We're Winning--Even in Ireland

Six weeks ago, a dozen IRA members turned a bar fight into the callous killing of Robert McCartney, "stabbing, gouging and kicking him to death in an alleyway. Then with the casual efficiency of years of paramilitarism they returned to the bar where the row broke out and carefully wiped away all the scientific evidence, removed the closed-circuit television tapes and warned everyone present that it would be better for them to remain silent." Even Irish Catholics were appalled. President Bush condemned the IRA, and declared Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Fein (the IRA's political face), persona non grata, as he did with Yasser Arafat three years ago. This may be the beginning of the end of the Irish terrorists.

Mark Steyn connects the dots--and predicts an Irish wake for the IRA:

In hindsight, the '90s were the apogee of terrorist mainstreaming, with Yasser and Gerry given greater access to the White House than your average prime minister of a friendly middle-rank power. And in return for what? Nothing other than the corrosive impact on weak-willed Westerners desperate to believe that all terrorists can somehow be accommodated if you just roll out the red carpet for them. Witness Robert McNamara, the Kennedy/Johnson defense secretary who popped up last week with a particularly fatuous observation even by his own standards: As Associated Press reported [my post here], "McNamara added that the threat of terrorists using a nuclear device could be reduced if the United States in particular tried to understand terrorists' anger and motivations."

As we now know, even the saner end of the terrorism business is difficult to house train. If your main expertise is in killing people, it's hardly surprising the prospect of being deputy transport minister in Belfast seems a bit tame. President Bush, unlike his predecessor, is under no illusions about the trustworthiness of Adams, any more than he was of Arafat's. After he declared his "war on terror," many on the right mocked the idea of being at war with a phenomenon. But the IRA has long ties to the PLO and to Latin American terrorist groups: Terrorists gravitate to other terrorists. So this March 17 the president is merely following the logic of his own post-9/11 analysis. St. Patrick chased the snakes out of Ireland. The least Bush can do is chase them out of the White House.

Powerline wonders why it took so long:

[T]he calculus has changed, and terrorism no longer looks like a winning strategy. President Bush, as usual, stands with the victims of terrorism, and against the terrorists. That doesn't seem like a hard choice--so why could Bill Clinton never make it?

And, I add, why did Irishman -- Northern and Republic -- and Tony Blair succor terrorists for so long?

Europe needed a thousand years to recognize reality. Bush did it in one. American lefties and Euros insist the President's dumb. It's a lie. Bush is a winner. Bush-haters aren't smarter--they're just jealous.