CARDINAL Daly has good reason to be apprehensive about the IRA ceasefire. And the apprehension is not, or at least mainly, to do with the continuing "punishment" killings. The reality is that the debate within the IRA over the "unarmed struggle" is being lost to those who argue that only through violence can political progress be achieved.
Gerry Adams had argued throughout 1993 and the first half of 1994 that more progress could be made through a ceasefire than through a continuance of the "war". His argument was based on two strands.
The first of these was that the British were signalling their willingness to reach a comprehensive settlement which would acknowledge the right of the Irish people to national self determination this was done formally in the Downing Street Declaration of December 1993.
The second was that it had become possible by then to create a hugely powerful coalition of forces including Sinn Fein, the SDLP, the Dublin government and influential Irish Americans, which would advance the nationalist cause with a coherence and persuasiveness never previously achieved.
Both of these have come to pass but both have been shown to be of little value. The British did utter the required words about national self determination but nothing has changed. The coalition did come about and was bolstered further by the co option of the US President, Bill Clinton, but to no avail.
Essentially, from the perspective of the IRA nothing has been achieved. Nothing at all on the political front except persistent British obstruction of all party talks on a settlement, first on the issue of whether the IRA ceasefire was permanent or not and now on the precondition of a start to the decommissioning of IRA arms. This latter is seen as a deliberately provocative strategy to require an IRA concession of defeat.
Nothing even on prisoners, an area in which politically safe "concessions" could have been made, such as the swift repatriation of prisoners in British jails to Northern Ireland or the Republic. And the prospects now for progress are dismal.
The members of the international body on decommissioning are due to return to Ireland only this coming weekend, having spent just four days in Ireland in December. They have committed themselves to meeting the deadline of January 15th for the submission of their report.
Therefore in a single week they will have to read whatever submissions have been handed in since they were last here they will have to talk to whoever they feel they need to meet again and then they will have to write their report.
Given the complexities and intractabilities of the issues involved in decommissioning, it is just not plausible that the international body will be able to come up with any new initiative to break the impasse on the British demand for a start to the decommissioning of IRA arms before Sinn Fein involvement in all party talks any the IRA's absolute refusal to countenance any surrender" of arms.
NOT, indeed, that the British government will now be in any mood even to seek a compromise on the decommissioning issue, given the fortunate (for them) position that the Ulster Unionists suddenly find themselves in with the defection to the Liberal Democrats of Emma Nicholson. In two months two by elections seem certain to reduce the Tory majority to just three in the House of Commons.
The precariousness of this position is underlined by the seriousness of the issues that the Commons will have to face in the coming months. These include the report of the Scott inquiry into the sale of arms to Iraq by British defence contractors operating with the covert support of British ministers. Further revelations on that scandal may well force further defections.
The European issue will hot up hugely over the coming months, as will the crucial Inter governmental Conference on the future of the European Union to take place in Turin in March.
It is certain that the issues thrown up by that conference will cause further divisions within the Tories, opening the way for a further strengthening of the Ulster Unionists' strategic position.
Quite simply, even if he were disposed to do so, John Major will be unable to make those gestures that might keep the IRA on side over the coming months.
And anyone who thinks that the Irish peace initiative would be safer with a Labour government led by Tony Blair should think again. Almost without exception everyone from Ireland who has had dealings with him, including government ministers, has been hugely unimpressed.
Apart from the impression of an absence of any substance, his lack of interest in the Irish issue has been striking. It may be that over a few years in office he could develop an interest very probably this would be the case but in the meantime the peace initiative would be a mere memory.
It is regularly argued that violence achieves nothing but grief and division. There is no doubt that it achieves grief and division, but the contention that it achieves nothing is unsustainable and certainly cuts no ice within the IRA.
It was the IRA campaign that brought down Stormont. It was the IRA campaign that brought about the Anglo Irish Agreement of 1985 actually the credit for that advance (if that is what it was) must go in the main to the hunger strike of Bobby Sands. It was the IRA campaign that resulted in the Downing Street Declaration had there been no campaign of violence that would not have been relevant.
And while further killings and devastation would have occurred had the IRA campaign continued since August 31st, 1994, is it probable that there would have been such little progress politically in the meantime?
The argument against the IRA "armed struggle" is not that it achieves nothing but that the price to be paid for what is achieved is far too high. And, anyway, the IRA has no mandate or justification or right to pay any price, or require others to pay any price, for political progress, whatever it be. But that is aside for now.
What is not aside is what can now be done with the will and capacity to do it, to prevent a return to the barbarity that marked the years from 1969 to 1994. The British government does not have the capacity or the will, the Ulster Unionists do not have the will, but perhaps nationalist Ireland and its allies can do something.
First, they can try to draw Sinn Fein more closely into the nationalist coalition, thereby making any break within the peace initiative more painful and politically costly for the republican movement.
But secondly, they should be thinking now of ways in which the ceasefire could be restored if it is to break down. Lines should now be laid down into the republican movement that could be activated if violence is to resume. This may be a strategy that many would find deeply repulsive, but what else can men and women of goodwill do?