The Mouth That Roars

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Somewhere in Ireland last week, the Irish Republican Army got rid of a cache of weapons as international inspectors looked on. The move was meant to impress pro-British unionists in Northern Ireland and revive their appetite for sharing power with Irish nationalists, as the province heads toward November elections. British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart, Bertie Ahern, flew into Belfast for the occasion. But this careful choreography was replaced with chaos after the I.R.A., apparently to avoid the appearance of surrender, allowed the inspectors to release only the barest facts about the disposal and nothing at all about how many weapons were destroyed.

David Trimble, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party and Northern Ireland's former First Minister, denounced the I.R.A. secrecy and refused to deliver his end of the bargain — a promise to go back into government with the I.R.A.'s political allies, Sinn Fein. Blair and Ahern left empty-handed. And Trimble, who's been hammered within the unionist camp for his previous deals with republicans, was derided by his many critics as a "pushover" for failing to penetrate I.R.A. secrecy. The only person to emerge stronger from the mess was Ian Paisley, the fiery, bluff leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, who loathes the peace process as a sellout. The Good Friday agreement was supposed to make Paisley, 77, yesterday's man; last week's antics may make him the power broker for a new administration and doom any future agreement between republicans and unionists. "We're coming back to the struggle between pure unionism and republicans," Paisley thundered to TIME. "The election will be a turning point. Republicans have to learn they're not going to win." The British and Irish governments are frantically trying to patch up the deal before the elections designed to revive the Ulster government, which was suspended after an I.R.A. spy scandal in October 2002. But even if they manage to do so, Paisley's titanic battle with Trimble will still be crucial. For if enough grumpy, suspicious unionists back Paisley's D.U.P. on Nov. 26, and polls say that's possible, unionism will be led by a man who has unceasingly fought reform — starting with greater civil rights for Catholics in the 1960s and continuing right through to the present accord — with a potent mix of roars of "No!" and political craft.

Unionists are wary, outnumbered on the island of Ireland and detached from the rest of the U.K. by geography. Their insecurity has been fed by continued I.R.A. misadventures, including allegations of gunrunning, spying, abduction and occasionally murder. Life in Northern Ireland has undoubtedly improved since the paramilitary cease-fires were reached nearly 10 years ago, but unionists tend to discount the diffuse benefits against those memorable hiccups.

In Paisley, the skeptics have their champion. He is easily the most formidable character in Ulster religion and politics. Republicans, he says, want to "freeze us out or push us out or slaughter us or poison the water so we'd drink and die." Not all unionists go along with the high-octane language, but as many as two-thirds agree when Paisley says the power-sharing agreement "totally, utterly and abysmally failed." Paisley's able deputy, Peter Robinson, has reshaped the party's image to attract those who aren't religiously fundamentalist but think the dry, precise Trimble can't stand up to the I.R.A.'s tough guys. If Paisley wins, he says he won't operate the Northern Ireland government or even negotiate unless not just the I.R.A. but also its political allies in Sinn Fein disband — even though Sinn Fein is likely to be the largest nationalist party. "Oil and water will not mix," he says. "You can't have murderers in government." He's probably right that a victory by his party will mean new negotiations about the Good Friday agreement. But he's wrong to think he can dictate terms — or necessarily get better ones. Northern Ireland has changed beyond recognition since he entered politics, not least because Catholics are now much more numerous, richer, politically confident and increasingly listened to by a British government that craves a resolution. Paisley can fulminate against them, but he could not run Northern Ireland without them — and they won't take no for an answer.