden.
Unionism and loyalism would, therefore, be well advised to view all Biden’s speeches for what they really are - well-written spin designed to placate voters back home in the United States, not signal the start of a new campaign for Irish Unity.
In turn, what Unionism and loyalism will have to spin is that the pocket-loads of American dollars which Biden will be throwing at Northern Ireland will not be used by the centre ground in Northern Ireland society to force Unionist political parties into a Biden-style climbdown over the Windsor Framework.
The bottom line remains - Biden needs the Northern Ireland commemorations of the Good Friday Agreement more than Northern Ireland society needs Biden, no matter how much dollar sweeteners he brings.
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Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online. |
I doubt Afghanistan has much salience in American electoral politics anyway, but Biden was on the record as pushing for withdrawal in 2009 according to Bob Woodward's book on Obama.
ReplyDeleteIran, India, Pakistan, China and Tajikistan all fight over it, for scant reward and with no ability to simply fly off like the Americans did.
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