The United States and the Peace Process

Abstract

No previous President of the United States of America devoted as much attention to Northern Ireland as President Clinton and, as was expected at the time of the 2000 election, his successor has not treated the future of Northern Ireland as a matter of the same measure of international importance. Nonetheless, there are good grounds for arguing that President Clinton’s engagement with the issue was more than simply a reflection of the personal interest in the problem of Northern Ireland that he had acquired while he was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University. Political circumstances during his two terms as President facilitated American involvement in a way that had not happened before and has not happened since. But this is not to discount the role that the American connection played in politics in Northern Ireland before Clinton came to power or, for that matter, after he left office. President Carter’s statement on Northern Ireland in 1977 was a watershed in ending America’s stance of non-intervention, while Carter’s successor, Ronald Reagan, played a part in bringing about the Anglo-Irish Agreement of November 1985. Further, President George W. Bush has assiduously maintained his predecessor’s policy of assisting negotiations on the implementation of the Belfast Agreement. Thus, from the perspective of 2007, the most striking aspect of American policy towards the peace process in Northern Ireland has been its continuity, despite changing international circumstances.