[O]ptimism is misplaced. Yes, the IRA's long war is over, and the number of British troops in Northern Ireland will be cut to the lowest level since the conflict erupted in 1969. Ulster, however, remains far from normal and stable. Protestant unionists don't believe the IRA will disarm, now or ever, and are threatening to boycott the peace process in protest of the British demilitarization plans. Ian Paisley, the fiery preacher who leads the hard-line Democratic Unionists, refuses to negotiate with Sinn Fein and has called Adams a "terrorist."
It is clear that the Good Friday Agreement--which created a Northern Ireland government in which Catholics and Protestants would share power and which the world assumed had finally solved the Ulster problem--has failed, in part because each side believed that the agreement meant something other than it did. With the increasingly powerful hard-line parties deadlocked, the middle ground has disintegrated. And, as a result, Northern Ireland's Protestants and Catholics are further apart today than ever....
[E]ven if the IRA does finally disarm, the British will need to keep running a feverishly polarized statelet that, left to its own vengeful politicians, would be completely dysfunctional.
Northern Ireland's voters have not only supported hard-line parties in growing numbers, helping to create a political stalemate, but physical and cultural divisions between the two sides have hardened, too. Voluntary segregation has continued, as Protestants cluster along the eastern coast, leaving the western backcountry to Catholics. Belfast and Londonderry residents still move across town to live among their own. The price of peace, paradoxically, is a divided province, enflamed by the same ancient tribal passions that led to the decades of bloody strife known as "the Troubles."
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