Tuesday, March 27, 2007

The Hand of History

I must admit to still being surprised at the news from Northern Ireland. Gery Adams and Ian Paisley sat at the same table, and devolution set to start on the 8th of May.

Much has been made and in many ways rightly so, of Tony Blair's involvement in the process. Others also rightly mention Sir John Major.

Both deserve quite a lot of credit. However Margaret Thatcher and Tom King also deserve some of the credit for putting in the security polices that made the IRA realise they were not going to win. In short the IRA had to talk because they were contained. If they could have achieved what they wanted to achieve through violence alone they would not have come to the table.

No comments: