A classic device in fairy-tales is the use of a magic mirror. Only by establishing early on that the mirror never lies can the plot-line be advanced. The hero, or heroine, looks in the mirror and asks for the honest-to-God truth: the moral of the story turns on the issue of how they choose to use it.
This week's pronouncement by the Attorney General, David Byrne, on the constitutionality of joining Partnership for Peace followed the convention perfectly.
"Mirror, mirror of the law, do I need a referendum to join PFP?" asked Bertie Ahern. "No, Taoiseach, of course you do not," came the predictable response. The advice was wholly and strictly legal: the Constitution is in places a canny old book.
But in a traditional fairy-tale, the query as to whether Bertie Ahern will remain the fairest of them all might yield a different answer.
Bertie Ahern's leadership has thrived on being at least in step with, if not a step ahead of, public opinion. This is one occasion, however, when public opinion is not wholly reliable. Instead of asking whether it is legal to join PFP, we might instead ask: is it timely? Is it fair? Watching its own magic mirror of television, public opinion may seem more open to the idea of compromising Irish neutrality than at any other time in the State's history. Horror at the Kosovan crisis, shock at the images of refugees in mainland Europe and a masterful use of propaganda by all sides make this look like the very image of a very just war.
Whereas television played a leading role in conditioning public opinion against the Vietnam war, this time it is having the opposite effect. There is a growing grassroots sense that NATO must introduce ground forces to Kosovo if the humanitarian disaster in the region is to be contained at its present awful level.
NATO leaders should have foreseen this catastrophe, so the rubric goes, and in accord with the unfolding story-board, NATO would appear to be ready to bow to public opinion.
This war is in part unlike any other ever fought. It is the first where provocation and justification have almost immediately been perceived to coincide, the first where military strategy seems to be driven by opinion polls. Or so we are led to believe.
The maxim of "no ground forces" as sworn by Tony Blair and Bill Clinton has now been moderated to a "mobile force land headquarters" of 8,000 in Albania, complementing the 12,000 troops already in Macedonia.
Prevented from arming the Kosovo Liberation Army by its own refusal to sign the 1977 Geneva protocols, the US Senate is considering a special bill to do precisely that. It is likely that events themselves will make the bill redundant.
Meanwhile, the US commitment of $33,000,000 for direct humanitarian aid in the region looks generous, until you realise that it amounts to a mere 10 per cent more than the cost of replacing the single F117A Nighthawk fighter shot down by Serbian forces.
Such is the public mood management on all sides that it is increasingly difficult to distinguish truth from fiction, or to square a circle which includes such massive human suffering alongside such historic international realignments.
NATO's military leaders have learned hard lessons from the failure to manage public opinion in other conflicts. It is possible that NATO miscalculated the effect of its air strikes.
It is also possible that NATO knowingly engaged in military actions on the suspicion that a worsening of the refugee crisis would rally public opinion to its side, and thus pave the way for use of ground forces, which was a central objective all along. In reality, Slobodan Milosevic is like the ugly self-portrait in Dorian Gray's attic. What is presented to us as a sudden crisis is the outcome of a nearly a decade of ill-advised play between various NATO members, the EU and Serbia, the last weakened now by its lame ally Russia.
Milosevic, according to Air Commodore David Wilby, "has filled the air with lies for years". Any and all civilian casualties which may arise from NATO actions are, according to Air Marshal Sir John Day, "at the end of the day the responsibility of Milosevic".
It is at this point that the mirror risks shattering. Struck by the sure knowledge that someone should do something about this tragedy, the public is at a loss to know exactly whom to believe or what to do, apart from donating money to aid agencies.
Into the breach steps Bertie Ahern with his decision to join Partnership for Peace. The debate about joining has already happened, he argued, because it took place within his party. As Fine Gael will not dissent, given its existing pro-PFP stance, the matter would appear to be resolved.
FROM Bertie Ahern's perspective, there may never be a better time. We could hardly feel more strongly that something ought be done. But we have felt strongly about other matters, too.
Eighteen months ago we were shocked by photographs which showed long queues of refugees standing in the pouring rain outside the Department of Justice. And Mr Ahern did not act.
Is it the case that the 1,000 Kosovan refugee places offered by the Government will reduce by an equal amount the number of positive applications already in the Department of Justice's pending file?
We have been appalled by tales of people dying on hospital trolleys, because there was no bed for them in our health services. He ignored our opinion on those issues.
Many people would like Mr Ahern to find some way to share economic prosperity with the third of Irish children who are at risk of poverty. The question is why we are being offered excessive leadership on this one issue, when we are so patently in need of vision elsewhere?
It is not surprising that a politician as successful as is Bertie Ahern should renege on some of his election promises. A few roads left untarred are hardly going to create political potholes.
But to accept in good faith his policy reversal on joining PFP, given that not joining was the kernel of his policy on neutrality, we need to trust his motives, as well as his strategy. So far, like in old halls of mirrors, his reflections are far from clear.