Shaping a Model for Peace

President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair met in Belfast, Northern Ireland, this week, mainly to talk about the war in Iraq. But they also discussed the revival of the peace process for Northern Ireland, which may ultimately prove the more important topic -- at least if, as some optimistically suggest, it becomes a model for solving the seemingly hopeless conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

In a joint statement on Iraq, Bush and Blair agreed that the United Nations should play a “vital” role in postwar reconstruction. On Wednesday, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell clarified the term, saying “vital” largely means the U.N. will be allowed to participate in reconstruction efforts and the distribution of humanitarian aid.

Still, Blair deserves a thank you for his patient reminders that a credible U.N. role will assuage Arab mistrust of America’s motives in the region.

On the matter of renewed peace talks for Northern Ireland, Britain’s leader must share credit with Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, who has been working with leaders from the various antagonistic parties for more than a month at Hillsborough Castle. Today, Blair and Ahern are expected to announce the restoration of the Northern Ireland Assembly, a local governing body reinvigorated by the Good Friday agreement in 1998, which has repeatedly ceased functioning, most recently in October.

That’s not enough, though. All paramilitary groups must announce an immediate disarmament. The Irish Republican Army must convincingly show it has renounced violence and joined Sinn Fein in the search for peaceful, political solutions to conflict. Radical British loyalists must pressure their own paramilitary forces to disarm, and moderate Unionists must refrain from withdrawing from the Assembly every time they face internal political pressures.

None of that will be easy. Still, if the process gets rolling, it will make Bush’s trip to Belfast during the week of Baghdad’s apparent fall seem serendipitous. As Blair, Ahern and Bush said in a joint statement, Northern Ireland could someday be “a model to the world for dialogue and negotiation, demonstrating to all that what was once divided can be drawn together in a spirit of reconciliation and respect.”