Ahead of Monday's return of the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Rev Ian Paisley knows he is the man who can "deliver". But that just makes him more careful about what he does next, he tells Frank Millar, London Editor.
Can Ian Paisley understand that many Catholics in Northern Ireland would find it difficult, indeed repugnant, to wake up one morning and find him as their First Minister?
There isn't the slightest hesitation before his reply comes laughing back: "I think I wouldn't be the unionist I am if they didn't . . . I mean, I have said that personally to Bertie Ahern, and his whole Cabinet when I met them. I said 'you are bound to be against me because I am against you. We're not sitting here in friendship or ecumenical kisses . . . We're sitting here because we are opponents on a vital issue'."
The leader of unionism is in rude good health and high humour. But before answering my questions he wants to address some vital issues by way of reply to Minister Dermot Ahern's interview in The Irish Times last Tuesday.
Dr Paisley rejects what he considers Ahern's presumption in "setting the parameters" within which he must work. "And the first parameter is the important question of the police. How do you support the police? Joining the Police Board is not an act of supporting the police, because you can go on to the board without making any statement whatsoever, you can carry out your own plan of operation to further what you have in mind, and you are not supporting the police. But we are being sold that the best thing is to get Sinn Féin to support the police and the best way to do it is get them to join the board. That is not supporting the police at all."
Ahern and Secretary of State Peter Hain have said the DUP must not raise policing as a new "pre-condition" to powersharing. Is that what he's doing?
"I resent very much them saying I am putting forth preconditions," the DUP leader says. "These are the conditions I set out in all my talks with them. I fought an election on it. I won my majority on this very issue. And the issue is a simple one. Number one, there could be nobody in the government of Northern Ireland except they accept the forces of law and order. And by accepting them, they hand to the state all the information they have on lawlessness."
So this issue will have to be resolved if there is to be an agreement in November?
"Yes. Except we have the police issue resolved, there is no way forward. The talks have no future until everyone who's going to be in the government of Northern Ireland is a complete and total supporter of the police. That doesn't mean he can't criticise police activity. But he's not going to be planning activity against the police, he's not going to withhold information, he's not going to use his position on the Police Board to tip off fellows to clear the country. . ."
Since they clearly want the issue resolved every bit as much as him, why does he suppose the British prime minister and the Taoiseach are not demanding this of Sinn Féin at this stage?
"I think they've been told strongly by Sinn Féin they're not getting it."
The SDLP and the British government have been intrigued by comments made by Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams in this series, and seem to anticipate movement. However, time to park this debate and move forward or, rather, back to my first question.
I advance it by way of an invitation to Paisley. As is evident from what has gone before, much of the political discourse centres on his views about what republicans still have to do. The invitation is to consider what Tony Blair would call "the big picture" from the other end of the lens, and how far republicans have already travelled, even against the continuing backdrop of loyalist terrorism. In the ninth year of the second IRA cessation, and following confirmation that their "war" is over, does Paisley recognise the situation is already transformed beyond recognition?
"Yes," he replies, before adding the qualification. In the Commons recently he challenged Hain: "I said 'who is it that brought about those changes? Was it your policy or was it my policy?' Our pressure had a lot to do with it, our pressure was successful. Then you say to me throw it all in now. You don't throw away successful policies, you pursue them."
Paisley has anticipated me. I remind him that when he addressed the opening session of the (Peter) Brooke talks in 1991, he warned: "No political agreement short of the impossible, that is surrender to the IRA's demand for a 32-county republic, will cause the IRA to go away." Thus he said no political agreement would give Northern Ireland peace.
I put it to him, many, including disillusioned republicans, think he has succeeded beyond his wildest imaginings. No constitutional compromise is demanded of him, much less surrender. He has the peace he never thought to see, and the opportunity now to cement it with political stability. The obvious question - in terms once posed to unionists generally by the Progressive Unionist Party's David Ervine - is whether he is going to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory?
"No, because the ultimate victory is a foundation upon which we can build democratically."
The DUP leader contends "a democracy" cannot be built on what he says "is lacking" in the Belfast Agreement, and refers to his proposals to the British government for change.
"We have said, at the end of the day the IRA gives up all its arms, the IRA genuinely has no more truck with criminality, the IRA supports the police and called for its people to support the police . . . You do all that, but that is not sufficient.
"We must be able to build upon something that is a democracy, and we haven't that. Now they promised they would change the agreement in the way we suggested it could be changed, so that we would have a firm democratic foundation, because you can make a quick deal and then, when you start to build, you'd be on sinking sands."
Paisley confirms this means provision for "collective responsibility" in any executive, "and especially the fact that you cannot forever be stuck, that you have to get agreement between two diverse agencies. There's bound to be a time when we have to go to a majority weighted vote. I am prepared to have a weighted majority. I'm prepared to go as far as any real democracy goes, but I'm not prepared to tie my country in with people who at the end of the day want to destroy it."
I'm not sure where that leaves Sinn Féin. Does he mean they want to destroy his country? "Yes, their aim is a 32-county Ireland and they're not going to give that up." But it's a legitimate political aspiration? "Ach . . ."
Imagine if I had told him in 1991 we'd be sitting in his office in these circumstances . . . with Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution gone, Sinn Féin having already worked a partitionist Assembly, the principle of consent established.
In the terms in which he addressed those Brooke talks - nobody is asking him to go into a 32-county state. What he's being asked to do is have a powersharing administration within the United Kingdom?
"Yes, but that government must not be an interim government. They cannot tell me I must take a step, but it's only a step to another step and another step . . . I mean Adams made that clear, that we're on a progress (to a united Ireland). That progress is not going to descend on this Assembly. And I do not see this Assembly ever being a real true democracy unless changes are made."
But these changes don't preclude Sinn Féin being there as members of an executive? "No, provided the other questions of the police and all are dealt with." On one specific, he has previously said he would not accept the concept of co-equal First and Deputy First Ministers. Is that an absolute position?
"I can't see how you could have an absolute position with that [ arrangement], thatbefore you can get agreement you have to have the agreement of a person who has already said 'this is only a step'. I mean they talk about the peace 'process'."
But doesn't he think they're bluffing? I mean, he's already claimed success for his policy? "Yes, but to a degree, we're not out of the woods yet."
In this respect Paisley records particular concern about the closures of military bases west of the Bann, and the proposed seven-council reform of local government, before declaring his fear that events are actually moving toward "a repartition of Northern Ireland".
So he's not yet satisfied as to where the political process is taking Northern Ireland? "No," he confirms: "I am shrewdly suspicious of the British government, I don't put my faith in the British government." And in a seeming warning against any temptation to go behind his back, he adds: "I think the British government would like somebody else where I sit, and would make a deal. Well I intend to sit on and sit tight . . . I'm not interested in office. Do you think I have come to 80 years of age to sell my soul? No, I'm not.
"What I'm interested in is to have a broad base of democracy on which we build, and then, come hell or high water, that edifice is going to stand."
Does the IRA have to disband? "I think they have, yes, I don't see any use for them otherwise. But the whole organisation of the IRA as an army . . . I say that that must change and we can't have them."
He's going to be accused of raising a whole list of impossible demands. "I know that. But I haven't said anything I haven't said before and they are on record."
Yet here he is, the undisputed leader of unionism. He fears no man. Why not sit down and negotiate the terms face-to-face with Gerry Adams?
"Because my principle says to me you don't negotiate with terrorists."
And that's how he still sees him? Despite everything? "Yes."
Whatever Paisley says about him, Adams says "the Paisley deal is the best deal", if it can be had.
"But you know why? He knows I can deliver. . . Well, to be in my position and know you can deliver makes me more careful. I'm not going to take one step that's going to in any way hinder my power to deliver."
Yet he's been to the Bush White House, and he agrees terrorism is not an option in the post 9/11 world. Isn't that his greatest assurance?
But no: "My assurance is that there's a God in heaven, a sovereign God, and he works in a mysterious way."
Series concluded.