Clinton Plays the Turncoat on Ireland : After sweet-talking the Irish vote, he follows Bush’s policy, even as Britain changes its tune.

After their summit last Friday, the prime ministers of Britain and Ireland have been circumspect about progress toward solution of the Northern Ireland crisis. Fresh negotiations are scheduled, with a joint declaration in the offing. It’s clear that the “Ulster veto” by Northern Ireland’s Protestants on any concessions by the British is a blunted weapon.

The disclosure nearly two weeks ago that the British government has been holding secret talks with the IRA indicated beyond a shadow of doubt that Prime Minister John Major’s Conservative government is prepared to negotiate an end to the age-old Ulster impasse. Britain at long last is prepared to commit itself in some form to the notion of all-Ireland political structures, with the Irish government willing to propose adjustments to the constitution on the matter of Irish unity.

But the leaking of the agenda of these talks to the British Observer, which duly published them, also underlined President Clinton’s blundering refusal to assist in breaking the Ulster logjam.

While Martin McGuiness, vice president of Sinn Fein, the IRA’s political party in Northern Ireland, was meeting secretly with a British Foreign Office envoy, Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams was holding publicly acknowledged talks with John Hume, leader of Northern Ireland’s conservative nationalist party. Adams has been recognized as the man responsible for launching this new phase of negotiations toward an IRA cease-fire.

Adams was duly rewarded for such creative initiative by a cold shoulder from the Clinton Administration, which had denied him a visa to tour the United States. In a letter to New York Mayor David Dinkins, who had urged admittance of Adams, Clinton wrote that Adams had been “involved in terrorist activity” and that there was “credible evidence” that Adams “remained involved at the highest level in devising PIRA strategy.”

The acronym PIRA instantly told the story to all knowledgeable parties. PIRA is the way British security officials refer to the Provisional IRA. Clinton was obediently following a British recommendation, even as the British themselves were deep in parleys with Adams’ organization.

In this disastrous letter Clinton thus managed to infuriate both Irish Americans and the Irish government. When the text of the letter was disclosed by Irish Times reporter Conor O’Clery, one sentence leaped from the page to the Dublin audience. Clinton declared that “Neither the British nor Irish government favor granting Adams a visa.” This caused enormous embarrassment to Dublin, which passionately denied ever briefing the Clinton Administration to that effect.

Having caused an almost unprecedented rift with the Irish government, Clinton also managed to alienate the Irish American constituency. Eager for the Irish vote in his presidential campaign, Clinton issued various promises, including the dispatch of a peace envoy to the six counties and a visa for Gerry Adams or any other properly elected official from Northern Ireland. Clinton won a goodly slab of the Irish vote, entered the White House and continued the Irish policy of his Republican predecessor, namely to do Britain’s bidding.

But Clinton’s double-cross on Adams’ visa stung the Irish American community, and disclosure that the British were negotiating with Adams about an IRA cease-fire followed by British initiatives has fanned the flames.

In the wake of the visa refusal, former IRA member Pol Brennan, an Irishman now being held in the Alameda County Jail outside San Francisco, while battling British attempts to extradite him and two other Irishmen, issued a call that Gerry Adams and John Hume be proposed and accepted as honorary grand marshals in every St. Patrick’s Day parade across the United States next March 17.

The nominations for such honorary grand marshals are often the source of prolonged maneuvering. Brennan urged Irish Americans to rise above traditional factionalism and mark the 25th anniversary of the start of the latest phase of Ireland’s troubles by thus honoring Adams and Hume. The proposal is catching on.

In this charged political atmosphere Clinton has tried to recover lost ground. On Nov. 24, after a private session with Irish Foreign Minister Dick Spring, he placed a call to John Major, emphasizing U.S. interest in a peaceful settlement. This nudge to the British was a step in the right direction. But Clinton and his advisers should realize that Northern Ireland is a powder keg with an explosive potential rivaling that of Bosnia and that they had better have a strategy more considered than making the occasional phone call to Downing Street.