Sure Jimmy, the Provos deserve credit, and no-one in his right mind would "pin the blame for the troubles almost entirely on the nationalists and IRA". The biggest problem now, as I have said over and over again, is the mindset in loyalism. Not only have they lost the Ascendancy (which they abused mercilessly) but they now see themselves as an extremely vulnerable minority on the island of Ireland.

In historic terms their entitlement to live in Ireland is stronger than the entitlement of any white guy to live in north America. And arguably they have been less exploitative of the indigenous population than their white counterparts were in the US. Anyone intrested in long-term reconciliation will be cutting them some slack right now, by ignoring their stupidities and the flounderings of the feeble loyalist leadership.

I may be no fan of this Blair government, but they can't be faulted on the peace process. Likewise the Dublin government, whose justice minister is right as well as self-interested, in his concern that the proceeds of crime could now be used to fund Sinn Fein political campaigning. (This risk still holds even if the Provos had nothing to do with the Northern Bank robbery.) I can't think of any democracy in the world that takes issue with the approach of the UK government.

Incidentally, as Greg has implied, this whole decommissioning process is laughably convoluted. Does the IRA really have to be so coy? At the end of the war for independence in what was then Rhodesia, the troops of Zanu PF and Zapu PF came out of the country and into the cities, and placed their weapons on huge piles, in front of the whole world. Ian Smith and his cronies would certainly have had a credibility problem if they'd tried to deny it had happened. So why make it so easy for Paisley?