Tony Blair and N. Ireland

Does Tony Blair really "value the Union", as he so proudly asserted in his first, groundbreaking address in Belfast of May 16, 1997? If he does, then he ought to have nothing to do with the latest document produced by the Ulster talks chairman, Sen. George Mitchell. The senator's paper owed much to the belated recoalescence of the pan-nationalist front.

At a very minimum, it can be said that the words chosen by the Mitchell paper are so offensive to Unionists as to create the impression that they are clinging onto their Britishness by their very fingertips. The document's "green" vocabulary, designed to bind Sinn Fein/IRA into a deal, implies the establishment of institutions that are transitional to a united Ireland.

The problem with suggesting, even rhetorically, that Ulster's constitutional status is up for grabs is that people -- especially the violent ones on both sides of the divide -- will believe you. This is a recipe for further political, cultural and physical conflict. Arrangements that are seen to be transitional cannot, by definition, make for a settlement and therefore, for peace. Mitchell is a formula for unsettlement.

-- The Daily Telegraph, London