The Government today asks the Dáil to approve the use of Shannon Airport by aircraft carrying United States troops. This is despite the fact that the war against Iraq is not mandated by the United Nations Security Council. This is a uncomfortable decision on a foreign policy issue of principle involving core values and interests for this State. It is highly unusual that it should be posed so sharply. Understandably, governments the world over - our own included - strenuously attempt to head off such choices by seeking to influence the events which pose them or by delaying their response in the hope that events will pass them by.
The art of diplomacy consists partly of disguising such opportunism with a cloak of rhetoric - "to do and say the nastiest things in the nicest way". Despite a sophisticated effort on both of these fronts over recent months, it has not been possible for the Government to avoid addressing this profound dilemma, based on the balance of the values and interests at stake for Ireland.
There is no denying how close Ireland is to the US and Britain. They are crucial players in the Northern Ireland peace process and this State's major economic partners. Ireland's self-defined military neutrality is neither constitutionally inscribed nor legally entrenched but subject to executive policy-making. The Government quotes long precedents for the use of Shannon in other conflicts; as the Taoiseach sees it, following his meeting in Washington with President Bush last week, to withdraw these facilities "would be seen as a hostile act".
Against that, as Ireland's only judge on the new world international court observed recently on her investiture : relations between nations are based on the rule of law. Friendly nations must recognise reciprocal obligations which frame their relationship. Ireland has repeatedly insisted that military force should be used against Iraq only as a last resort and following explicit Security Council authorisation, in addition to Resolution 1441, passed unanimously last November when this State was still a member.
It is surely unacceptable in that perspective that Ireland should acquiesce, albeit passively, in a US-led war having abandoned the attempt to convince the Security Council of the case for it. This is a great failure of politics and diplomacy with highly doubtful legality and legitimacy and grave consequences for international order.
If military neutrality is to mean anything in these circumstances, it should involve refusing the movement of troops or munitions of war across our territory, as other European neutrals have done. The use of Shannon Airport should be refused. But if our political alignments are greater than the avowed principle of neutrality, perhaps this is the time to confront and implement a new foreign policy. We are politically aligned towards the US and UK, neutral in the cop-out sense, and demonstrably political passengers in the first march in international affairs of the 21st century.